Fugitive Prince: First Book of The Alliance of Light

“What is the old law to our city councils?” cried the plump, ribboned spokesman from Isaer. “Just hot wind and words! The caithdeins’ authority was broken when the uprising threw down crown rule. And even if our mayors cared to bow to dead precedents, has this new evidence against Arithon not tainted the clans’ legal claim? What if the Fellowship’s morals are debased? Shall we wait and watch our cities become victimized?”

Talk rose, scored through by a treble run of panic. Even the sallow, bored Seneschal of Avenor thumped his stick fist to be heard. “Should we risk being deceived, or stay willfully blind, then suffer the same ruin that leveled whole buildings in Jaelot?”

From all quarters of the chamber, heads turned. Ones bare and close cropped to accommodate mail, and others fashionably coifed. Earrings swung, and jewelry chinked, as every face trained on the Prince of the Light. He alone could speak for both factions, through hard-won respect and ties to an old blood inheritance.

Yet it was Lord Shien, joint captain of Avenor’s field troops, whose remark stormed the floor into quiet. “If the barbarian before this council was sent as an envoy to declare his chieftain’s enmity, we have sure trouble here at home!” A large man, with meaty, chapped knuckles and a frown that seemed stitched in place, he raised the bull bellow he used to cow recruits. “And whether or not the Master of Shadow has embraced wickedness, or sacrificed lives to buy power, dissent from the clans will give him a free foothold here to exploit. We dare not allow such a weakness. Not before such dire threat.”

Attention swung back. Like blood in the water amidst schooling sharks, men fastened their outrage upon the offender held bound within reach. “Sentence the archer! Condemn him for treason! Let him die as example to his brethren!”

“Do that,” interceded the long-faced justiciar, “and according to town edict, he dies on the scaffold, broken one limb at a time.”

“He was sent to contest a legitimate point of law!” Mearn s’Brydion warned. “Take his life in dishonor, and your clans here will never be reconciled.”

“A child knows better than to break into state chambers bearing arms!” a southcoast mayor bristled back.

Inexorably, sentiment aligned. The delivery of the chieftain’s message had been insolent, a mockery of civilized practice. No townsman remembered the bygone tradition, when a ceremonial arrow gave symbolic exchange of a high king’s censure from his liegemen. Where those old ways once forestalled needless bloodshed, now, they were seen as provocation. The trade guilds had suffered too many losses in clan raids to trifle with forgotten forms of etiquette. Nor was Lord Shien inclined toward forgiveness. Not when his divisions had been held home in Tysan, guarding the roads from the spree of vengeful ambushes launched after Lady Maenalle’s execution. His blood burned in balked rage for those companies marched south, every comrade in arms to perish untimely of a sorcerer’s fell tactics in Vastmark.

Only the ambassador from Havish regarded the clan prisoner with pity. The man waited, his stance easy. His attention never shifted from the face of the prince on the dais.

Lysaer s’Ilessid withheld intervention. Serene as smoothed marble, his form touched in light like the finished planes of a masterpiece, he allowed the dissonant chaos of argument to roll and rebound and gain force. He listened for the moment when his disparate factions became unified, their imprecations a shouted resonance of passion, crying for blood in redress.

Then he held up one hand. A spark snapped from his palm, the smallest manifestation of his gift. But the flare of illumination cracked like a whip through raw noise and engendered immediate silence.

Before venomous animosity, he stayed detached, his diamonds like frost on a snowfield. Then he inclined his head to the captive before him. “You’re fully aware, a vote cast now will condemn you. Town law has small mercy. You could suffer a brutal public maiming before death.”

The clansman said nothing.

Lysaer used the pause. While the atmosphere simmered in fierce anticipation, his study encompassed every minister, hard breathing in velvets and furs. The officers of war endured his regard, unflinching, then the mayors, with their gnawing, hidden fear. The prince they had signed into power was royal, closer in ties to clan ancestry than they wished. The price of their protection from the Spinner of Darkness might come at the cost of their coveted autonomy.

Yet to refute the traditions of city law outright, Lysaer had to know, he would flaw the amity of their support. Foremost a statesman, he showed no hesitation. “The case of your clans might have fared best by waiting. Before you shot down your colorful ultimatum, you could have heard out my answer to this document.” He fingered the torn scroll of parchment in unfeigned regret, as he added, “For you see, I have no intent to accept the burden of crown rule at this time.”

After the first, indrawn gasp of surprise, a stunned stillness, as if the overheated air had hardened to glue, with every man gaping at the prince.

Lysaer showed long-suffering equanimity. “There are truths to this conflict against the Master of Shadow even I have withheld from general knowledge. I wish above all to avoid seeding panic. After the failure of our late campaign, we need order more than ever to rebuild.”

