Excerpts_ Curse of the Mistwraith

7/31/2019 Excerpts_ Curse of the Mistwraith

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xcerptURSE OF THE MISTWRAITHhe Wars of Light and Shadow: Volume I

By then, Elaira was sprinting in a breathless charge that carried her headlong throughcullery. Cooks and potboys scattered from her path. She dodged the swing of the knifaving drudge by the spit, slipped someone else's grasping hands, then tripped over a ck and stumbled through a rain of falling scones to snatch up the rolling pin that lay

owl of dough beyond. Before the befuddled kitchen staff could catch her, Elaira dartede pantry closet, trailing a dusting of flour. The scrambles at her back became more frl but within reach of her goal, she gasped, "Ath, stand back! There's a riot out there,

ou hear?"

hen she elbowed through a hanging string of onions and reached the narrow doorwayproom. A barrage of threats and thuds issued from the opposite side. Elaira recovereind, reassured. The s'Ffalenn prince still fought vociferously for his life. The wood undalms bounced and vibrated to the rasping clash of swordplay, then the thump of a bod

llen, and somebody's bitten-off oath. Elaira tripped the latch, readied her stolen bludgen snapped the spell-bindings on the hinges with a shuddering whimper of fright.

he door crashed open, shoved her staggering as Arithon's shoulder bashed the panel nder force of a narrowly missed parry. A sword blade whined through string; onions belter-skelter as five men harried the prince backward. Their eagerness hampered theireapons, which ironically worked to help spare him; the pot hook had long since fatigunder punishment, and Arithon defended with only the stub of the sheared-off handle. aught her balance and retreated as the fight erupted wholesale into the pantry. Bruise

gainst corners of shelving, she received an impression of furious faces, a battering circeel, and the tense, hard-driving brilliance of Arithon's close-pressed defense. Then sh

aught her enchantress's jewel in a grip that gouged her palm, and struck the pastry roe crown of the prince's dark head.

e folded at the knees, eyes widened in a moment of shocked surprise. His look becamight have been prelude to laughter before the charm Elaira wrought to fell him blankeind. He collapsed on the floor at the enchantress's feet. She jumped past, committedeed for further risks. Her crystal burned against her skin as once again she raised pow

astily wrought net of spells caught and strained to stay the mob, who now surged to bn unconscious victim.

Stop!" Elaira shouted clearly. "This one's mine. I claim his life as spoils."

he front-rank aggressors rocked to a stupefied stop, hostility stamped on every red anweating face; the swords flashed at angles still eager for slaughter. Trembling before t


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edge of raised weapons, Elaira held her ground. Should even one man control hatred see reason, the whole crowd would discover she was not the painted doxie her glamade her over to appear.

et grudges in Erdane ran obsessively deep.

tartled by female intervention, and emotionally charged from adrenaline, the furious oere easiest to deflect. Elaira's mazework of confusion hooked their anger and carved o

othold for change; in something like sheepish embarrassment men glanced at the priehind her knees. Their minds recalled no barbarian imposter, but instead saw a wine-reet rat who had carelessly offended someone else.

he few who had sustained injuries were far less easily diverted. Some of these shovedrward, waving bludgeons of snapped-off chair legs; not a few still wielded knives, andllow who had tumbled from the rafters was howling in self-righteous indignation. Sweaira strove to extend her spell of influence. But her fragile fabric of illusion only thinne

huddered near to breaking; she had no more resource left to spare.

eyond hope, past all recourse, she faced defeat. Erdane's ongoing feud with the past oing to end her life and that of the prince she had rashly tried to rescue.

hen like a miracle, the voice of the minstrel offered surcease. "Let the doxie have hime done! Dharkaron knows, he's filthy enough to disgust a hog. Probably going to leaveith the Avenger's own pox to remember him by!"

he slur raised a wave of scattered laughter.

Sithaer, now," Elaira added, somehow through terror and an unstable grip on two spending a note that approximated disgust. "It wasn't my bed I'd be offering him!"

weatherbeaten captain toward the fore loosed a bellowing guffaw. "Leave him to heraid. "She'll probably scald his ears well enough." He shrugged to unlock a battered shoen sheathed his steel; around him, other off-duty companions backed off smiling. Thebid of the headhunters wavered, and in that instant of reprieve, Elaira hooked the do

djoining the pantry and common room and slammed the panel closed. For the benefittchen staff who gawked in the path of her retreat, she jabbed her fallen prize in the ren launched into spiteful imprecations.

