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i_read_whatWell, THAT title sounds promising. What is Arithon doing now?!
So if you recall the last chapter, Dakar and Arithon saved a boy from a tragic fate. They couldn't save his sister though. But it did give them a chance to make friends, and Arithon actually got laid! Go him.
Anyway, we're told that he recovers his aplomb pretty quickly, though his "vicious verbal style grown the more barbed to drive back Dakar's encroachment on his privacy." He's been making friends with half the tribes in Vastmark. Unfortunately, Dakar's been roped into helping with sheep.
Dakar, by the way, is still sticking to his resolve not to drink. Mostly helped by the fact that the herdsman's alcohol is "a spirit of unparalleled potency, a noisome, sticky liquid hoarded in leather flasks, fermented from wild honey and soured goat's milk." So not really to his taste. We learn a bit more about Vastmark, through Dakar's narrative bitching:
There were reasons why the barren slopes of Vastmark were shunned by travellers and trade. A place of wind-burnished scree and frost-chiselled peaks, the site was only hospitable to wyverns and hawks, without roads or taverns or post stables. Since the nearest house of refined entertainments lay eighty leagues distant in Forthmark, the Mad Prophet dreamed at night of sweet-burning incense, and rouged doxies lounging in silk. By day, he bored himself silly, eating mutton stew and docking lambs' tails and enduring exhaustive rounds of archery.
Arithon, on the other hand, seems to be really enjoying this. I can't blame him really, the poor guy could use a break.And regular sex.
They do still seem kind of married though:
Wet snowfall and sheep leavings made a troublesome mix for a man in need of new boots. Dakar spent sullen hours by lamplight patching rotted leather and burst toe seams, while Arithon reeled out some vengefully cheerful dance time from the strings of his lyranthe.
And apparently, Arithon really vibes with these folk:
More clannishly isolate than the fishing enclave at Merior, and more forthright with their trust, Vastmark tribesfolk saw no harm in the Shadow Master's dry wit. They laughed when he bungled with the dogs and the sheep; their women chaffed him when he tangled the rough yarn they made with drop spindles while the talk circled the fires after dusk. His skill at the butts earned no chuckles at all, but only their sharp-eyed respect. For them, the bow was survival. Few outsiders could best their accuracy, acquired through lifelong practice.
Dakar does have some legitimate concerns though. If they stay on through the lambing season, they'll have some issues. Herdsmen sleep in the meadows then, with ice still on the ground. Fair. Also though, he's concerned about Arithon's liaison with Dalwyn. The tribes have complicated beliefs about fertility after all, and it could be seen as "inviting a bane on the flocks."
They end up staying for a month before Arithon announces his intention to depart. The Shepherds throw him a celebration. It's too short notice for a bonfire, but every herdsman "felt moved to ransack his family tent and donate a flask of strong drink."
AW.
Dakar still hates the alcohol. Arithon does not:
Reclined and obliviously comfortable amid the flea-scratching pack of huge shepherd dogs, Arithon regarded him and laughed. He wore a tribal shirt, patched at the elbows and none too clean, and if he had shaved the past dawn, his hair ran wild for want of cutting. Raffish and bright-eyed, he relished another swig and passed the liquor flask on to the next herdsman. The next thing he said folded everyone else into shrieking fits of mirth.
Look at all that sexy dishevelment. Ms. Wurts, I fear your id is showing.
Anyway, the morning has some fascinating role reversal. Dakar wakes clearheaded, while Arithon is bleary-eyed and rumpled. He does seem up for banter though:
'Diuaithe, man,' swore the archer. 'Last I saw, ye were sprawled by the spring, crooning some lovesong to a kelpie.'
Arithon gave an abandoned smile. 'You know, that's the trouble with drinking. Come the morning, you can never remember their names.'
The herdsmen and herdswomen are all very impressed by how much Arithon drank the night before and there's a palpable camaraderie here, that Arithon had never let himself have in Merior. And of course, there's one more emotional goodbye:
His circle of admirers parted, elbowing one another and chuckling. All showed regret at the leave-taking. One dog grown particularly fond of the Shadow Master whined on the fringes, morose. At the far edge of the circle, amid an isolate jink of bronze, Dalwyn awaited, her cloak hood pulled low over her face, and the anxious release of her half-held breath a feather of white in the cold.
'Will you come back?' she asked. 'Ghedair wished to know.'
Arithon regarded her through a careful pause, touched her cheek, then bent his gaze to encompass the high peaks, fired now like steel raised red from the forge in the first blush of sunrise. 'Lady, tell Ghedair to depend on it.'
Aw. I'm glad. I like Dalwyn.
So they go back to the Talliarthe, which is looking a bit weathered after a month or so. That's okay, so does Arithon. While Dakar makes "the painful discovery that slack grooming did nothing to blunt the edge from Arithon's tongue."
So they get ready to go. This includes making new maps of Vastmark apparently, with special note of valleys and trails and places prone to slides and pasture. This...probably is important.
'We're going to try sheepherding next?' Dakar asked, squeezing past to reach the companionway to dip a bucket of seawater to wash.
Arithon looked up as though he might answer, the flame in the gimballed lamp a ruddy glow over the upswept planes of s'Ffalenn features. Then his gaze brightened and his smile thinned to a scalpel's edge. 'You'll have to guess, if you can.'
Seriously guys, consider hate sex.
The next day, at noon, the Khetienn (Arithon's one brigantine) arrives! With guests...the twins are here! Arithon is decidedly dismayed, though Dakar is gleeful. (Arithon gets him back by stranding him on the sloop for a bit.) Arithon is in trooouble.
But it's worth noting that the kids are fine. As mentioned before, Arithon DOES have control of his people.
Arithon, meanwhile, chats with the hired captain about the area. And it's an interesting contrast to Lysaer and the Brotherhood of Ath. Arithon is skeptical about the idea that this area is haunted by spirits as the man says, but he hears him out. Apparently there's a Second Age ruin on the mainland, and that's what causes the "haunts". Ships wreck "too fast to count" and the waters breed whirlpools.
They discuss the gossip in Innish. Apparently "word of Arithon's deeds" spread. And he may not have the warmest reception. They cryptically mention Arithon's "benefactor". It sounds like he'd borrowed money that he intends to repay with interest. His benefactor isn't worried. And neither is the Captain. Apparently Arithon had warned them ahead of time what was coming, and he DOES still have friends in Innish, "whatever has happened in Southshire."
So what did happen there?
Lysaer.
'Well, Southshire's in Prince Lysaer's pocket,' the hired captain obliged. 'The merchants were already primed to welcome the increased business drummed up by a muster for war. Plain avarice saw to that. Then Lysaer gave a show fit to blind Ath Creator when he entered the main gates of the city. The whole populace turned out to throw flowers in the street to salute his royal cavalcade.'
The tale emerged in full-blown colour as the vintage wine mellowed the captain's nerves; how Lysaer, Lord Commander Diegan, and the dandyish Mearn s'Brydion had swept into Southshire in grand state. The gems and bullion braid on the prince's horse trappings alone had impressed the merchant's wives to goggling awe. The live presence of old blood royalty, all chiselled, pale elegance and guileless good manners, had done much to enliven their winter parties.
Ah, there's the purple prose I'd missed.
Moreover, Lysaer's finished restoring Avenor, and since "no sorcerer has arrived to bring retaliation for the standing stones torn down", he's considered a hero.
...is this another example of the Fellowship lying down on the job? I feel like it is.
Arithon processes the grim news. Basically, once the rumors reach even backwaters like Merior, he's not going to find welcome ANYWHERE on the continent.
And some brotherly contrast:
'Ah, that.' The captain helped himself to more wine and scraped an itch between his shoulders against the bulkhead. 'It was an easy enough conquest, so I heard. Lysaer paid for a festival match.' Details followed in humorous, wry satire. The city garrison had been reduced to blustering incompetence, first by the smoothly perfect drills of the royal officers, then by the hard-bitten mercenaries from Alestron. The shipwrights who had once dealt with Arithon, and received their pay in pale gold, had watched this latest byplay, reserved to nonpartisan silence. But as the coterie around the prince became outspokenly devoted, whispers over shadows and piracy began to circulate. The crisp efficiency that earmarked Arithon's transactions came to be regarded with suspicion in retrospect.
'That mightn't have mattered,' the captain summed up. 'Except the spurning of your interests by Merior's fishermen became the stone that tipped the balance. The folk who ply the nets there are a dour enough lot, but even the galleymen respect them. When those villagers chose to forsake their trust, their opinion was taken as testimony.'
Lysaer is good at playing a crowd, and Arithon's incapable of not sabotaging himself.
But there's more news, this time from Lord Erlien of Shand. He actually WROTE to them, which is apparently a big deal, and not something Dakar remembers happening for a long long time. (It seems to be an inventory list of blooded livestock.)
Everyone's more focused on Lysaer's doings though. Because Lysaer is very good at what he does.
We get some purple prose:
Arithon arose in cat quiet, tipped the livestock list into the lamp flame, and twisted it to and fro to speed its burning. Shadows wheeled across his peaked brows and fanned a demonic caste to his features as he rose and leaned sideward to unlatch the stern window and toss the smouldering spill into the sea.
'Three months,' he mused. Only the Mad Prophet could detect his uneasy irritation as he stared out into the darkness, to the unschooled onlooker, his loose-fitted shirt well masked the tension in his stance.
Interestingly, Dhirken wrote! If you recall, Arithon taught her how to read. Apparently the lessons stuck. And Dhirken has some interesting news: Princess Talith has hired a captain at arms to take her to reunite with Lysaer.
And Lysaer doesn't know she's coming. OH. THIS infamy. Hah.
Moreover, the Khetienn comes with yew. And supplies. And craftsmen. It looks like Arithon is re-founding his shipyard. After spending a lot of this chapter so far assuming Arithon has nefarious plans, Dakar is aghast:
'You cold-blooded bastard!' Dakar hurled at the dark head bent just beyond range of his fist. 'You planned to recruit here all along! The horrible misfortune that befell those two shepherd children just gave you the opening to exploit. How Dalwyn would weep if she knew of your endless, twisted conniving!'
Where's that meme that Copperfyre made for me?
There it is!
See, Yew is a scrap wood on the continent, but it's a priceless commodity in Vastmark. And what Vastmark has, in significant numbers, is ARCHERS. The best on the continent.
And who's going to pay them?
Arithon countered in diamond-bright malice. 'Lysaer's going to pay them. Fine gold. When the tide crests at dawn, I'm going to ply the time-honoured trade of my family.'
A pirate is as a pirate does.
--
We shift scenes to Princess Talith of Avenor. She's not a fan of sea travel as it happens. But she doesn't have much of a choice. She'd encountered surprising difficulty getting here.
Her plan to rejoin her royal husband in Southshire had suffered rough setbacks since the grizzled veteran captain in command of the city garrison gave flat refusal to provide her with suitable escort.
Thwarted in her efforts to gain the deference which should have been royalty's due, informed in blunt language that her prince's loyal officers would enforce his direct wish to keep her home, Princess Talith resorted to subterfuge.
...hm.
Interesting isn't it. We've been told that Lysaer couldn't possibly stop his army from mistreating captives and tribesmen. But here, this sounds a lot more like Arithon's dynamic with his own men. They ARE able to obey him when it comes to something he actually cares about.
However, the younger officers ARE susceptible to Talith's charms. And so she goes, changing ships three times to throw off pursuit. Now, she's made it to King Eldir of Havish's port "Cheivalt".