He had his factions riveted, the ambassador saw, struck by a surge of admiration.

“Arithon s’Ffalenn may have been born a man, but he has foregone his humanity,” Prince Lysaer resumed. “His birth gift presents an unspeakable threat. This, paired with his use of unprincipled magic, redoubles our peril before him.” Lest the quiet give way to fresh altercation, Lysaer delivered his solution. “I sit before you as this criminal’s opposite, my gift of light our best counterforce to offset his shadow. For this reason, I must decline Tysan’s kingship. My purpose against Arithon must stay undivided for the sake of the safety of our people.”

The logic was unassailable. Defeat on a grand scale had shown the futility of choosing one battlefield for confrontation. The inevitable striving to forge new alliances, to restore shaken trust after broadscale ruin, then the wide-ranging effort to buy a mage-trained enemy’s downfall, must draw this prince far afield from Avenor.

He said, “For the stability of this realm, I suggest that a regency be appointed in my name, answerable to a council of city mayors. This will serve the crown’s justice and bind Tysan into unity until the day I have an heir, grown and trained and fit beyond question for the inheritance of s’Ilessid birthright.”

The stroke was brilliant. Havish’s ambassador noted a spark of comprehension hood the eyes of Mearn s’Brydion.

Though the prisoner pointed out in acerbity that the realm’s caithdein held an earlier appointment to the selfsame office, but without formal ties to city government, his case was passed over. Old hatreds lay too long entrenched. Throughout the chamber came a squeaking of benches, a nodding of hats, as guarded interest eased the tensions of mayors and guild magnates. The most hardened eye for intrigue, the most shrewd mind for statecraft, must appreciate that Lysaer gave up nothing beyond the trappings of crown and title. Sovereign power would largely reside in his hands. Except townborn pride would be salved. The uneasy transition back into monarchy could proceed with grace and restraint.

City mayors would keep their veneer of independence. By the time they left office, their successors would wear the yoke of consolidated rule as comfortably as an old shoe.

“We shall have a new order, tailored for this time of need. Past charter law forbids the cruelty of maiming. And this is Avenor, where my dominion is not in dispute.” Lysaer stepped to the edge of the dais, pale as lit flame against oncoming storm as clouds choked the sky past the casement. Whether his gifted powers of light touched his aura, or whether his gold trim and diamonds shimmered in unquiet reflection, the effect was magnificence unveiled.

The ambassador from Havish forced himself to look away from the brilliance, the drawing pull of a gifted man’s charisma, as the prince’s fired, clear diction pronounced final sentence upon the clan archer.

“Here is your fate, by my word as s’Ilessid. Your hand shed no blood. But an ultimatum against me was tendered by your caithdein, Lord Maenol s’Gannley. For that, you go free as my spokesman. My safe conduct will see you outside the city gates. Tell Maenol this: he may come to Avenor before the spring equinox and present himself before me on bent knee to beg pardon. Let him swear fealty in behalf of his clan chieftains, and no one suffers redress. But if he refuses, should he declare open war, I will enact sanctions in reprisal for treason against all the people of your clans.”

A murmur swelled from the benches, slammed still by Lysaer’s brisk shout. “Hear the rest! I have funds at hand to rebuild the eastshore trade fleet. Every galley and vessel which burned in my service at Minderl Bay will be replaced at Avenor’s expense. I promise that every merchant who receives restitution will suffer no more raids at sea. The Master of Shadow and his minions will think twice about attacking with fire, since the newly launched ships shall be manned at the oar by chained convicts. Condemned men fairly sentenced as Arithon’s collaborators, and as of this hour, take warning: Maenol’s own people, if he fails to bind his clansmen under my banner to take arms against Arithon of Rathain.”

To the headhunters’ stiff-backed dismay, Lysaer granted swift reassurance. “Bounties will not be repealed for renegade clan scalps. But if Maenol s’Gannley refuses his allegiance, double coin will be tendered for each male barbarian captured and brought in alive.”

For a moment, as if deafened by a thunderclap, the clan archer did not move. Then he drew breath like a rip through strained cloth and gave answer in blazing contempt. “If any small blessing can be prised out of tragedy, I thank Ath my Lady Maenalle never lived to see this. I will return to her grandson, caithdein of this realm, and tell him you threaten us with slavery.”

Nothing more did he say as his bonds were released, and guardsmen were dispatched to see him on his way through the gates.

The ambassador from Havish used the confusion to slip through the ranks of halberdiers. Outside in the corridor, he ducked into a window niche, while the sweat dewed his temples and curled the short hairs of his beard. This was not his fight. And yet, even still, his mind seemed loath to relinquish the pull of Lysaer’s seductive delivery.