Daelion mark ye in the hereafter for stinking bad habits! Ye wasted lump of a lout, ye e stealin' my hard-earned coin fer spendin' on tankards at the tap!"

he cook stepped into the breach and shook Elaira's arm. "Wench, if you're minded to


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pare us some peace and do it elsewhere."

he enchantress whirled in crazed fury. "How will I, with himself sprawled there with thnions and limp as dead dog meat in the bargain?"

he waved the fist with the pastry roller and set a row of canisters tottering. The cooknatched the implement away from her, jerked his greasy bangs toward his staff, then command to lift the unconscious object of this madwoman's scorn and forcibly heave

ut.

he pot boys grinned and lent their efforts to the cause. Arithon was hefted under thermpits, dragged through dustings of spilled flour and the grease-scummed runoff fromsh tubs, and ejected through an exit that led to the rear of the tavern.

aira followed, crying curses. She swore with redoubled vehemence upon discovery thtched her hard-won royalty headlong into the midden.

he shrilled at the fast-slamming door. "Dharkaron break ye for rogues, now I've got tes blighted clothing!"

he panel banged shut and a bar dropped in place with a final, sour clank.

aira subsided, shaking.

he alley behind the Four Ravens was dark and damply cold. Feeling the chill to her bo

e enchantress sucked a breath past her teeth that came shudderingly near to a chokeagged on the rank stench of garbage. "Sithaer and Dharkaron's Five Horses," she mut the form at her feet. "What in this life am I to do with you?"

he prince, sprawled limply in a nest of wilted carrots, returned an involuntary groan; tom the shadow to one side, a sane voice proffered reply. "Where do you think he wouafe?"

tartled, Elaira spun and released a hissing gasp. The speaker proved to be the singer,

gainst the alley wall with the prince's salvaged cloak draped on his wrist. He smiled inassurance. "You probably saved Arithon's life back there. He'd better thank you propee risks you undertook. If he doesn't, make sure to break all his fingers, then tell him

ou permission."

Weak in the knees with relief, Elaira slumped against the midden door. "You know this

We're acquainted." The bard picked his way through the compost and crouched to che


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ctim's prone body; satisfied to find no lasting damage, he clicked his tongue. "Now, wre you wanting to hide him? Or do you trust him so much you'd have him wake up aloaybe blunder into further mischief?"

aira thought quickly. "The hayloft, please." Since the gates closed at sundown, no moavelers could be expected to arrive or depart from the tavern until daylight; the groomould be carousing, and the horse boy predictably asleep.

All right then," the bard said agreeably. "Help me lift him before some churl inside sitsotices I didn't duck out to use the privy."

he loft above the Ravens' innyard was dusty with the meadow-sweet scent of hay, anom the couriers' mounts and coach horses stabled in stalls down below. Couched in aetween haystacks and the high, windowless north wall with Arithon sprawled by her kaira bent over a bucket and wrung out a strip of linen torn at need from the lining of

hepherd's cloak. Lit by a glimmer from her crystal, the enchantress dabbed caked dirt weat from the unmistakably s'Ffalenn features of the prince. Belatedly she discovered

his hair. His scalp had been split by the pastry roller.

he bit her lip, chagrined. She had surely not struck him so hard; his current unconscioondition was more due to her stay-spell than to the head blow staged to disguise heratantly foolish use of magic.

Why then was she reluctant to free him?

aira regarded Arithon's still face, its severe planes and angles unsoftened by her jewediance. Under her hands she felt the corded tautness of him, the light-boned, lean sorength that was easiest of all to underestimate. His handling of attackers and pot hooroved him no stranger to violence, and the raw new scars that encircled his wrists hamome the recognition that only his bloodline was familiar. The man himself had a past, ersonality unknowably separate. He had not even been raised on Athera.

he intuitive deduction that marked Koriani origins shot Elaira's uneasiness into focus. Seen mistaken to bring this prince here, alone. Even incapacitated, he person bespoke

ayward in judgment, and decisively quick to take action. The association that had set alance when he entered the Four Ravens must run deeper than a defaced kingdom bae had not expected to be attacked. When he woke, Arithon, High Prince of Rathain, wound to be mettlesomely, royally enraged.

aira blotted flour off a miraculously ungrazed set of knuckles; the fingers seemed tooade for the offensive delivered by the pot hook. She tossed aside her rag as if it burnhe remiss young junior on lane-watch still had not touched her presence; worse yet, E


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ad no clue how she should handle the man, or herself, when the moment came to wap.

rithon stirred on his own in that wretchedest moment of uncertainty. Elaira had time tnd jackknifed clear as the heir apparent to a high kingship gathered his wits and sat u

n immediate grimace twisted his face. He reached up, touched the swollen cut on his nd looked at her. "Which wheel from the afterlife did you spare me from, Daelion

atemaster's, or those of Dharkaron's Chariot? I feel like I've been milled under by somunishing from the Almighty."