There's some nice description of her ship:
The vessel she engaged from King Eldir's port of Cheivalt was a dowdy merchant brig with scuffed paint and slack stays named the Arrow. Laden to her load line with baled fleece and hides from the Carithwyr steppelands, and barrels of tallow, wax, and rum, she reeked in the damp. Odours from the penned hogs that had been her last deck cargo seemed permanently ingrained in her planking. The sailhands were given to layabout habits and a hatred of the purser's watchmen, who caught them swaggering through the hold at odd hours, singing, or fist swinging, or morose, as the whims of stolen drink moved them. Arrow's master was a rotund, cheerful man with pouched cheeks and a pug nose. He kept a rat-skinny mate who wore a fixed grin, even when prodded to mete out each morning's round of ship's discipline.
I do love these descriptions.
I also like this bit:
Lady Talith did not keep to her cabin as the captain of the Arrow clearly wished. The stupefying impact of her beauty fouled his sail drills. Amid the watchful presence of her liveried men-at-arms, and a handmaid with no stomach for coarse company, the princess strolled topside each day. The leers and the slangs she met unflinching, her Etarran bent for intrigue quick to sort out the byplay between those in authority and their underlings. The Arrow's first mate was slack with the whip. His sailhands scarcely took his floggings to heart, but did as they pleased; another drunken sailor would stagger through his watch come the evening.
So anyway, these dudes are about to get attacked by pirates. And to her credit, Talith knows that this is bad. She urges the captain to engage whatever defenses they have. For his part, the captain doesn't see a problem. No pirate would risk execution for such a basic haul as theirs.
Talith points out that her husband has enemies, but the Captain notes that Havish is firmly neutral.
Hilariously even Arithon's SHIP gets some purple prose:
He was wrong, Talith sensed. The oncoming vessel breasted the sea's edge to show taut-bellied, tanbark sails and a line as lean-waisted as a wasp. The heading she held was a falcon's stoop, straight for the isolated brig.
...someone's horny here. Not sure if it's Talith or Ms. Wurts. EITHER WAY.
So anyway, they're in the middle of pooh-poohing the threat when suddenly "darkness clapped down, soundless and dense as felted sable."
IT'S THE IN-LAWS.
Or one, at least.
The brigantine's prey was never chosen by mistake. Set after by shadows and fell sorcery, the Arrow floundered through the darkness like a wing-broken dove before a snake. Her mouldered chests of crossbows howed their dearth of handling, even for routine firing and maintenance to clean the rust off their latch pins. Lent no hope to repel boarders, afraid her person was the prize for an appalling set of stakes, Talith snatched her only chance. She must tuck herself away, and hope the Arrow's loutish crewmen would establish through incompetence that they worked a cheap-rate hauler of no consequence.
Above the din of wild cries and running feet, Lady Talith gave orders to her bodyguard. 'Strip off your surcoats and disarm. Pretend you're common sailors when the Shadow Master boards us. Let no one mention my presence.'
Um. Talith. I admire your spirit, but slight issue here. Why do you think they're attacking? They already know you're here.
Talith may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but she definitely has courage and a strong will.
Her handmaid crouched in paralysed despair on her berth. 'Your Grace, we're to die. That cruel spinner of darkness will spill our poor blood for use in his unclean rites of magecraft.'
'Hush, that's ridiculous.' Talith grabbed her servant's wrists and bullied her onto her feet. 'I met the s'Ffalenn prince years ago in Etarra. He's wily, yes. A hard man to know, but no fool to murder a hostage who's of far better use to him alive.' Too late to regret that as a weapon to bend her royal husband from his purpose, her captivity would lend an edge without parallel.
...you know what's interesting about this?
She's not wrong. In fact, that's probably one of the most clear-headed evaluations of Arithon that we get from anyone on Lysaer's side.
There's no doubt that Talith is on Lysaer's side, but it sounds like she hasn't really bought into his propaganda either. She's with him because she loves him. And because Arithon is an enemy of Etarra. But she doesn't seem to think he's evil incarnate.
She's like the s'Brydions in a way. She's got far too strong a sense of self to fall for the crowd techniques. (I think Diegan, on the other hand, is far weaker willed.)
So anyway, she tries to hide herself and her maid in a locker. The maid is quivering and frightened, but Talith is holding up well. She basically hears the invasion as it happens.
And there IS some bloodshed:
Movement flurried topside. A bowstring whined. An eruption of shouted insults came whipcut by a hiss as an arrow creased the air. The shot struck to the sickening, dull thump of a broadhead into flesh. The planks overhead thudded to the weight of a fallen body. Wet gasps ripped through an unseen victim's torn throat.
Then the brig veered off station to a scream of freed cables as her wheel took charge, untended.
'That's a warning!' an incisive voice called through the bedlam. 'Deliver your passenger into my care and nobody else needs to die.'
The accent recalled memories from the Fellowship's failed king-making, except that spiked, cold ring of authority had never been heard from the prince brought for his crowning at Etarra. The tone prickled the hair at the nape of Talith's neck. She squeezed her eyes closed and drew a stifled breath. Any second, she imagined the brig's pudgy captain would give way and spill word of her presence. Defenceless and mute with apprehension, she waited alongside her trembling maid for the bargain to be struck for her person.
...actually though, he doesn't turn her in. He ends up carted off to be gently imprisoned in his quarters.
There's an unnecessary bit here, to remind us of Arithon's Past Suffering:
As captive and escort thrashed down the companionway but a plank's width from the bulkhead of the locker, she felt the jounced impact of fists and shoulders, then overheard a moaning complaint over lashings tied hurtfully tight.
'Aye well,' groused a sailor in a slurred southcoast accent, 'lucky for you it's not wire. You see the scars on yon devil captain's wrists? No? Somebody in his life maltreated him so. Fortune's with you, he's not one for grudges.'
'Pipe down!' a companion said in a clotted whisper. 'He hears you gossip, you'll rue it. Unholy fires o' Sithaer are nothing to the heat he can raise with his tongue.'
The first mate ends up coming into the room, even looking into the locker! He doesn't seem to notice her presence though. And then, it sounds like, the pirates are leaving!
Oh Talith, you're such a moron.
She manages to wait a while longer, then pushes her way out of the locker:
A courteous touch grasped her elbow and spared her a tripping sprawl onto her knees. 'I'm overjoyed, Lady Talith,' said a pleased, superb voice. 'Welcome to the company of your closest kinsman by marriage.'
In-laws.
I kind of love their dynamic:
'You!' She jerked from his touch. 'Sorcerer! Defiler! How many spells did you invoke to discover my presence on board?'
'My dear!' Arithon said in the acidrwiped sarcasm he wore like an armour of enamel; then he laughed. 'Why trifle with sorcery? Arrow's partridge of a captain would scarcely sport trunks of silk dresses. Profits from tallow were never so grand that merchants' mates should toss lady's bracelets on the floor. Nor do they wear scent like attar of roses.' This said, he tucked into her stiffened fingers the snagged links of gold the latch pin had torn from her wrist.
'This ship flies the colours of Cheivalt registry,' Talith flared. 'King Eldir's peace has been broken.'
'Quite the contrary.' Arithon s'Ffalenn drew her on in exquisite formality toward the open companionway. As checkered light from the hatch grating feathered across her flushed cheeks, he paused through a second of admiration. She had always been stunning, the more so now, with her fine hair tousled as though she had just arisen from tempestuous sport in a love nest. 'The King of Havish's subjects are unharmed. This brig and her cargo are untouched. Your jewels were enough to satisfy us all, and your company I've claimed for myself.' He cast a smiling glance behind as the oilskins rustled in the locker. 'Tell your handmaid to come out. Nobody's planning to abandon her.'
Arithon, you're such a delightful asshole.
The Arithon-Talith dynamic reminds me a lot of how Brenda and Jason used to interact on General Hospital (post-amnesia), any time they were forced to share each other's company. I'd always found them very entertaining.
Anyway, Talith points out that he'd murdered the brig's helmsman. But actually:
Beneath the Arrow's abandoned wheel lay the victim of that fatal, first crossbow bolt. Not one of the brig's indifferent seamen after all, but the untried young captain from Avenor that Princess Talith had persuaded to lead her escort. In an uncontrolled sprawl that seemed all boyish knuckles, he rested on his back. His chin was tipped to the sky. The chest which had no tan, that no fool could mistake for a sailhand's, forever stilled in its blood from the quarrel which had severed his life untimely.
The princess spun to confront her hysterical handmaid. 'Be quiet!' She struck the flighty woman on the cheek to stop the sobbing. Regal despite her extreme pallor, her every movement scored in light by the dazzle of gold thread embroidery, the princess went on to upbraid the Master of Shadow in stinging fury. 'What you have done is an outrage! I see no reason and no right for you to slaughter my guard captain outright.'
The dangerous, deep glitter to Arithon's eyes acquired a glint like a forge spark. 'Your captain at arms received his due, madam. You should have been proud. He refused to stand down with his fellows. Certainly my bolt was an easier death than the punishment your prince would mete out to an officer who allowed you to place yourself at risk.'
...he's not wrong. And even Talith can't really deny that.
The fact that Arithon did kill the man, or order him killed, is pretty interesting as a character beat. After three books and god knows how many pages, we know Arithon pretty well. And I'm not sure I can think of a time when he just ordered someone dead like this. (This is not to say that Arithon hasn't killed people. He has, of course. But not like this.)
It's an interesting commonality with Lysaer, perhaps. They ARE both princes after all...
Before her fired, speechless rage could erupt, he cut back in withering irony. 'What? No scathing defence of the vaunted s'Ilessid justice? Should I write his Grace a letter absolving your other guardsmen of incompetence? Rusty weapons can't defend. Warped shafts in the hands of this brig's sorry archers are no use at all against shadow.' His voice whetted to a bard's stabbing satire, he added, 'Your young idiot of a captain got what he deserved, but the fault lies with you, princess, for your choice of a ship with slack discipline and ridiculously inadequate defences! With the rumour of your passage all over the south reaches, you're much more than lucky it's my hospitality you'll come to suffer for your folly.'
Taut in every tendon, Talith felt her cheeks flame pink. No male alive ever dealt her such a verbal public thrashing. The novelty made her strike out to slap for sheer insolence. Arithon could have ducked the blow with ease. He chose not to; her hand cracked his cheek and left stinging imprint, and his cold-cast expression never changed. Clad in a sailor's bleached cottons, his untrimmed hair tied back with a loop of leather thong, Arithon s'Ffalenn had never looked more the product of his heritage as the mountebank by-blow of a sea raider.
The trick was galling, that for one disjointed second, Talith thought she saw something more. Almost, she believed his barbaric sally was meted out against her as chastisement, as if he cared whether she took harm from ruffians for her rash impulse to rejoin her husband's company.
Then her hauteur came back like poured frost as she recalled just who this man was; what power he strove to gain in his bid to steal her as hostage. 'You won't get away with this.'
The thing about Talith is that, while she's a moron. She's a moron because she's never really been pushed to be anything else. She's spent her life in luxury and privilege, in a society where women get to do very little of substance. Her sole power is in her looks and her sex appeal, and she's weaponized them very well.
She's beautiful, intimidating and socially powerful, and because of that, she's never really been called out or forced to think about her behavior. And Lysaer, probably the one person with the social clout to do so, isn't interested. I actually feel a little sorry for Talith. If she'd grown up somewhere else...in the clan, in Merior, even in Vastmark. Hell, if she'd been scouted by the Koriani. Maybe she'd have grown into a better person.
Anyway, of course Arithon's getting away with it. He even carries her over the board that bridges the Arrow to the Khetienn:
Before trepidation could weaken her pride, Arithon bent, caught her up behind shoulders and knees, and lofted her into his arms. They were matched in height and bone. The fact that her trimmed skirt and petticoats draped a choking froth about his knees had small impact on his balance. While Talith stiffened, then thrashed, he slung his thigh across the rail, perched to swing his other leg clear, then straightened, poised with her bundled over air. Unwilling to risk a wetting, Talith let him bear her, though she cursed like a sailor against his neck while he footed his way across to his vessel. He set her down as his prize on the deck, where her chests of belongings sat waiting.