The prince owned a terrifying power of conviction. Thirty thousand lives gone and wasted in Vastmark had left his dedication unshaken. Nor would his adherents awaken and see sense, tied to his need as they were through inherited blinders of prejudice.

The tramp of the men-at-arms and the clansman they escorted dwindled, then faded away beyond hearing. Outside, white on gray, new snow dusted downward. The wind’s biting cold seemed to seep through the casement and strike an unmerciful ache in the heart. The ambassador shook off the memory of Mearn s’Brydion’s thin features, seething in stifled restraint, his clanborn outrage no doubt throttled silent by some stricture from his brother, the duke.

Worn from the effort of leashing his own temper, the ambassador from Havish shook out his linen cuff and blotted his dampened face. The word he must bear home to his liege boded ill.

On both sides, the corridor was deserted, its white marble arches bathed chilly silver by stormlight. Lysaer’s voice carried through the opened door in fiery address to his council. “We are gathered here today to begin the long work of uniting all kingdoms against the Master of Shadow. Given his acts of evil, there exists no moral compromise. Our task will not ease until no dwelling remains on this continent where ignorance will lend him shelter. We are come, in this hour, to found an alliance to act against terror and darkness.”

Steps pattered across the council room as someone inside moved to remedy the door left ajar. Sickened, tired, afraid for the future and anxious to embark on his downcoast run back to Havish, King Eldir’s ambassador hastened away, too burdened to risk hearing more.

Stag Hunt (#ulink_139a180b-bcd5-58b4-85bb-2c16da86f96e)

Spring 5648

Two months after Lysaer s’Ilessid leveled charges of dark sorcery against Arithon s’Ffalenn, the horror instilled by the ruin of the war host had magnified itself into rumors and uneasy fear. Households in mourning for those fallen on the field did not celebrate the festivals. Avenor seemed engrossed by industry, as men of war paid in gold for new swords and laid avid plans to sign on recruits to bolster their decimated garrison.

At least one free spirit inside city walls chafed at the endless, long councils. Mearn s’Brydion, the rakish youngest brother of the clanborn Duke of Alestron, slammed the door from his quarters and strode into the ice melt which pooled the cobblestone street. Today, the state garments laid out by his servants had been ditched for a briar-scarred set of worn leathers. In wild joy gloved over simmering temper, he snapped in the disapproving faces of his servants, “Let Prince Lysaer’s stool-sitting councilmen share their pompous hot wind amongst themselves.”

This morning, he would fare out hunting for pleasure, and bedamned to his current assignment as the douce representative of his family.

The gray, weeping mists wadded over the battlements failed to dampen his fired mood. Draped on Mearn’s shoulder like a desertman’s blanket, the scarlet horsecloth with the s’Brydion blazon threw a splash of sharp color against the drab dress of guild craftsmen who hurried, sleepy-eyed, to their shops. The pair of brindle staghounds just liberated from the kennel yapped at his feet, muddied to the belly from their bowling play through the puddles.

Mearn’s laconic, off-key whistles scarcely checked their exuberance. His hounds charged amok, tails slashing, to disgruntle what lay in their path. The racket raised Avenor’s rich matrons from sleep. Not a few howled complaint from cracked shutters. Mearn laughed. While geese honked, and chickens flapped in squawking flight, and alley cats fluffed tails and bolted, the carters loosed fist-shaking curses above the manes of their shying teams. Mearn met each onslaught of outrage with bright-eyed, impervious humor.

He was clanblood enough to relish the upset his antics caused any man townborn. No one was brash enough to hinder him. Though his clipped accent turned heads and roused threats, Lysaer s’Ilessid decreed that any old blood family bound to his alliance might walk Avenor’s streets with impunity. The duke’s youngest brother brought his happy tumult into the royal stable yard and shouted for a boy to bring his horse.

Patience sat ill with Mearn. He slapped his riding whip against his boot in brisk tempo while the grooms fetched and bridled his mount. He paced. The horsecloth hooked over his shoulder flapped in the breeze each time he spun on his heel. Restlessness rode his thin frame like hot sparks, while the deer hounds bounded in frenzied gyrations around him.

At last, infected past discipline, they bayed their uncontained joy. Their deep belling note spooked the highbred charger, who sidled and upset the rake the new horseboy had forgotten to tidy.

Milling, shod hooves crushed the handle to splinters. The horse flung back, snapped its head tie, and added its thunderous commotion by galloping loose through the stable yard.

Mearn cursed the groom for his inept hands, then tossed him a copper for his trials. In his bitten clan dialect he added language which raised the eyebrows of the drayman who idled beside his harnessed team. Then he insisted to all inside earshot that he should saddle his mount for himself.