How could you be so utterly, unbelievably stupid!" Elaira burst out. Damn him, he wasughing! "They could have killed you in there, and to what purpose?"

rithon lowered his fingers, saw blood, and thoughtfully hooked the rag she had discarlded the frayed edges neatly over on themselves and pressed the compress to his wo

Now, that's a question you might answer for me."

Dharkaron, Ath's Avenger!" Elaira was fast becoming exasperated. "You're in Erdane! Ypeech patterns are perfectly barbarian. And the Ravens is a headhunters' haunt."

ery still, Arithon said, "Whose heads are the hunted?"

s curiosity was in no wise rooted in insolence. Filled by creeping disbelief, Elaira said,Asandir never told you? They pay body weight in gold for the fugitive heirs of the earl

eight for clan blood, and probably every jewel off the mayor's chubby daughters for alated to a prince."

rithon lazed back on one elbow in the hay, his face tipped unreadably forward as he ke cloth around his head. "And what do you know of any princes?"

aira felt her heart bang hard against her ribs. "Do you mean to tell me, that you donho you are?"

s response came back mocking. "I thought I did. Has something changed?"

No." Elaira gripped both hands in front of her shins; two could play this game. "Your Gou are Teir's'Ffalenn, prince and heir apparent of the crown of Rathain. All that pompoetoric means true-born son of an old-blood high king. Every able man in this city, as e surrounding countryside, would give his eldest child to be first to draw and quarter

sound between a choke and a gasp cut her short.


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aira glanced up to find Arithon's hand fallen away and his head thrown back. The faceeneath the black hair was helplessly stripped by confusion.

e had not been baiting her; he had plainly not been told. That was not all; around Arierson Elaira sensed a gathering corona of power, invisibly triggered and unmistakablysandir's. She had a split second to note that the forces that rang in opposition to Arithill were in fact an ingeniously laid restraint; then the gist of what she had said lent an

mpetus that provided him opening. He reacted with a practiced unbinding, and the fabe ward sheared asunder.

snap like a spark whipped the air.

hen Arithon did get angry, a charged, blind-sided rage that left him wound like a sprinaring inward.

Teir's'Ffalenn," he said flatly. His Paravian was accentless and fluent, and the repeatedanslated to mean "successor to power." In the glow of the jewel, the ratty twist of raground his head lent the shadowed illusion of a crown. "Tell me about Rathain."

s command allowed no loophole for refusal; afraid to provoke an explosion, Elaira cho try. "The five northeastern principalities on this continent were territories in vassalagathain, whose liege lord once ruled at Ithamon." She shrugged wretchedly. "Sinceovereignty of Athera passed from Paravians to men, the high king crowned there by thellowship has always, without exception, been s'Ffalenn."

rithon moved, not fast enough to mask a flinch. He ripped the rag from his head as there metal, and heavy, and an anguish he could not bury needled his reply to sarcasmll me. The people of Rathain are subject to misery and strife, and Ithamon is a ruin inasteland."

point of fact, he was correct, but even rattled to shaking, Elaira was not fool enougho. There had to be a reason why Asandir had kept knowledge of this prince's inheritanose secret.

rithon arose from the hay. He paced in agitated strides across the loft, and barely a beaked to his passing. At length he spun about, his desperation sharp as unsheathed s

What about Lysaer?"

aira tried for humor. "Oh, well, there's a kingdom waiting for him too. In fact, we're se middle of it."


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Ah." Arithon's brows tipped up. "The banner in the Ravens. And perhaps such unlovingubjects were the reason for Asandir's reticence?"

areful to suppress other, more volatile suppositions, the enchantress nodded placatinggreement. She watched the s'Ffalenn prince absorb this, and wondered what enormityad caused, what balance had shifted while Arithon went from tense to perceptively cra

can keep this fiasco from Asandir," he said in answer to the very thought that had m

te her lip.

aira widened her eyes. "You?" Merciful Ath, had he failed to perceive the awful strenge ward she had accidentally lent him leverage to unbind?" "How? Are you crazy?"

rithon inclined his head in the precise direction of the Ravens, though the barn wall bem had no window. "Lady, how did you get across the taproom?"

aira reached up and smothered the light of her jewel in time to hide her expression. Iproom, diverted by fighting, he could not have seen through her glamour.