She found herself greeted by a thunderous cheer from his crewmen.
Regal in arrogance, from the looped snags of hair unreeled like gold wire in the breeze, to her high cheekbones and milk-pale profile, to the tigerish, black-lashed eyes that no man could meet and not ache to possess, the princess snatched her skirts against the slap of the wind. She presented the leering men the stiff line of her back, while her shrieking maid was bundled across the gap by a sailhand and deposited unharmed beside her.
Despite every warning, the brigantine's seamen slacked off their duties to gawk at Lysaer's royal wife.
The gawking doesn't last long though. Arithon sees to that. (I enjoy how Talith also has the power of purple prose.)
Talith thinks that he's harsh to his crewmen. He says he does no less than he must. And we see a battle of wills. And prose:
His match for cool distance, Talith showed her contempt. 'Then what motive prompts my abduction, necessity or whim?'
Charcoal-dark eyebrows turned up, and a curl of amusement flicked his lips. No word did he say, but his study of her turned intent.
Talith stood firm. Beauty was her weapon, used to cut or cajole or emasculate. She had handled randy suitors enough to welcome the edge. But this man's gaze traced her face for too long. She coloured; and his eyes raked down into detailed regard of her pearl-crusted neckline, jerked now to the heave of her breath. His study lingered over her fine shoulders, her breasts, her gold-cinctured waist, then travelled lower, where the arrowed folds of her airy silk skirts lay pressed to her thighs by the shameless play of the wind.
On a paper-thin edge of courtesy, Arithon struck. 'My motive is scarcely yours to question, is it?' He fingered a strand of her taffy gold hair and tucked it behind a loosened pin. 'The shame won't be mine, dear lady. You disobeyed your husband's instructions for your safety. Now you've no choice at all but to answer the ugly score.'
Don't worry, he's just proving a point. He asks if she's going to claim the courtesy of kinship.
Talith stepped beside him, her regard stony topaz with bored scorn. 'Do I look to be pleading you for mercy?'
'Magnificent as that sounds, it won't be.necessary,' Arithon said in that maddening friendliness that defied all opening for riposte. 'You've merely been foolish. My need is for gold. To that end, you're nothing but a tool offered readily to my hand. Lysaer shall have you back, scolding and virtuous, but the ransom he shall pay for my forbearance will be to the coin weight what you're worth.'
I really do love their dynamic.
Anyway, Talith is outraged. He sets her up in "lavish comfort" in the nicer of the Khetienn's cabins. His own.
However hard she searched for some trait to revile, for some noisome proof of dire charms and dark sorceries, her effort was stymied by order. The tiny cabin was as bare of frivolous ornament as the man. The furnishings were selected for functional efficiency, in mirror image a forceful statement of a commander's expectations of performance from his crew and his ship. No trace could be found of carelessness in the rolled charts, the folded blankets, or the firmly inked lines of the logbook braced on the ledge by the locker employed for a desk.
Talith slammed the ship's record shut in savage irritation. A sparkle of silver hooked her glance in the gloom: the lined, taut strings of the Masterbard's lyranthe, lashed with soft ties to its pegs in a glass-fronted cabinet.
That one silent testimony to the art behind the pirate made the pain of her predicament intolerable.
'Damn your black heart to Sithaer!' she cursed her absent captor. For his subtleties were deep, and ever cruel. Talith knew he would apply every leverage her straits could inflict upon Lysaer. Love and hurt cracked her last veneer of poise. The princess hid her face, the unwanted tears she had held through the worst threading helplessly down her proud cheeks.
She notices her handmaid staring and shouts at her to leave. The maid crumples crying instead, and Talith has the " traitorous sharp wish that her own servants would respond to her orders with the fearful efficiency just witnessed on Arithon's quarterdeck."
--
The next subchapter is Messenger:
Ugh. Here we rejoin Kharadmon as he's dropping by Althain Tower. He's very surprised to find Sethvir laughing. But of course "the likely reason for his lapse was no mystery to another Fellowship sorcerer".
So they have an exchange that amounts to "What's Arithon done now?" "Kidnapped Lysaer's wife."
It's a shame they didn't keep up to date with Maenalle, Jieret and the others.
That said, the Fellowship have apparently decided to be useful for once. Sethvir asks Kharadmon to go inform Lysaer. Okay, yeah, that would be pretty fun.
The ransom is five hundred thousand coin weight. The exchange will occur on neutral ground under Fellowship auspices in King Eldir's court at Ostermere.
Kharadmon is delighted, noting: The s'Ilessid prince scarcely needs to be humoured. He should've known his own lady for a spirited creature too resourceful to be abandoned to neglect.
Meanwhile, Sethvir is left behind to do a vision quest. And well:
Unbidden, his awareness fanned out over distance to sound the movements of armies and the doings of men, tracing the ring ripple chain of circumstance the abduction of Lady Talith must set off. Vision revealed the milling march of armies through thawed mud on the scarp-shadowed road above Jaelot. Sethvir saw the beaked prows of galleys docked in rows beneath the city breakwaters, and heard the snap of ox drovers' whips as provisions and arms were rolled to the quayside for loading. Then that scene gave way to a thousand other views from which one yet to come stood out with jewelled clarity. On a ring of blue water in the Westland Sea, the Sorcerer saw a lone fishing smack sail, flamboyantly adorned with lettering; then in linked sequence, chest after chest of coins lying silted in gloom.
The bullion to redeem Lady Talith could do nothing else but underwrite a renewed round of violence.
...well, yeah. What did you THINK would happen?
Apparently the premonitions of conflict had "increased relentlessly" since Arithon fled Merior. Gosh, you mean it? What are the odds that now that you've made Arithon swear an oath to survive, he's going to have to try to fight back and survive?
Oh, by the way, the Koriani are coming to visit as well:
Spring equinox was two days hence. From the time-worn flagstones where he stood, the Sorcerer sensed the stately turn of the stars, and beneath them a gathering dissonance: so tuned was his perception, he could hear and wince for the enslaved resonance of one hundred and eight individual quartz crystals. These were worn on silver chains by the Koriani enchantresses gathered to assist First Senior Lirenda in the task appointed by their Prime. The order's most skilled initiates trudged north in a body on the Isaer road, their destination Althain Tower. To Sethvir's jaundiced eye, the women's cloaked forms were less welcome than a flock of starving vultures.
He disliked very little underneath Ath's wide sky, but the affairs of Koriani were as thorns set under his skin.
I mean, you do have their stupid rock.
--
so we rejoin Lysaer. Who is indeed, lavishly described:
Night lay like dusky velvet over the torchlit spires and steep, shingled roofs of Southshire. Lysaer s'Ilessid stood with his hands on the alabaster railing of the Supreme Mayor's south-facing balcony. The distant dance of flames spat an imprint like sparks over his chased royal circlet. The nap of his state velvets swallowed his outline, deep indigo as midnight, pricked only at cuff and collar with the glint of fine jewels and seed pearls. This evening's banquet with the obliging southcoast guild ministers had raised the prince to gnawing discontent.
He's feeling restless. They've been pretty good at collecting rumors and hearsay, and they now think that Arithon is somewhere in the Cascain Isles. (Vastmark, so he's correct.)
A supremely frustrating target to attack; and a fiendish turn of strategy for an enemy hunted as a fugitive. The broken, rocky channels off the Vastmark coastline presented a mariner's nightmare. That reef-ridden shore was no place to risk a war fleet under threat of attack by sorcery and shadows.
The strike force sent to flush Arithon s'Ffalenn must be prepared to face the ugliest contingencies. Given any loophole, left even one unguarded cove, and their quarry would slip through their fingers again and make clean escape out to sea. The headland itself offered no less ready a haven, riddled as it was with scarps and ravines, and a thousand cliff-walled, hidden corries.
That's why he picked it, I'd reckon.
Anyway, Lysaer is also disquieted because he keeps thinking about the hostel, and how the adept "with her insidious web of illusions had nearly swayed him off course." He's got these lingering doubts.
He is weighing the facts. The delay is working against him, giving Arithon more time to plan. And Lysaer's learned from Minderl Bay that he needs to be cautious rather than baited into bloodshed.
Patience became an unsubtle form of torment. His elbow braced against the marble finial of the balustrade, the Prince of the West laced aching fingers through his hair. He took no joy from the mild, southland climate while his warhost wrestled the mud and the thaws on roads unsuitable for travel. His thoughts could but drift, and wonder how they fared, while around him, hanging smoke hazed the rooftops, tanged from the vats in the craft quarter sheds where resins were rendered into turpentine.
It's interesting how he cares about his men. Not enough to forgo luxury, but still.
Anyway, he eventually feels like there's someone watching his back. It's Kharadmon of course. And Lysaer tries to stab him, and well, I can't really blame him here. If he wasn't a genocidal maniac, I'd cheer.
Kharadmon is discorporate though, so it does nothing. Lysaer lights up the room:
Exposed for what he was in that white, actinic glare - unbanished and gloriously amused - the projected image of the Sorcerer Kharadmon advanced with a duellist's adroit step. Slim, fox-featured, and roguishly attired in a slashed and belted green doublet, he flicked narrow fingers over his spade black beard like a barrister served dubious evidence. 'If I were a bat or a mole, I'd be most impressively blinded. Since I'm not, you can desist. If the Mayor of Southshire's palace has cockroaches, they're certainly all scared to ground.'
Lysaer recovered his wits and quelled the outpouring brilliance of his talent. Too self-possessed for embarrassment, too annoyed to apologize, he showed the diplomacy of his ancestry and refused to let baiting raise his temper. 'You're certainly fond of dramatic appearances. I trust you've brought news of importance?' His sword filled the pause with a sullen ring as he slid it back in his scabbard.
I kind of like this dynamic here. Lysaer gets cranky when he's dealing with people who don't adore him.
Kharadmon pounced as the hilt snicked home. 'Your landing at Merior was restrained?'
'No one died,' Lysaer said, silkenly civil. 'For a village that harboured the works of a criminal, some would applaud my restraint. If you're sent here as a Fellowship messenger, I'll thank you to attend your proper office.'
Impervious to insult as a carp in a pool, Kharadmon raised an elegant, straight eyebrow. 'You've been tallying an impressive train of allegiances while your city goes to seed in your absence.'
Fair point. How IS Avenor?
'You accuse me of neglect in Tysan?'
'Convict,' Kharadmon corrected crisply. 'While you raise your hound pack to run down the leopard, your quarry's played havoc in the henyard.'
So time for the reveal.
Kharadmon rebutted, 'The one which matters has yet to come through.' He paused to test a poise as contained in appearance as any shown by Halduin, founding father of the s'Ilessid royal line.
Lysaer stayed his grief. The sapphire collar laid over his shoulders flashed only once, the sparkle of his gemstones like frost against velvets rendered starlessly deep by the shadows.
He received the news in arrested silence as Kharadmon dealt the crowning blow. 'Arithon s'Ffalenn captured a merchant ship called the Arrow, engaged to bear your wife south. Evidently the princess grew bored with your absence. Your letters made your affairs in Alland sound tranquil enough that she believed a surprise visit would be safe.'
And Lysaer's reaction is...interesting:
A flush scalded over Lysaer's cheekbones. His chest moved and restarted the interrupted rhythm of his breathing. The living moment when his royal gift of justice became fire and shield for the workings of Desh-thiere's geas stood clear as transparent glass to the watching eye of the Sorcerer.
The prince spoke at length, his words like sheared quartz, uncoloured by grief or compassion. 'She's lightheaded as a dove, of course. When did this happen? I should know when to toast the bastard litter.'
WOW.
Poor Talith. THIS is what your husband actually thinks of you.
And of course, Lysaer's perspective is colored by his own family. But similar names aside, Talith isn't Talera. Arithon isn't Avar. And Lysaer owes his wife an apology.
