Asandir coughed behind his wool sleeve. ‘The priesthood is wall-eyed, suddenly saddled with two escaped minions to trace?’
Sethvir’s pleased snort all but ruffled the world’s wind. ‘The Koriathain will have a tough time puppeteering their preferred agenda, since Lorn’s diviner was given hard evidence. Dakar’s confirmed sorceries must overshadow the spurious case that tags Arithon’s heels in the south. More, our seasick prophet bargained with the fisherman for an urgent passage to Halywythwood.’
Now, Asandir’s craggy face broke and smiled. ‘Ah!’ Manfully dignified, he restrained a loud crow. ‘Which of the owed debts to crown honour does the Mad Prophet intend to invoke?’
A tight pause ensued.
Asandir’s smothered laughter did escape then, fierce and ineffably joyful. ‘Oh, better!’ Fur would fly with a vengeance in the clan chieftain’s tent when the inherited burden of shame was called due for the plot that had brokered a crown prince’s betrayal and capture.
‘Quite,’ Sethvir affirmed. ‘Your master initiate appears to have handled himself on his own rather well.’
Asandir’s thoughtful quiet allowed as much. Dakar could side-step the Fellowship’s constraint just by spreading the recent news. For the cogent fact Rathain’s royal heir had been liberated must summon the realm’s caithdein back into royal service.
When the Warden’s contact continued, unbroken, the Sorcerer exposed to the cruel chill in the Thaldeins nudged with gentle heels to prompt his horse onwards. ‘What else?’
Sethvir’s sigh could almost be felt over distance from Althain Tower. ‘There has been one set-back. Dakar blundered into a seer’s fit that forecast the death date of Havish’s queen.’ The loss to old age was nothing the Fellowship Sorcerers had not expected. But premature word sent to Erdane’s high temple would sever the terms of a treaty and reopen the arena to renew a stalemated war.
‘How long do I have to sanction her successor?’ Asandir asked, resigned that his time for a hard winter journey had to be brutally shortened.
‘Prince Gestry must be crowned and invested ahead of the winter solstice.’ Sethvir added a poor consolation in parting, ‘The outpost at Orlan expects your arrival. That should speed your errand a bit.’
Thankful for any small favour amid a relentless rip tide of trouble, Asandir forged ahead. The clansfolk in wait for him would not be glad: never in their forefathers’ memories had Fellowship Sorcerers brought them good tidings. Today’s call could not spare them in that regard. Asandir stroked his stallion’s neck with apology, then pushed the pace to outrace the blizzard that threatened to smother his passage.
The storm roared in, a dark maelstrom chased on by a gale that battened the peaks under snowfall as thick as a winding sheet. A welcoming party of two horsemen poised in wait, buffeted by the wind at the rise to the notch. Through the grey gloom, the formal gold trappings on their matched coursers shone beacon-bright, though the riders were not clad in the state dress that tradition would turn out to honor a prince. One wore undyed leathers, armed as a scout. The other, elderly, white-haired, and erect, bore the blue badge with Tysan’s crown-and-star blazon as the realm’s steward in royalty’s absence.
Asandir drew rein before them. Despite the rugged hours just spent in urgent ascent, his stallion was not lathered or winded. By contrast, the Sorcerer looked beaten to rags, his horse’s endurance sustained by the profligate gift of his personal life-force. He spoke his mind quickly. ‘Caithdein, Teir’s’Gannley, crown service requests your third grandson, just come of age.’
The old man saluted, closed fist to his chest. Beneath the soaked pelt of a wolfskin hat, his seamed expression returned no astonishment. ‘Our seer’s vision told us. Kingmaker, the lad sits as my right-hand escort, already presented before you.’
Gold flashed, as the second horse tossed its blazed head, pressed forward by the ascetic young man, flushed with cold in his workaday leathers. Not brawny enough to excel at bearing arms, he showed the anxious edge of a restless intelligence. Flaxen hair overshadowed poetic brown eyes, while the rakish jut to his shaved jaw bespoke an unfinished maturity. ‘What does the land’s need demand of me?’
Asandir skewered him with a level stare from grey eyes that dissected him, body and spirit. Behind this youthful face, the Sorcerer saw others: predecessors with illustrious names, and histories that reached back to Iamine Teiren’s’Gannley, who had in fact declined Tysan’s crown for the choice to stand shadow at the first high king’s shoulder.
How the Sorcerer read today’s gangling candidate, or what fate hung over his unwritten future, no man knew. Saroic s’Gannley endured in silenced dread, straight and pale as an ash spear. He held, as he must, through that scouring scrutiny, while the ghostly sting of every insult, each jeer, and all the derisive clouts from companions who branded him coward flamed his cheeks scarlet.
Asandir pronounced with shattering brevity, ‘Saroic s’Gannley, you are called forward by Fellowship prerogative to replace the heir apparent named by the clan council. When the hour arises, you shall inherit your grandsire’s title as steward to the kingdom’s throne.’ The Sorcerer peeled off a black glove and extended his work-worn hand. His touch on the candidate’s forehead imparted a silver glyph upon living flesh, the Fellowship’s mark of surety that would fade within a moon’s cycle.
Shock might have left anyone else disconcerted. Saroic vaulted out of his saddle, almost without turning a hair. Though helpless to banish his desperate fear, he keenly sensed the moment’s exigent priority. He offered his fresh horse for the Sorcerer’s use and volunteered to take the black’s reins. ‘I could lead your stud back to the outpost on foot and tend him myself, as you wish.’
Asandir’s smile appeared like the sun through the whipped burst of snowfall between them. ‘By your grace, I accept.’ He managed to dismount without a stumble. Swung astride the handsome, loaned courser, he leaned forward and whispered into its back-turned ear. Then, with artless abandon, he curled up and slept on the horse’s neck.
The bay knew its own way. No hand on the rein was required to guide its return to feed and dry shelter.
Tysan’s most guarded clan outpost lay tucked in the secluded recess of a hidden gorge, the access defended by fortified walls, and a double gateway whose massive blocks had been raised and sealed by the lore of the vanished centaur masons. Inside, the arches that vaulted the dry cavern rose three times the height of a man. When not hung with tapestries for guest custom and feasting, the hall rebounded with hollow echoes: on this hour, conversation with the ominous overtones predominated as the Sorcerer’s fresh news prolonged a precipitate session still in progress. The old man seated as Tysan’s reigning steward leaned over a trestle draped with parchment maps. The rapt company with him included his war-captain, two elderly women, and three harried selectmen from the clan council. All wore fur hats and oiled-wool cloaks since the desperate measures of tightened security risked no fire to vent tell-tale smoke from the central hearth.
Asandir was no longer present at nightfall, when the young man who bore the fresh mark of heirship stepped in from his volunteer charge of the Sorcerer’s horse. The blizzard by then closed down with vengeful force. Despite the mauling wind and choking snowfall, word of Saroic’s changed status had blazed through the guarded settlement.
The off-duty scouts crowded him at the entrance, exclaiming with incandescent excitement. No Fellowship Sorcerer had visited in recent memory, far less to serve them with an upset to their clan council’s choice of succession.
‘Did