breath of air brushed her face out of the darkness; Arithon was moving again, restless words came turbulently fast. "Asandir won't have expected me to break through a bat magnitude." Hay rustled as he gestured, perhaps with remembered impatience. "Sries, I'd been trying to achieve its release for long enough. Trouble was, if I pushed t

ard, I went unconscious."

aira turned white as she connected that the banner in the taproom had initiated Arithompulsive moment of unsteadiness. "I wonder why the Sorcerer didn't tell you."

ands caught her wrists; deceptively and dangerously gentle, they pulled her fingers awom the jewel. Light sprang back and revealed Arithon on one knee before her, his expeterminedly furious. "Because I happen not to wish the burdens that go with a throne

e let her go, shoved away as though he sensed her Koriani perceptions might drawdvantage from his stillness. "Kings all too often get their hands tied. And for what? To

od in the mouths of the hungry? Hardly that, because the starving will feed themselvone. No. A bad king revels in his importance. A good one hates his office. He spends to infirmity quashing deadly little plots to make power the tool of the greedy."

aira looked into green eyes, frightened by the depth of their vehemence. She arguednyway. "Your friend Lysaer would say that satisfaction can be found in true justice."

rithon stood up and made a gesture of wounding appeal. "Platitudes offer no succor,


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dy. There's very little beauty in satisfaction, and justice rewards nobody with joy." Hewered his hands and his voice dropped almost to a whisper. "As Felirin the Scarlet woou."

e referred to the minstrel in the Ravens who had abetted his narrow escape. Not the ken in by his show of surface excuses, Elaira drew her own conclusion. Arithon had ss Sorcerer chaperon and ventured abroad in Erdane looking expressly to provoke. Heot have known of the townsmen's pitch of antagonism; or he might have simply not c

s wildness made him contorted as knot-work to decipher.

a typically rapid shift of mood, he managed a civilized recovery. "I owe you, ladynchantress. You spared me some rather unpleasant handling, and for that you have manks. Someday I hope to show you my gratitude."

Which was prettily done and sincere, but hardly near the point.

saved your life," Elaira said in a bald effort to shake his complacency.

e just looked at her, his clothing mussed over and his face a bit worn, and his reticennderhandedly reproachful. He had not been defenseless. The pot hook was only a divnce he had both training and shadow mastery carefully held in reserve. Touched byvelation, Elaira saw that indeed, he had not been backed against the passage to the

y any accident but design.

eginning to appreciate his obstinacy, Elaira choked back a snort of laughter. "You wer

ourse for the midden in any case?"

rithon smiled. "As the opportunity presented itself, yes. Have you lodgings? I'd like to ou back safely."

Oh, that's priceless," Elaira gasped. Her eyes were watering. She hoped it was only thYou're a damned liability in this town."

n any town." The Shadow Master paid her tribute with a bow. "You shouldn't worry o

ings that I'm too lazy to bother with."

That's the problem, exactly." Elaira allowed him to take her hand and draw her to her s strength was indeed deceptive, and he seemed to release her fingers with reluctanc

aid, "I can find my way just fine. The question is, can you?"

he did not refer to the wards that concealed the location of the seeress's house wheredged.


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er deliberately oblique reference did not escape him. "Asandir knows I went out for airithon made a rueful face at the odiferous stains on his clothing. "There are several sumelly puddles in the alley near Enithen Tuer's. And dozens of hazardous obstacles. A mrone to odd fits of dizziness might be quite likely to trip,"

e reached out and began with light hands to pluck the loose hay from her hair. Thatoment, when all care for pretense was abandoned, the junior initiate on lane-watch

umbled clumsily across Elaira's presence.

he enchantress stiffened as the energies of her distant colleague passed across her,entified her, and responded with a jab of self-righteous indignation. The backlash hur

Sithaer's furies, not now!" Elaira capped her dismay with a fittingly filthy word.

aken aback, Arithon stepped away. "I beg your pardon?"

You did nothing." Elaira assured, her mind only half on apology. Apparently there wereffenses than visiting Sorcerers of the Fellowship, or even in engaging in card games wsreputable apprentice prophets; by the repercussions sensed in the background, Elairnderstood that speaking with princes in haylofts after midnight was undeniably one ofet to explain the particulars of her crisis would take by far too much time. "I have a scy own to work out of my personal version of Asandir."

rithon grinned and melted unobtrusively into the shadows. "Then I commend you toubterfuge and a fast soft landing in a midden."

he heard his soft step reach the ladder.

Farewell, lady enchantress." Then he was gone, leaving her alone with a larger dilemme one she had found in the room at Enithen Tuer's.

Janny Wurts

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Excerpts_ Curse of the Mistwraith