And for the first time, I find myself in complete agreement with a Fellowship sorcerer:
Kharadmon's image intensified at the edges until he seemed a form etched in air by spilled acid. 'You're an ungenerous husband.'
I don't like this feeling. Fuck you, Lysaer.
Anyway, Kharadmon defends Talith's honor, stating she's suffered a great loss of pride at Arithon's hand. Nothing more.
So Lysaer switches gears here:
Dangerous in adversity as a wounded lion, Lysaer sidestepped the well of cold that bounded the Sorcerer's presence. He crossed the mahogany runner that braced the sliding doorframe and hurled a pretty, carved chair from his path. The wrathful beat of his footfalls fell muffled by the mayor's rich carpet. 'Let the blame fall where it's due. My wife was a victim.' He spun on his heel before the black lacquer clothespress, his features clamped still in a control unnerving to witness. 'What does he want?'
NOW he remembers his wife is a victim.
And the use of past tense here makes me very nervous.
Anyway, Kharadmon gives the terms.
'How very wise.' Lysaer matched him back in royal blandness.
'Had Arithon the effrontery to hold her as hostage to force my warhost to draw off, I should have picked apart the earth to spill his blood. No one life can absolve the hundreds of thousands set at risk by his threat to society.'
This bit is a bit weird:
A cruel pause followed. While a stray cat yowled in the lane beneath the balcony, the Fellowship Sorcerer lent his silence to the quandary spurred by the Mist-wraith's meddling. Spirit though he was, and irreverent toward sentiment, he could not but ache for the raw courage of this prince, who stanched his pain with the rags of his honour, and held firm in flawed mercy and conviction.
What courage? What honour? What "flawed mercy"?
I'll grant the conviction part. But I see none of the rest. Not in THIS version of Lysaer anyway.
The entrapment tore the heart, that between Deshthiere's forced directive to kill, and the unrelenting coils of s'Ilessid justice, the life of Lady Talith of Avenor should ever come to be measured against the death of Arithon s'Ffalenn.
Poor Talith.
But anyway, Lysaer is willing to bargain gold for his wife. Kharadmon sets out the terms: no bloodshed on land or sea. No violence on neutral ground. Neither one shall have armies invade with intent to pursue feud or warfare. Arithon's agreed that the Khetienn will hold to peaceful trade while Talith is in his charge.
Lysaer locked stares with the Sorcerer. Too bitterly well he understood that he owned no grounds on which to argue. The insufferable delay being demanded of his warhost could not be avoided, not without straining the loyalty of Talith's brother, who served as his Lord Commander at Arms. Diegan's heart-tied devotion to the cause against the Shadow Master could only lead to unbearable conflict, were his sister to be abandoned as a sacrifice.
One brief second, Lysaer shut his eyes in anguish for the lapse that had let him forge vulnerable ties. Ever and always, his s'Ffalenn enemy would seize on the chance to wring painful advantage out of sentiment.
Poor Talith. Lysaer is more concerned with the effect on Diegan than her. Talith is a moron, and a bitch, but she deserves better than this.
Lysaer swears, but also gives his own message: he'll exact, measure for measure, a personal retaliation for Arithon's action against his lady wife.
Kharadmon actually wins a bit of my affection back for his response:
'That's unworthy,' Kharadmon rebuked in dire warning. 'Send your own courier on matters of feud. When the ransom is raised, the exchange will occur at Ostermere under the hospitality of King Eldir of Havish. The peace will be kept under seal by our Fellowship, and be very sure, prince, that your conduct then befits your claim to royal ancestry.'
Translation: Go fuck yourself.
Anyway, Lysaer smashes a chair and summons Diegan. He yells at him, of course, for the fact that his men are fucking stupid:
'Which of your officers would dare to allow my lady to leave the security of Avenor? She's the most priceless jewel in the kingdom, and she sailed from port with inadequate escort aboard a common merchant ship! The most slipshod trader takes more precautions. Find the men who are at fault. For this grievous lapse in service, let them suffer public flogging and dishonour.'
Hastily clad, the trailing ends of his shirttails all that spared him from stares for the fact that his breeches were unlaced, Lord Diegan clenched his stubbled jaw. If the inference from this outburst meant that Talith was abducted, regardless, he was Etarran enough keep his reason. 'I'll flog no one before I've spoken to my sister.'
I do rather enjoy how well Diegan knows Talith. But seriously, Lysaer, how is this Diegan's fault? He's a genocidal asshole, sure. But he's here. With you.
So anyway, Lysaer rants to an amusingly long-suffering Diegan. But then, things get interesting:
His words came back low and fixed, as if he spoke through his hands. 'Say nothing on behalf of the men! She's your sister. You know her stubborn nature. You're also well-versed with her illogical belief she's invincible and immune to all mishap. I'll not have her reputation sullied over this. The men who are punished for her sake must be made to understand. Try, if you can, to find willing volunteers to bear official blame in her stead.'
'Ath have mercy!' Lord Diegan stepped back and bashed his hip against a marquetry table. As small ornaments scattered and threatened to topple, he scooped with broad hands, then straightened, his rescued clutch of bric-a-brac cradled to his chest as if they were pricelessly sacred. 'You'd shield her from shame, that the subjects you tax to free her won't come to hold her at fault?'
'I must.' His hand on the knurled fitting that hooked the silk bed hangings, Lysaer shut his eyes. The wobble of failing candlelight cast deep brackets at the sides of his mouth. 'She'll be crowned one day as my queen. Tysan's people must respect her.' But the words rang hollow in the close, warm night, even to his best friend's ear.
...s'Ilessid justice in a nutshell.
This is also a bit of foreshadowing for Lysaer's plot in the post Vastmark story-arc. This need to be beyond reproach and have a wife that is beyond reproach. God forbid Talith be actually held accountable.
And to be fair, I think this is an example of how the Mistwraith twisted Lysaer, since he USED to be in favor of personal accountability.
Now, they have to find willing volunteers to "bear official blame". To her credit, I feel like Talith wouldn't want this. She has her pride.
Anyway, Diegan comes to a different conclusion:
Since the disaster to the fleet at Minderl Bay, Lord Diegan was unlikely to miss the details that sketched his prince's state of anguish. 'You truly love her, don't you?' He sidled, juggling glassware, and unburdened the collection on the seat of the overstuffed divan.
'Yes, Ath help me.' Through the fraught, high jangle of discarded crystal, the admission sounded torn through the prince's teeth. The jewels on his collar yoke jerked once, twice, then shivered as he moved to collapse in a chair. Reduced at long last as the grief chased through him and shivered edged sparks in his rings, he admitted, 'I love her well enough to tear my own heart out. But Daelion make me strong, not over this. She cannot and must not weaken me now. I'd be no prince at all unless defence of my people came first. My cause against the Master of Shadow must take precedence, even before her life and safety.'
'Let it never come to that,' Diegan said in braced resolve.
They've got a really fucked up definition of love, these guys.
--
The next subchapter is Springtide.
Oh, this plot
I'm probably not going to excerpt any of this. Basically Lirenda's here for the Waystone. She's here with one hundred and eight Koriani sisters, all focusing their power through the Skyron crystal.
The Skyron is really old in its own right and difficult to use even for Morriel herself. None of the seniors alive now have ever touched the Waystone.
So yeah, magicky stuff. There's a bit where the magic is compared to sex, which is funny given that the Koriani are celibate. (. Its aquamarine lattice transformed from a clear, waiting mirror to a smoky, dark nexus submissive to the First Senior's will. Its potency ran in fine tingles through her body. Her lips parted in anticipation akin to the heady, hot thrill of fierce sex. I mean, we knew from Elaira that the Koriani are dommes.)
We get some info about Althain. It's the oldest site of continuous habitation. Lots of metaphysical importance. All fun to read. Not recapping it though.
Oh, we get to see what Sethvir set up as a greeting:
Foursquare the being stood, like a beast, the boned pillars of its legs flared to silk-haired fetlocks that ended in hooves of cloven horn. Flank and chest were deep as a prize draught horse, but no equine neck arose from the flat-muscled sheen of its forehand. Lirenda tipped back her heart-shaped chin and gazed up, and up; the creature dwarfed her, its mass a tall man's height at the withers. A powerful torso and broad male shoulders reared above, feathered in a mane like flaxen gossamer. The face had human features, bearded like a king lion's, and royally crowned with the branching, tined antlers of a stag.
'Ath's infinite mercy,' Lirenda breathed, humbled before a majesty that reduced her green pride to dust.
It's a ghost of a centaur, Shehane Althain, which is perhaps the first name we've heard that doesn't use the s' thing. (Even Paravian folks had s' names). He must be REALLY old. Anyway, he's the guardian of the tower, his bones are in the foundation. Et cetera.
Lirenda blinked, her dignity eclipsed by wonder for the first time since earliest childhood. 'You were a sacrifice?'
The centaur spirit glowered like a thunderhead. 'Never!' His rebuttal rang in a bell tone too deep for hearing, but the frost-touched grasses underneath its planted hooves shimmered like thrown cullet in vibration. 'My life was a gift freely yielded for necessity, that the sanctuary you came here to violate should stand against trifling ignorance.'
At this, Lirenda bridled. 'I came here, not through folly, but to reclaim from the Fellowship Sorcerers what was never theirs to begin with.'
The centaur bared its teeth in a wolfish snarl. 'The Seven are neither thieves nor hoarders!'
I mean, Sethvir has the stone. He knows what it is and who it belongs to. So dude, you're actually wrong here.
Anyway, the centaur gives a speech about how the Paravians ceded the place to the Fellowship, the granite blocks gave consent to the bindings, et cetera. The gist is, there's no violence allowed here.
Lirenda wants to know how else to make Sethvir give back their stuff.
A terrible, fey light glanced through the spirit's eyes. It stamped a substanceless forehoof, its movement dire elegance, and its strength beyond the pale of reasoned vision. 'Does your order spurn the grace of manners and hospitality! What else should you do but knock at the door I Why not make your request when Althain's Warden is present to admit you! Your timing is regrettable, since Sethvir embarked this morning for the court of King Eldir at Ostermere.'
Really dude? This whole "you should have asked" bit is bullshit. Sethvir KNOWS he has the stone. He KNOWS who it belongs to. Why should the Koriani expect him to just give it back. This isn't a moral lesson here.
Anyway, the fact that Sethvir isn't here is a legitimate obstacle. Lirenda decides to dismiss her colleagues and stay on alone until his return.
Morriel would be livid to know her successor had been forced to bend pride. Yet no choice remained. The latent power of one Ilitharis Paravian brooked no further argument. Lirenda must come to plead a sorcerer's indulgence, or else abandon her charge to return with the order's lost Waystone.
Morriel should probably suck it up. She knows how annoying Sethvir is.
--
So now the sneak peek section, Ring Ripples.
1. Sethvir is at Ostermere and oh, this is a dick move.
Sethvir pauses to chuckle over the success of his spell of illusion, that had tricked the Koriani First Senior to belief she had conversed with the spirit of Althain's dedicated guardian; her limited learning might never reveal the truth: that, had the tower's Warden lacked the foresight to beg a stay of tolerance, her meddling would indeed have raised the ward wrought from the bones of Shehane Althain, and neither she nor her ill-advised circle of accomplices would have escaped with their lives . . .
You smug dick.
2. OOO. Jieret's getting married! He's saying goodbye to Caolle who is being summoned south to Vastmark. He gets a dramatic declaration: " 'Be his shield, Caolle, and go with my blessing, for no other sword would I entrust to safeguard our liege in my place . . .'"
3. Finally, Jinesse and Tharrick are traveling with Erlien's scouts and a herd of cattle and horses into Vastmark. OH, THAT's WHY THE INVENTORY.
Clever!
Anyway, the chapter ends here.
