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
