Peril’s Gate: Third Book of The Alliance of Light. Janny Wurts
wooden tub of heated water awaited in the chamber Sethvir kept to accommodate guests. Asandir had no chance to express thanks or show relief for that tender forethought. Met by lit candles and the fragrance of incense, he found himself accosted at the threshold by two more white-robed adepts. While the one with his trail gear hastened purposefully off, the new pair moved in without fuss to remove his scarred leathers and soiled clothing.
‘Allow us,’ urged the desertbred woman, whose tenacious grip resisted his urge to tug free. ‘We were told you would thread Eckracken’s maze, and leave the grimward by direct passage.’
In fact, expediency had demanded the Fellowship’s field Sorcerer to do just that, his risky transfer accomplished by harnessing the dire vortex within the king drake’s leviathan skull. Asandir found he lacked the strength to muster the courtesy to press the adepts for his privacy. ‘Sethvir knows everybody’s habits too well,’ he agreed, stoic as the woman’s neat touch eased off his singed shirt.
He was less able to mask his sharp flinch as the cloth scraped the blisters raised by rained cinders across his shoulders and arms. ‘My dear, you know that hot water’s going to sting like the eight blazes of Sithaer.’
The adept clicked her tongue and stepped back, leaving her male fellows to unlace the Sorcerer’s smallclothes. ‘The water is necessary to soothe your torn aura. We can reweave the ripped pattern fastest through that element. Unless you would rather be patient and rest?’ Her laughter was liquid and silver, dancing antidote to Asandir’s ripe flush. ‘I’d thought not. If you wish to recover and ride out by dawn, you’ll just have to sting, with our help.’
‘How many of your Brotherhood have transferred to Althain?’ Asandir asked, the concern in his tone gruffly testy.
‘Six.’ The female adept fetched cloth and soap, while her male henchmen helped his reeling step over the tub’s rim and through the unpleasant shock of immersion. ‘Bide and let go. Your colleague Sethvir is not left unattended. You shall receive a full summary of events just as soon as you regain your vitality.’
A scant hour later, refreshed and restored, Asandir dressed in a clean shirt and dark tunic, and his least-mended set of spare riding leathers. Neatly shaven, his hair a silver cascade on broad shoulders, he mounted Althain Tower’s worn stair to pay a visit to the king’s chamber. He went at the urgent behest of the adepts, before he looked in on Sethvir. Only the white-robed lady accompanied him. By time-honored custom, if the querent was male, a woman stood spokesman to reflect the balance inherent in Ath’s creation.
‘Sethvir is too taxed to share what he sees through direct link with his earth-sense,’ she explained, her peppery accent spiking echoes throughout the drafty shaft of the stairwell. She wore her hood raised, the entwined ciphers of silver and gold casting soft radiance about her. ‘Although in grace, our Brotherhood cannot use power to alter the way of the world, we can reflect the shape of events with the clarity of Ath’s truth.’ Arrived on the landing, she lifted the wrought-iron door latch. ‘Go in. Behold the picked scenes Sethvir left in trust for you. As I can, I will answer your questions.’
Asandir reached out, gathered her sun-browned fingers into a hand as capable and callused as a laborer’s. ‘Dear lady, you’ve all done enough. I am grateful.’ His understated touch as he ushered her aside bespoke an ironclad dignity. He was himself, his core power leashed to a presence as enduring as seamed granite. Wholly autonomous, he pushed back the oak door and entered the chamber himself.
The adept bent her head in frank homage as he passed, then trailed him inside and lit the wax tapers in the claw-footed candelabra.
The glow enriched the gold grain of the curly maple paneling.
A Cildorn carpet mellowed the plank floor, its vivid dyes muted before the jeweled silk of the heraldic king’s banners. Despite vibrant colors, the chamber felt cold. No fire burned in the hearth. The scrolled, ebon pilasters and marble-topped mantel gleamed untrammeled by dust, and the high, lancet windows wore the seal of deep night. Stabbed through the perfume of citrus-oil polish, the still air gave off the uncanny, frost tang of magic.
Now wary, Asandir approached the massive ebony table, with its pedestals of standing, paired lions. His step skirted the empty oak chairs with their chased-ivory finials. Braced to neutrality, he leaned on spread hands and surveyed the circular pane of smoked glass Ath’s adepts had placed on the tabletop. A sparrow perched on a chairback took wing and eerily vanished. A field mouse sat upright on tucked hind legs, whiskers pricked and attentive, while overhead its archenemy, the horned owl, blinked in disinterest from a settled roost in the rafters. Asandir showed no surprise. Such visitations occurred wherever Ath’s adepts engaged a portal to tap the prime life chord.
‘The glass holds those events Althain’s Warden deemed important,’ the lady ventured, her near presence casting a more refined light than common candleflame warranted. She perched on the seat nearest the black-and-silver leopard standard of Rathain, while Asandir, standing, absorbed the grim scenes gathered within the spelled glass.
He saw Kharadmon, far afield in the void between stars, spinning spell after spell of deflection to divert an influx of wraiths bound from Marak. ‘Mercy on us,’ he murmured in blanched shock. ‘The worst has begun. What other ill news will you show me?’
Patient, the adept waited until Asandir had steeled his nerve to move on.
Next, the glass gave him sight of Luhaine’s discorporate presence, guarding the damaged wards which secured Desh-thiere’s prison at Rockfell. He awaited two others: Dakar and Fionn Areth turned their mounts loose and labored on foot through the arduous southwest passage across the white-crowned range of the Skyshiels.
He saw Arithon s’Ffalenn, asleep, huddled in a thicket; then armed companies from five cities converging on Daon Ramon, their purpose to bring war to the ancient ruin of Ithamon.
Farther south, the Master Spellbinder Verrain stood vigil at Mirthlvain Swamp. Methspawn stirred and fought beneath winter ice, feeding one on another in bloodthirsty eagerness for the release to come with the spring thaws. Traithe had left Vastmark with intent to assist him, but a flood on River Ippash would delay him.
Tension blanched Asandir’s knuckles to scarred ivory against the jet grain of old ebony. ‘We have no hand free to send,’ he despaired, while in the glass, the events tied to Methisle streamed into the next change of scene. In northern Tysan, where Westwood’s fringes thinned into a patchwork of hamlets, marauding Khadrim gorged upon the charred corpses of a trapper and his close family. ‘Does this sequence get any worse?’
The adept held her counsel, aggrieved in compassion, while another view bloomed and burned across the dark face of the glass…
In the High Priest’s chamber at Avenor, under furtive cover of night, the velvet curtains were drawn to hide the gleam of late-burning candles. There, a clandestine meeting commenced between Cerebeld and Lord Koshlin, Guild Master of Erdane, now appointed as his mayor’s delegate to serve the city’s close interests.
‘I’ve maintained the appearance of keeping my Lord Mayor’s instructions, and done your will without compromise,’ the sly man complained. ‘At every turn, I’ve thwarted the princess’s inquiries into the death of her predecessor. Her Grace has been diverted from finding the truth so many times, she’s justly begun to suspect my obstruction. Her trust is withdrawn. You must realize that leaves me exposed. At all costs, I can’t risk the loss of respect should the mayor, her father, hear of her reservations.’
‘I see that cost might prove a touch high,’ Cerebeld agreed, his purposeful attitude undaunted. ‘Therefore, we shall at one stroke change the princess’s distrust to subservience.’ He arose, crossed his chamber, and opened a locked chest. Gold rings glinted as he withdrew a sealed parchment. ‘You shall give the lady the proof that she seeks: incontrovertible evidence that her predecessor’s death was no suicide.’
Koshlin’s