So if you recall the last chapter, Dakar and Arithon saved a boy from a tragic fate. They couldn't save his sister though. But it did give them a chance to make friends, and Arithon actually got laid! Go him.
Anyway, we're told that he recovers his aplomb pretty quickly, though his "vicious verbal style grown the more barbed to drive back Dakar's encroachment on his privacy." He's been making friends with half the tribes in Vastmark. Unfortunately, Dakar's been roped into helping with sheep.
Dakar, by the way, is still sticking to his resolve not to drink. Mostly helped by the fact that the herdsman's alcohol is "a spirit of unparalleled potency, a noisome, sticky liquid hoarded in leather flasks, fermented from wild honey and soured goat's milk." So not really to his taste. We learn a bit more about Vastmark, through Dakar's narrative bitching:
There were reasons why the barren slopes of Vastmark were shunned by travellers and trade. A place of wind-burnished scree and frost-chiselled peaks, the site was only hospitable to wyverns and hawks, without roads or taverns or post stables. Since the nearest house of refined entertainments lay eighty leagues distant in Forthmark, the Mad Prophet dreamed at night of sweet-burning incense, and rouged doxies lounging in silk. By day, he bored himself silly, eating mutton stew and docking lambs' tails and enduring exhaustive rounds of archery.
Arithon, on the other hand, seems to be really enjoying this. I can't blame him really, the poor guy could use a break.
They do still seem kind of married though:
Wet snowfall and sheep leavings made a troublesome mix for a man in need of new boots. Dakar spent sullen hours by lamplight patching rotted leather and burst toe seams, while Arithon reeled out some vengefully cheerful dance time from the strings of his lyranthe.
And apparently, Arithon really vibes with these folk:
More clannishly isolate than the fishing enclave at Merior, and more forthright with their trust, Vastmark tribesfolk saw no harm in the Shadow Master's dry wit. They laughed when he bungled with the dogs and the sheep; their women chaffed him when he tangled the rough yarn they made with drop spindles while the talk circled the fires after dusk. His skill at the butts earned no chuckles at all, but only their sharp-eyed respect. For them, the bow was survival. Few outsiders could best their accuracy, acquired through lifelong practice.
Dakar does have some legitimate concerns though. If they stay on through the lambing season, they'll have some issues. Herdsmen sleep in the meadows then, with ice still on the ground. Fair. Also though, he's concerned about Arithon's liaison with Dalwyn. The tribes have complicated beliefs about fertility after all, and it could be seen as "inviting a bane on the flocks."
They end up staying for a month before Arithon announces his intention to depart. The Shepherds throw him a celebration. It's too short notice for a bonfire, but every herdsman "felt moved to ransack his family tent and donate a flask of strong drink."
AW.
Dakar still hates the alcohol. Arithon does not:
Reclined and obliviously comfortable amid the flea-scratching pack of huge shepherd dogs, Arithon regarded him and laughed. He wore a tribal shirt, patched at the elbows and none too clean, and if he had shaved the past dawn, his hair ran wild for want of cutting. Raffish and bright-eyed, he relished another swig and passed the liquor flask on to the next herdsman. The next thing he said folded everyone else into shrieking fits of mirth.
Look at all that sexy dishevelment. Ms. Wurts, I fear your id is showing.
Anyway, the morning has some fascinating role reversal. Dakar wakes clearheaded, while Arithon is bleary-eyed and rumpled. He does seem up for banter though:
'Diuaithe, man,' swore the archer. 'Last I saw, ye were sprawled by the spring, crooning some lovesong to a kelpie.'
Arithon gave an abandoned smile. 'You know, that's the trouble with drinking. Come the morning, you can never remember their names.'
The herdsmen and herdswomen are all very impressed by how much Arithon drank the night before and there's a palpable camaraderie here, that Arithon had never let himself have in Merior. And of course, there's one more emotional goodbye:
His circle of admirers parted, elbowing one another and chuckling. All showed regret at the leave-taking. One dog grown particularly fond of the Shadow Master whined on the fringes, morose. At the far edge of the circle, amid an isolate jink of bronze, Dalwyn awaited, her cloak hood pulled low over her face, and the anxious release of her half-held breath a feather of white in the cold.
'Will you come back?' she asked. 'Ghedair wished to know.'
Arithon regarded her through a careful pause, touched her cheek, then bent his gaze to encompass the high peaks, fired now like steel raised red from the forge in the first blush of sunrise. 'Lady, tell Ghedair to depend on it.'
Aw. I'm glad. I like Dalwyn.
So they go back to the Talliarthe, which is looking a bit weathered after a month or so. That's okay, so does Arithon. While Dakar makes "the painful discovery that slack grooming did nothing to blunt the edge from Arithon's tongue."
So they get ready to go. This includes making new maps of Vastmark apparently, with special note of valleys and trails and places prone to slides and pasture. This...probably is important.
'We're going to try sheepherding next?' Dakar asked, squeezing past to reach the companionway to dip a bucket of seawater to wash.
Arithon looked up as though he might answer, the flame in the gimballed lamp a ruddy glow over the upswept planes of s'Ffalenn features. Then his gaze brightened and his smile thinned to a scalpel's edge. 'You'll have to guess, if you can.'
Seriously guys, consider hate sex.
The next day, at noon, the Khetienn (Arithon's one brigantine) arrives! With guests...the twins are here! Arithon is decidedly dismayed, though Dakar is gleeful. (Arithon gets him back by stranding him on the sloop for a bit.) Arithon is in trooouble.
But it's worth noting that the kids are fine. As mentioned before, Arithon DOES have control of his people.
Arithon, meanwhile, chats with the hired captain about the area. And it's an interesting contrast to Lysaer and the Brotherhood of Ath. Arithon is skeptical about the idea that this area is haunted by spirits as the man says, but he hears him out. Apparently there's a Second Age ruin on the mainland, and that's what causes the "haunts". Ships wreck "too fast to count" and the waters breed whirlpools.
They discuss the gossip in Innish. Apparently "word of Arithon's deeds" spread. And he may not have the warmest reception. They cryptically mention Arithon's "benefactor". It sounds like he'd borrowed money that he intends to repay with interest. His benefactor isn't worried. And neither is the Captain. Apparently Arithon had warned them ahead of time what was coming, and he DOES still have friends in Innish, "whatever has happened in Southshire."
So what did happen there?
Lysaer.
'Well, Southshire's in Prince Lysaer's pocket,' the hired captain obliged. 'The merchants were already primed to welcome the increased business drummed up by a muster for war. Plain avarice saw to that. Then Lysaer gave a show fit to blind Ath Creator when he entered the main gates of the city. The whole populace turned out to throw flowers in the street to salute his royal cavalcade.'
The tale emerged in full-blown colour as the vintage wine mellowed the captain's nerves; how Lysaer, Lord Commander Diegan, and the dandyish Mearn s'Brydion had swept into Southshire in grand state. The gems and bullion braid on the prince's horse trappings alone had impressed the merchant's wives to goggling awe. The live presence of old blood royalty, all chiselled, pale elegance and guileless good manners, had done much to enliven their winter parties.
Ah, there's the purple prose I'd missed.
Moreover, Lysaer's finished restoring Avenor, and since "no sorcerer has arrived to bring retaliation for the standing stones torn down", he's considered a hero.
...is this another example of the Fellowship lying down on the job? I feel like it is.
Arithon processes the grim news. Basically, once the rumors reach even backwaters like Merior, he's not going to find welcome ANYWHERE on the continent.
And some brotherly contrast:
'Ah, that.' The captain helped himself to more wine and scraped an itch between his shoulders against the bulkhead. 'It was an easy enough conquest, so I heard. Lysaer paid for a festival match.' Details followed in humorous, wry satire. The city garrison had been reduced to blustering incompetence, first by the smoothly perfect drills of the royal officers, then by the hard-bitten mercenaries from Alestron. The shipwrights who had once dealt with Arithon, and received their pay in pale gold, had watched this latest byplay, reserved to nonpartisan silence. But as the coterie around the prince became outspokenly devoted, whispers over shadows and piracy began to circulate. The crisp efficiency that earmarked Arithon's transactions came to be regarded with suspicion in retrospect.
'That mightn't have mattered,' the captain summed up. 'Except the spurning of your interests by Merior's fishermen became the stone that tipped the balance. The folk who ply the nets there are a dour enough lot, but even the galleymen respect them. When those villagers chose to forsake their trust, their opinion was taken as testimony.'
Lysaer is good at playing a crowd, and Arithon's incapable of not sabotaging himself.
But there's more news, this time from Lord Erlien of Shand. He actually WROTE to them, which is apparently a big deal, and not something Dakar remembers happening for a long long time. (It seems to be an inventory list of blooded livestock.)
Everyone's more focused on Lysaer's doings though. Because Lysaer is very good at what he does.
We get some purple prose:
Arithon arose in cat quiet, tipped the livestock list into the lamp flame, and twisted it to and fro to speed its burning. Shadows wheeled across his peaked brows and fanned a demonic caste to his features as he rose and leaned sideward to unlatch the stern window and toss the smouldering spill into the sea.
'Three months,' he mused. Only the Mad Prophet could detect his uneasy irritation as he stared out into the darkness, to the unschooled onlooker, his loose-fitted shirt well masked the tension in his stance.
Interestingly, Dhirken wrote! If you recall, Arithon taught her how to read. Apparently the lessons stuck. And Dhirken has some interesting news: Princess Talith has hired a captain at arms to take her to reunite with Lysaer.
And Lysaer doesn't know she's coming. OH. THIS infamy. Hah.
Moreover, the Khetienn comes with yew. And supplies. And craftsmen. It looks like Arithon is re-founding his shipyard. After spending a lot of this chapter so far assuming Arithon has nefarious plans, Dakar is aghast:
'You cold-blooded bastard!' Dakar hurled at the dark head bent just beyond range of his fist. 'You planned to recruit here all along! The horrible misfortune that befell those two shepherd children just gave you the opening to exploit. How Dalwyn would weep if she knew of your endless, twisted conniving!'
Where's that meme that Copperfyre made for me?
There it is!
See, Yew is a scrap wood on the continent, but it's a priceless commodity in Vastmark. And what Vastmark has, in significant numbers, is ARCHERS. The best on the continent.
And who's going to pay them?
Arithon countered in diamond-bright malice. 'Lysaer's going to pay them. Fine gold. When the tide crests at dawn, I'm going to ply the time-honoured trade of my family.'
A pirate is as a pirate does.
--
We shift scenes to Princess Talith of Avenor. She's not a fan of sea travel as it happens. But she doesn't have much of a choice. She'd encountered surprising difficulty getting here.
Her plan to rejoin her royal husband in Southshire had suffered rough setbacks since the grizzled veteran captain in command of the city garrison gave flat refusal to provide her with suitable escort.
Thwarted in her efforts to gain the deference which should have been royalty's due, informed in blunt language that her prince's loyal officers would enforce his direct wish to keep her home, Princess Talith resorted to subterfuge.
...hm.
Interesting isn't it. We've been told that Lysaer couldn't possibly stop his army from mistreating captives and tribesmen. But here, this sounds a lot more like Arithon's dynamic with his own men. They ARE able to obey him when it comes to something he actually cares about.
However, the younger officers ARE susceptible to Talith's charms. And so she goes, changing ships three times to throw off pursuit. Now, she's made it to King Eldir of Havish's port "Cheivalt".
There's some nice description of her ship:
The vessel she engaged from King Eldir's port of Cheivalt was a dowdy merchant brig with scuffed paint and slack stays named the Arrow. Laden to her load line with baled fleece and hides from the Carithwyr steppelands, and barrels of tallow, wax, and rum, she reeked in the damp. Odours from the penned hogs that had been her last deck cargo seemed permanently ingrained in her planking. The sailhands were given to layabout habits and a hatred of the purser's watchmen, who caught them swaggering through the hold at odd hours, singing, or fist swinging, or morose, as the whims of stolen drink moved them. Arrow's master was a rotund, cheerful man with pouched cheeks and a pug nose. He kept a rat-skinny mate who wore a fixed grin, even when prodded to mete out each morning's round of ship's discipline.
I do love these descriptions.
I also like this bit:
Lady Talith did not keep to her cabin as the captain of the Arrow clearly wished. The stupefying impact of her beauty fouled his sail drills. Amid the watchful presence of her liveried men-at-arms, and a handmaid with no stomach for coarse company, the princess strolled topside each day. The leers and the slangs she met unflinching, her Etarran bent for intrigue quick to sort out the byplay between those in authority and their underlings. The Arrow's first mate was slack with the whip. His sailhands scarcely took his floggings to heart, but did as they pleased; another drunken sailor would stagger through his watch come the evening.
So anyway, these dudes are about to get attacked by pirates. And to her credit, Talith knows that this is bad. She urges the captain to engage whatever defenses they have. For his part, the captain doesn't see a problem. No pirate would risk execution for such a basic haul as theirs.
Talith points out that her husband has enemies, but the Captain notes that Havish is firmly neutral.
Hilariously even Arithon's SHIP gets some purple prose:
He was wrong, Talith sensed. The oncoming vessel breasted the sea's edge to show taut-bellied, tanbark sails and a line as lean-waisted as a wasp. The heading she held was a falcon's stoop, straight for the isolated brig.
...someone's horny here. Not sure if it's Talith or Ms. Wurts. EITHER WAY.
So anyway, they're in the middle of pooh-poohing the threat when suddenly "darkness clapped down, soundless and dense as felted sable."
IT'S THE IN-LAWS.
Or one, at least.
The brigantine's prey was never chosen by mistake. Set after by shadows and fell sorcery, the Arrow floundered through the darkness like a wing-broken dove before a snake. Her mouldered chests of crossbows howed their dearth of handling, even for routine firing and maintenance to clean the rust off their latch pins. Lent no hope to repel boarders, afraid her person was the prize for an appalling set of stakes, Talith snatched her only chance. She must tuck herself away, and hope the Arrow's loutish crewmen would establish through incompetence that they worked a cheap-rate hauler of no consequence.
Above the din of wild cries and running feet, Lady Talith gave orders to her bodyguard. 'Strip off your surcoats and disarm. Pretend you're common sailors when the Shadow Master boards us. Let no one mention my presence.'
Um. Talith. I admire your spirit, but slight issue here. Why do you think they're attacking? They already know you're here.
Talith may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but she definitely has courage and a strong will.
Her handmaid crouched in paralysed despair on her berth. 'Your Grace, we're to die. That cruel spinner of darkness will spill our poor blood for use in his unclean rites of magecraft.'
'Hush, that's ridiculous.' Talith grabbed her servant's wrists and bullied her onto her feet. 'I met the s'Ffalenn prince years ago in Etarra. He's wily, yes. A hard man to know, but no fool to murder a hostage who's of far better use to him alive.' Too late to regret that as a weapon to bend her royal husband from his purpose, her captivity would lend an edge without parallel.
...you know what's interesting about this?
She's not wrong. In fact, that's probably one of the most clear-headed evaluations of Arithon that we get from anyone on Lysaer's side.
There's no doubt that Talith is on Lysaer's side, but it sounds like she hasn't really bought into his propaganda either. She's with him because she loves him. And because Arithon is an enemy of Etarra. But she doesn't seem to think he's evil incarnate.
She's like the s'Brydions in a way. She's got far too strong a sense of self to fall for the crowd techniques. (I think Diegan, on the other hand, is far weaker willed.)
So anyway, she tries to hide herself and her maid in a locker. The maid is quivering and frightened, but Talith is holding up well. She basically hears the invasion as it happens.
And there IS some bloodshed:
Movement flurried topside. A bowstring whined. An eruption of shouted insults came whipcut by a hiss as an arrow creased the air. The shot struck to the sickening, dull thump of a broadhead into flesh. The planks overhead thudded to the weight of a fallen body. Wet gasps ripped through an unseen victim's torn throat.
Then the brig veered off station to a scream of freed cables as her wheel took charge, untended.
'That's a warning!' an incisive voice called through the bedlam. 'Deliver your passenger into my care and nobody else needs to die.'
The accent recalled memories from the Fellowship's failed king-making, except that spiked, cold ring of authority had never been heard from the prince brought for his crowning at Etarra. The tone prickled the hair at the nape of Talith's neck. She squeezed her eyes closed and drew a stifled breath. Any second, she imagined the brig's pudgy captain would give way and spill word of her presence. Defenceless and mute with apprehension, she waited alongside her trembling maid for the bargain to be struck for her person.
...actually though, he doesn't turn her in. He ends up carted off to be gently imprisoned in his quarters.
There's an unnecessary bit here, to remind us of Arithon's Past Suffering:
As captive and escort thrashed down the companionway but a plank's width from the bulkhead of the locker, she felt the jounced impact of fists and shoulders, then overheard a moaning complaint over lashings tied hurtfully tight.
'Aye well,' groused a sailor in a slurred southcoast accent, 'lucky for you it's not wire. You see the scars on yon devil captain's wrists? No? Somebody in his life maltreated him so. Fortune's with you, he's not one for grudges.'
'Pipe down!' a companion said in a clotted whisper. 'He hears you gossip, you'll rue it. Unholy fires o' Sithaer are nothing to the heat he can raise with his tongue.'
The first mate ends up coming into the room, even looking into the locker! He doesn't seem to notice her presence though. And then, it sounds like, the pirates are leaving!
Oh Talith, you're such a moron.
She manages to wait a while longer, then pushes her way out of the locker:
A courteous touch grasped her elbow and spared her a tripping sprawl onto her knees. 'I'm overjoyed, Lady Talith,' said a pleased, superb voice. 'Welcome to the company of your closest kinsman by marriage.'
In-laws.
I kind of love their dynamic:
'You!' She jerked from his touch. 'Sorcerer! Defiler! How many spells did you invoke to discover my presence on board?'
'My dear!' Arithon said in the acidrwiped sarcasm he wore like an armour of enamel; then he laughed. 'Why trifle with sorcery? Arrow's partridge of a captain would scarcely sport trunks of silk dresses. Profits from tallow were never so grand that merchants' mates should toss lady's bracelets on the floor. Nor do they wear scent like attar of roses.' This said, he tucked into her stiffened fingers the snagged links of gold the latch pin had torn from her wrist.
'This ship flies the colours of Cheivalt registry,' Talith flared. 'King Eldir's peace has been broken.'
'Quite the contrary.' Arithon s'Ffalenn drew her on in exquisite formality toward the open companionway. As checkered light from the hatch grating feathered across her flushed cheeks, he paused through a second of admiration. She had always been stunning, the more so now, with her fine hair tousled as though she had just arisen from tempestuous sport in a love nest. 'The King of Havish's subjects are unharmed. This brig and her cargo are untouched. Your jewels were enough to satisfy us all, and your company I've claimed for myself.' He cast a smiling glance behind as the oilskins rustled in the locker. 'Tell your handmaid to come out. Nobody's planning to abandon her.'
Arithon, you're such a delightful asshole.
The Arithon-Talith dynamic reminds me a lot of how Brenda and Jason used to interact on General Hospital (post-amnesia), any time they were forced to share each other's company. I'd always found them very entertaining.
Anyway, Talith points out that he'd murdered the brig's helmsman. But actually:
Beneath the Arrow's abandoned wheel lay the victim of that fatal, first crossbow bolt. Not one of the brig's indifferent seamen after all, but the untried young captain from Avenor that Princess Talith had persuaded to lead her escort. In an uncontrolled sprawl that seemed all boyish knuckles, he rested on his back. His chin was tipped to the sky. The chest which had no tan, that no fool could mistake for a sailhand's, forever stilled in its blood from the quarrel which had severed his life untimely.
The princess spun to confront her hysterical handmaid. 'Be quiet!' She struck the flighty woman on the cheek to stop the sobbing. Regal despite her extreme pallor, her every movement scored in light by the dazzle of gold thread embroidery, the princess went on to upbraid the Master of Shadow in stinging fury. 'What you have done is an outrage! I see no reason and no right for you to slaughter my guard captain outright.'
The dangerous, deep glitter to Arithon's eyes acquired a glint like a forge spark. 'Your captain at arms received his due, madam. You should have been proud. He refused to stand down with his fellows. Certainly my bolt was an easier death than the punishment your prince would mete out to an officer who allowed you to place yourself at risk.'
...he's not wrong. And even Talith can't really deny that.
The fact that Arithon did kill the man, or order him killed, is pretty interesting as a character beat. After three books and god knows how many pages, we know Arithon pretty well. And I'm not sure I can think of a time when he just ordered someone dead like this. (This is not to say that Arithon hasn't killed people. He has, of course. But not like this.)
It's an interesting commonality with Lysaer, perhaps. They ARE both princes after all...
Before her fired, speechless rage could erupt, he cut back in withering irony. 'What? No scathing defence of the vaunted s'Ilessid justice? Should I write his Grace a letter absolving your other guardsmen of incompetence? Rusty weapons can't defend. Warped shafts in the hands of this brig's sorry archers are no use at all against shadow.' His voice whetted to a bard's stabbing satire, he added, 'Your young idiot of a captain got what he deserved, but the fault lies with you, princess, for your choice of a ship with slack discipline and ridiculously inadequate defences! With the rumour of your passage all over the south reaches, you're much more than lucky it's my hospitality you'll come to suffer for your folly.'
Taut in every tendon, Talith felt her cheeks flame pink. No male alive ever dealt her such a verbal public thrashing. The novelty made her strike out to slap for sheer insolence. Arithon could have ducked the blow with ease. He chose not to; her hand cracked his cheek and left stinging imprint, and his cold-cast expression never changed. Clad in a sailor's bleached cottons, his untrimmed hair tied back with a loop of leather thong, Arithon s'Ffalenn had never looked more the product of his heritage as the mountebank by-blow of a sea raider.
The trick was galling, that for one disjointed second, Talith thought she saw something more. Almost, she believed his barbaric sally was meted out against her as chastisement, as if he cared whether she took harm from ruffians for her rash impulse to rejoin her husband's company.
Then her hauteur came back like poured frost as she recalled just who this man was; what power he strove to gain in his bid to steal her as hostage. 'You won't get away with this.'
The thing about Talith is that, while she's a moron. She's a moron because she's never really been pushed to be anything else. She's spent her life in luxury and privilege, in a society where women get to do very little of substance. Her sole power is in her looks and her sex appeal, and she's weaponized them very well.
She's beautiful, intimidating and socially powerful, and because of that, she's never really been called out or forced to think about her behavior. And Lysaer, probably the one person with the social clout to do so, isn't interested. I actually feel a little sorry for Talith. If she'd grown up somewhere else...in the clan, in Merior, even in Vastmark. Hell, if she'd been scouted by the Koriani. Maybe she'd have grown into a better person.
Anyway, of course Arithon's getting away with it. He even carries her over the board that bridges the Arrow to the Khetienn:
Before trepidation could weaken her pride, Arithon bent, caught her up behind shoulders and knees, and lofted her into his arms. They were matched in height and bone. The fact that her trimmed skirt and petticoats draped a choking froth about his knees had small impact on his balance. While Talith stiffened, then thrashed, he slung his thigh across the rail, perched to swing his other leg clear, then straightened, poised with her bundled over air. Unwilling to risk a wetting, Talith let him bear her, though she cursed like a sailor against his neck while he footed his way across to his vessel. He set her down as his prize on the deck, where her chests of belongings sat waiting.
She found herself greeted by a thunderous cheer from his crewmen.
Regal in arrogance, from the looped snags of hair unreeled like gold wire in the breeze, to her high cheekbones and milk-pale profile, to the tigerish, black-lashed eyes that no man could meet and not ache to possess, the princess snatched her skirts against the slap of the wind. She presented the leering men the stiff line of her back, while her shrieking maid was bundled across the gap by a sailhand and deposited unharmed beside her.
Despite every warning, the brigantine's seamen slacked off their duties to gawk at Lysaer's royal wife.
The gawking doesn't last long though. Arithon sees to that. (I enjoy how Talith also has the power of purple prose.)
Talith thinks that he's harsh to his crewmen. He says he does no less than he must. And we see a battle of wills. And prose:
His match for cool distance, Talith showed her contempt. 'Then what motive prompts my abduction, necessity or whim?'
Charcoal-dark eyebrows turned up, and a curl of amusement flicked his lips. No word did he say, but his study of her turned intent.
Talith stood firm. Beauty was her weapon, used to cut or cajole or emasculate. She had handled randy suitors enough to welcome the edge. But this man's gaze traced her face for too long. She coloured; and his eyes raked down into detailed regard of her pearl-crusted neckline, jerked now to the heave of her breath. His study lingered over her fine shoulders, her breasts, her gold-cinctured waist, then travelled lower, where the arrowed folds of her airy silk skirts lay pressed to her thighs by the shameless play of the wind.
On a paper-thin edge of courtesy, Arithon struck. 'My motive is scarcely yours to question, is it?' He fingered a strand of her taffy gold hair and tucked it behind a loosened pin. 'The shame won't be mine, dear lady. You disobeyed your husband's instructions for your safety. Now you've no choice at all but to answer the ugly score.'
Don't worry, he's just proving a point. He asks if she's going to claim the courtesy of kinship.
Talith stepped beside him, her regard stony topaz with bored scorn. 'Do I look to be pleading you for mercy?'
'Magnificent as that sounds, it won't be.necessary,' Arithon said in that maddening friendliness that defied all opening for riposte. 'You've merely been foolish. My need is for gold. To that end, you're nothing but a tool offered readily to my hand. Lysaer shall have you back, scolding and virtuous, but the ransom he shall pay for my forbearance will be to the coin weight what you're worth.'
I really do love their dynamic.
Anyway, Talith is outraged. He sets her up in "lavish comfort" in the nicer of the Khetienn's cabins. His own.
However hard she searched for some trait to revile, for some noisome proof of dire charms and dark sorceries, her effort was stymied by order. The tiny cabin was as bare of frivolous ornament as the man. The furnishings were selected for functional efficiency, in mirror image a forceful statement of a commander's expectations of performance from his crew and his ship. No trace could be found of carelessness in the rolled charts, the folded blankets, or the firmly inked lines of the logbook braced on the ledge by the locker employed for a desk.
Talith slammed the ship's record shut in savage irritation. A sparkle of silver hooked her glance in the gloom: the lined, taut strings of the Masterbard's lyranthe, lashed with soft ties to its pegs in a glass-fronted cabinet.
That one silent testimony to the art behind the pirate made the pain of her predicament intolerable.
'Damn your black heart to Sithaer!' she cursed her absent captor. For his subtleties were deep, and ever cruel. Talith knew he would apply every leverage her straits could inflict upon Lysaer. Love and hurt cracked her last veneer of poise. The princess hid her face, the unwanted tears she had held through the worst threading helplessly down her proud cheeks.
She notices her handmaid staring and shouts at her to leave. The maid crumples crying instead, and Talith has the " traitorous sharp wish that her own servants would respond to her orders with the fearful efficiency just witnessed on Arithon's quarterdeck."
--
The next subchapter is Messenger:
Ugh. Here we rejoin Kharadmon as he's dropping by Althain Tower. He's very surprised to find Sethvir laughing. But of course "the likely reason for his lapse was no mystery to another Fellowship sorcerer".
So they have an exchange that amounts to "What's Arithon done now?" "Kidnapped Lysaer's wife."
It's a shame they didn't keep up to date with Maenalle, Jieret and the others.
That said, the Fellowship have apparently decided to be useful for once. Sethvir asks Kharadmon to go inform Lysaer. Okay, yeah, that would be pretty fun.
The ransom is five hundred thousand coin weight. The exchange will occur on neutral ground under Fellowship auspices in King Eldir's court at Ostermere.
Kharadmon is delighted, noting: The s'Ilessid prince scarcely needs to be humoured. He should've known his own lady for a spirited creature too resourceful to be abandoned to neglect.
Meanwhile, Sethvir is left behind to do a vision quest. And well:
Unbidden, his awareness fanned out over distance to sound the movements of armies and the doings of men, tracing the ring ripple chain of circumstance the abduction of Lady Talith must set off. Vision revealed the milling march of armies through thawed mud on the scarp-shadowed road above Jaelot. Sethvir saw the beaked prows of galleys docked in rows beneath the city breakwaters, and heard the snap of ox drovers' whips as provisions and arms were rolled to the quayside for loading. Then that scene gave way to a thousand other views from which one yet to come stood out with jewelled clarity. On a ring of blue water in the Westland Sea, the Sorcerer saw a lone fishing smack sail, flamboyantly adorned with lettering; then in linked sequence, chest after chest of coins lying silted in gloom.
The bullion to redeem Lady Talith could do nothing else but underwrite a renewed round of violence.
...well, yeah. What did you THINK would happen?
Apparently the premonitions of conflict had "increased relentlessly" since Arithon fled Merior. Gosh, you mean it? What are the odds that now that you've made Arithon swear an oath to survive, he's going to have to try to fight back and survive?
Oh, by the way, the Koriani are coming to visit as well:
Spring equinox was two days hence. From the time-worn flagstones where he stood, the Sorcerer sensed the stately turn of the stars, and beneath them a gathering dissonance: so tuned was his perception, he could hear and wince for the enslaved resonance of one hundred and eight individual quartz crystals. These were worn on silver chains by the Koriani enchantresses gathered to assist First Senior Lirenda in the task appointed by their Prime. The order's most skilled initiates trudged north in a body on the Isaer road, their destination Althain Tower. To Sethvir's jaundiced eye, the women's cloaked forms were less welcome than a flock of starving vultures.
He disliked very little underneath Ath's wide sky, but the affairs of Koriani were as thorns set under his skin.
I mean, you do have their stupid rock.
--
so we rejoin Lysaer. Who is indeed, lavishly described:
Night lay like dusky velvet over the torchlit spires and steep, shingled roofs of Southshire. Lysaer s'Ilessid stood with his hands on the alabaster railing of the Supreme Mayor's south-facing balcony. The distant dance of flames spat an imprint like sparks over his chased royal circlet. The nap of his state velvets swallowed his outline, deep indigo as midnight, pricked only at cuff and collar with the glint of fine jewels and seed pearls. This evening's banquet with the obliging southcoast guild ministers had raised the prince to gnawing discontent.
He's feeling restless. They've been pretty good at collecting rumors and hearsay, and they now think that Arithon is somewhere in the Cascain Isles. (Vastmark, so he's correct.)
A supremely frustrating target to attack; and a fiendish turn of strategy for an enemy hunted as a fugitive. The broken, rocky channels off the Vastmark coastline presented a mariner's nightmare. That reef-ridden shore was no place to risk a war fleet under threat of attack by sorcery and shadows.
The strike force sent to flush Arithon s'Ffalenn must be prepared to face the ugliest contingencies. Given any loophole, left even one unguarded cove, and their quarry would slip through their fingers again and make clean escape out to sea. The headland itself offered no less ready a haven, riddled as it was with scarps and ravines, and a thousand cliff-walled, hidden corries.
That's why he picked it, I'd reckon.
Anyway, Lysaer is also disquieted because he keeps thinking about the hostel, and how the adept "with her insidious web of illusions had nearly swayed him off course." He's got these lingering doubts.
He is weighing the facts. The delay is working against him, giving Arithon more time to plan. And Lysaer's learned from Minderl Bay that he needs to be cautious rather than baited into bloodshed.
Patience became an unsubtle form of torment. His elbow braced against the marble finial of the balustrade, the Prince of the West laced aching fingers through his hair. He took no joy from the mild, southland climate while his warhost wrestled the mud and the thaws on roads unsuitable for travel. His thoughts could but drift, and wonder how they fared, while around him, hanging smoke hazed the rooftops, tanged from the vats in the craft quarter sheds where resins were rendered into turpentine.
It's interesting how he cares about his men. Not enough to forgo luxury, but still.
Anyway, he eventually feels like there's someone watching his back. It's Kharadmon of course. And Lysaer tries to stab him, and well, I can't really blame him here. If he wasn't a genocidal maniac, I'd cheer.
Kharadmon is discorporate though, so it does nothing. Lysaer lights up the room:
Exposed for what he was in that white, actinic glare - unbanished and gloriously amused - the projected image of the Sorcerer Kharadmon advanced with a duellist's adroit step. Slim, fox-featured, and roguishly attired in a slashed and belted green doublet, he flicked narrow fingers over his spade black beard like a barrister served dubious evidence. 'If I were a bat or a mole, I'd be most impressively blinded. Since I'm not, you can desist. If the Mayor of Southshire's palace has cockroaches, they're certainly all scared to ground.'
Lysaer recovered his wits and quelled the outpouring brilliance of his talent. Too self-possessed for embarrassment, too annoyed to apologize, he showed the diplomacy of his ancestry and refused to let baiting raise his temper. 'You're certainly fond of dramatic appearances. I trust you've brought news of importance?' His sword filled the pause with a sullen ring as he slid it back in his scabbard.
I kind of like this dynamic here. Lysaer gets cranky when he's dealing with people who don't adore him.
Kharadmon pounced as the hilt snicked home. 'Your landing at Merior was restrained?'
'No one died,' Lysaer said, silkenly civil. 'For a village that harboured the works of a criminal, some would applaud my restraint. If you're sent here as a Fellowship messenger, I'll thank you to attend your proper office.'
Impervious to insult as a carp in a pool, Kharadmon raised an elegant, straight eyebrow. 'You've been tallying an impressive train of allegiances while your city goes to seed in your absence.'
Fair point. How IS Avenor?
'You accuse me of neglect in Tysan?'
'Convict,' Kharadmon corrected crisply. 'While you raise your hound pack to run down the leopard, your quarry's played havoc in the henyard.'
So time for the reveal.
Kharadmon rebutted, 'The one which matters has yet to come through.' He paused to test a poise as contained in appearance as any shown by Halduin, founding father of the s'Ilessid royal line.
Lysaer stayed his grief. The sapphire collar laid over his shoulders flashed only once, the sparkle of his gemstones like frost against velvets rendered starlessly deep by the shadows.
He received the news in arrested silence as Kharadmon dealt the crowning blow. 'Arithon s'Ffalenn captured a merchant ship called the Arrow, engaged to bear your wife south. Evidently the princess grew bored with your absence. Your letters made your affairs in Alland sound tranquil enough that she believed a surprise visit would be safe.'
And Lysaer's reaction is...interesting:
A flush scalded over Lysaer's cheekbones. His chest moved and restarted the interrupted rhythm of his breathing. The living moment when his royal gift of justice became fire and shield for the workings of Desh-thiere's geas stood clear as transparent glass to the watching eye of the Sorcerer.
The prince spoke at length, his words like sheared quartz, uncoloured by grief or compassion. 'She's lightheaded as a dove, of course. When did this happen? I should know when to toast the bastard litter.'
WOW.
Poor Talith. THIS is what your husband actually thinks of you.
And of course, Lysaer's perspective is colored by his own family. But similar names aside, Talith isn't Talera. Arithon isn't Avar. And Lysaer owes his wife an apology.
And for the first time, I find myself in complete agreement with a Fellowship sorcerer:
Kharadmon's image intensified at the edges until he seemed a form etched in air by spilled acid. 'You're an ungenerous husband.'
I don't like this feeling. Fuck you, Lysaer.
Anyway, Kharadmon defends Talith's honor, stating she's suffered a great loss of pride at Arithon's hand. Nothing more.
So Lysaer switches gears here:
Dangerous in adversity as a wounded lion, Lysaer sidestepped the well of cold that bounded the Sorcerer's presence. He crossed the mahogany runner that braced the sliding doorframe and hurled a pretty, carved chair from his path. The wrathful beat of his footfalls fell muffled by the mayor's rich carpet. 'Let the blame fall where it's due. My wife was a victim.' He spun on his heel before the black lacquer clothespress, his features clamped still in a control unnerving to witness. 'What does he want?'
NOW he remembers his wife is a victim.
And the use of past tense here makes me very nervous.
Anyway, Kharadmon gives the terms.
'How very wise.' Lysaer matched him back in royal blandness.
'Had Arithon the effrontery to hold her as hostage to force my warhost to draw off, I should have picked apart the earth to spill his blood. No one life can absolve the hundreds of thousands set at risk by his threat to society.'
This bit is a bit weird:
A cruel pause followed. While a stray cat yowled in the lane beneath the balcony, the Fellowship Sorcerer lent his silence to the quandary spurred by the Mist-wraith's meddling. Spirit though he was, and irreverent toward sentiment, he could not but ache for the raw courage of this prince, who stanched his pain with the rags of his honour, and held firm in flawed mercy and conviction.
What courage? What honour? What "flawed mercy"?
I'll grant the conviction part. But I see none of the rest. Not in THIS version of Lysaer anyway.
The entrapment tore the heart, that between Deshthiere's forced directive to kill, and the unrelenting coils of s'Ilessid justice, the life of Lady Talith of Avenor should ever come to be measured against the death of Arithon s'Ffalenn.
Poor Talith.
But anyway, Lysaer is willing to bargain gold for his wife. Kharadmon sets out the terms: no bloodshed on land or sea. No violence on neutral ground. Neither one shall have armies invade with intent to pursue feud or warfare. Arithon's agreed that the Khetienn will hold to peaceful trade while Talith is in his charge.
Lysaer locked stares with the Sorcerer. Too bitterly well he understood that he owned no grounds on which to argue. The insufferable delay being demanded of his warhost could not be avoided, not without straining the loyalty of Talith's brother, who served as his Lord Commander at Arms. Diegan's heart-tied devotion to the cause against the Shadow Master could only lead to unbearable conflict, were his sister to be abandoned as a sacrifice.
One brief second, Lysaer shut his eyes in anguish for the lapse that had let him forge vulnerable ties. Ever and always, his s'Ffalenn enemy would seize on the chance to wring painful advantage out of sentiment.
Poor Talith. Lysaer is more concerned with the effect on Diegan than her. Talith is a moron, and a bitch, but she deserves better than this.
Lysaer swears, but also gives his own message: he'll exact, measure for measure, a personal retaliation for Arithon's action against his lady wife.
Kharadmon actually wins a bit of my affection back for his response:
'That's unworthy,' Kharadmon rebuked in dire warning. 'Send your own courier on matters of feud. When the ransom is raised, the exchange will occur at Ostermere under the hospitality of King Eldir of Havish. The peace will be kept under seal by our Fellowship, and be very sure, prince, that your conduct then befits your claim to royal ancestry.'
Translation: Go fuck yourself.
Anyway, Lysaer smashes a chair and summons Diegan. He yells at him, of course, for the fact that his men are fucking stupid:
'Which of your officers would dare to allow my lady to leave the security of Avenor? She's the most priceless jewel in the kingdom, and she sailed from port with inadequate escort aboard a common merchant ship! The most slipshod trader takes more precautions. Find the men who are at fault. For this grievous lapse in service, let them suffer public flogging and dishonour.'
Hastily clad, the trailing ends of his shirttails all that spared him from stares for the fact that his breeches were unlaced, Lord Diegan clenched his stubbled jaw. If the inference from this outburst meant that Talith was abducted, regardless, he was Etarran enough keep his reason. 'I'll flog no one before I've spoken to my sister.'
I do rather enjoy how well Diegan knows Talith. But seriously, Lysaer, how is this Diegan's fault? He's a genocidal asshole, sure. But he's here. With you.
So anyway, Lysaer rants to an amusingly long-suffering Diegan. But then, things get interesting:
His words came back low and fixed, as if he spoke through his hands. 'Say nothing on behalf of the men! She's your sister. You know her stubborn nature. You're also well-versed with her illogical belief she's invincible and immune to all mishap. I'll not have her reputation sullied over this. The men who are punished for her sake must be made to understand. Try, if you can, to find willing volunteers to bear official blame in her stead.'
'Ath have mercy!' Lord Diegan stepped back and bashed his hip against a marquetry table. As small ornaments scattered and threatened to topple, he scooped with broad hands, then straightened, his rescued clutch of bric-a-brac cradled to his chest as if they were pricelessly sacred. 'You'd shield her from shame, that the subjects you tax to free her won't come to hold her at fault?'
'I must.' His hand on the knurled fitting that hooked the silk bed hangings, Lysaer shut his eyes. The wobble of failing candlelight cast deep brackets at the sides of his mouth. 'She'll be crowned one day as my queen. Tysan's people must respect her.' But the words rang hollow in the close, warm night, even to his best friend's ear.
...s'Ilessid justice in a nutshell.
This is also a bit of foreshadowing for Lysaer's plot in the post Vastmark story-arc. This need to be beyond reproach and have a wife that is beyond reproach. God forbid Talith be actually held accountable.
And to be fair, I think this is an example of how the Mistwraith twisted Lysaer, since he USED to be in favor of personal accountability.
Now, they have to find willing volunteers to "bear official blame". To her credit, I feel like Talith wouldn't want this. She has her pride.
Anyway, Diegan comes to a different conclusion:
Since the disaster to the fleet at Minderl Bay, Lord Diegan was unlikely to miss the details that sketched his prince's state of anguish. 'You truly love her, don't you?' He sidled, juggling glassware, and unburdened the collection on the seat of the overstuffed divan.
'Yes, Ath help me.' Through the fraught, high jangle of discarded crystal, the admission sounded torn through the prince's teeth. The jewels on his collar yoke jerked once, twice, then shivered as he moved to collapse in a chair. Reduced at long last as the grief chased through him and shivered edged sparks in his rings, he admitted, 'I love her well enough to tear my own heart out. But Daelion make me strong, not over this. She cannot and must not weaken me now. I'd be no prince at all unless defence of my people came first. My cause against the Master of Shadow must take precedence, even before her life and safety.'
'Let it never come to that,' Diegan said in braced resolve.
They've got a really fucked up definition of love, these guys.
--
The next subchapter is Springtide.
Oh, this plot
I'm probably not going to excerpt any of this. Basically Lirenda's here for the Waystone. She's here with one hundred and eight Koriani sisters, all focusing their power through the Skyron crystal.
The Skyron is really old in its own right and difficult to use even for Morriel herself. None of the seniors alive now have ever touched the Waystone.
So yeah, magicky stuff. There's a bit where the magic is compared to sex, which is funny given that the Koriani are celibate. (. Its aquamarine lattice transformed from a clear, waiting mirror to a smoky, dark nexus submissive to the First Senior's will. Its potency ran in fine tingles through her body. Her lips parted in anticipation akin to the heady, hot thrill of fierce sex. I mean, we knew from Elaira that the Koriani are dommes.)
We get some info about Althain. It's the oldest site of continuous habitation. Lots of metaphysical importance. All fun to read. Not recapping it though.
Oh, we get to see what Sethvir set up as a greeting:
Foursquare the being stood, like a beast, the boned pillars of its legs flared to silk-haired fetlocks that ended in hooves of cloven horn. Flank and chest were deep as a prize draught horse, but no equine neck arose from the flat-muscled sheen of its forehand. Lirenda tipped back her heart-shaped chin and gazed up, and up; the creature dwarfed her, its mass a tall man's height at the withers. A powerful torso and broad male shoulders reared above, feathered in a mane like flaxen gossamer. The face had human features, bearded like a king lion's, and royally crowned with the branching, tined antlers of a stag.
'Ath's infinite mercy,' Lirenda breathed, humbled before a majesty that reduced her green pride to dust.
It's a ghost of a centaur, Shehane Althain, which is perhaps the first name we've heard that doesn't use the s' thing. (Even Paravian folks had s' names). He must be REALLY old. Anyway, he's the guardian of the tower, his bones are in the foundation. Et cetera.
Lirenda blinked, her dignity eclipsed by wonder for the first time since earliest childhood. 'You were a sacrifice?'
The centaur spirit glowered like a thunderhead. 'Never!' His rebuttal rang in a bell tone too deep for hearing, but the frost-touched grasses underneath its planted hooves shimmered like thrown cullet in vibration. 'My life was a gift freely yielded for necessity, that the sanctuary you came here to violate should stand against trifling ignorance.'
At this, Lirenda bridled. 'I came here, not through folly, but to reclaim from the Fellowship Sorcerers what was never theirs to begin with.'
The centaur bared its teeth in a wolfish snarl. 'The Seven are neither thieves nor hoarders!'
I mean, Sethvir has the stone. He knows what it is and who it belongs to. So dude, you're actually wrong here.
Anyway, the centaur gives a speech about how the Paravians ceded the place to the Fellowship, the granite blocks gave consent to the bindings, et cetera. The gist is, there's no violence allowed here.
Lirenda wants to know how else to make Sethvir give back their stuff.
A terrible, fey light glanced through the spirit's eyes. It stamped a substanceless forehoof, its movement dire elegance, and its strength beyond the pale of reasoned vision. 'Does your order spurn the grace of manners and hospitality! What else should you do but knock at the door I Why not make your request when Althain's Warden is present to admit you! Your timing is regrettable, since Sethvir embarked this morning for the court of King Eldir at Ostermere.'
Really dude? This whole "you should have asked" bit is bullshit. Sethvir KNOWS he has the stone. He KNOWS who it belongs to. Why should the Koriani expect him to just give it back. This isn't a moral lesson here.
Anyway, the fact that Sethvir isn't here is a legitimate obstacle. Lirenda decides to dismiss her colleagues and stay on alone until his return.
Morriel would be livid to know her successor had been forced to bend pride. Yet no choice remained. The latent power of one Ilitharis Paravian brooked no further argument. Lirenda must come to plead a sorcerer's indulgence, or else abandon her charge to return with the order's lost Waystone.
Morriel should probably suck it up. She knows how annoying Sethvir is.
--
So now the sneak peek section, Ring Ripples.
1. Sethvir is at Ostermere and oh, this is a dick move.
Sethvir pauses to chuckle over the success of his spell of illusion, that had tricked the Koriani First Senior to belief she had conversed with the spirit of Althain's dedicated guardian; her limited learning might never reveal the truth: that, had the tower's Warden lacked the foresight to beg a stay of tolerance, her meddling would indeed have raised the ward wrought from the bones of Shehane Althain, and neither she nor her ill-advised circle of accomplices would have escaped with their lives . . .
You smug dick.
2. OOO. Jieret's getting married! He's saying goodbye to Caolle who is being summoned south to Vastmark. He gets a dramatic declaration: " 'Be his shield, Caolle, and go with my blessing, for no other sword would I entrust to safeguard our liege in my place . . .'"
3. Finally, Jinesse and Tharrick are traveling with Erlien's scouts and a herd of cattle and horses into Vastmark. OH, THAT's WHY THE INVENTORY.
Clever!
Anyway, the chapter ends here.
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Date: 2022-03-16 12:06 am (UTC)Also fuck the Fellowship.
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Date: 2022-03-16 04:46 am (UTC)