Fugitive Prince - Chapter Four - Turnabout
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i_read_whatSo last time, we learned that the Fellowship is really fucking terrible. So are their adversaries, so I'm stuck, reluctantly supporting those assholes. Ugh.
It's funny to me. I am honestly not sure if Ms. Wurts intends the Fellowship to be as aggravating as they are to me. She's not a subtle writer, by any means, but she is pretty thorough, and as we see at the beginning of this chapter and earlier instances, she generally does seem to anticipate a lot of reader complaints/questions about their motivations.
But they're still presented pretty uncritically, with the only callouts (while valid) coming from characters who are objectively worse. Or at least doing more direct harmful things.
This chapter starts in Spring-Early Autumn 5652.
Happily, Ms. Wurts spares us from having to do math by telling us that this is three years after Lysaer got excommunicated by the Fellowship (Bet it had fuck all effect on his actual ability to do shit).
We get some nice environmental description:
Just over three years after Lysaer’s expulsion from the compact by the Fellowship of Seven, the brigantine Khetienn lay anchored off the distant shores of the continent half a globe away. An equatorial sun sliced her shadow in hard outline on the chipped crystal sparkle of salt water. Few fish swam those jewel-toned shallows. Bird cries never wove through the air. The only wild voice was the rasp of light breezes, flapping the single staysail left set to draw ventilation through the hatches. Throughout the logged course of six voyages, after arduous problems with restocking stores to provision for repeated ocean crossings, the brigantine had put into every cove, bay, and inlet along Kathtairr’s blighted coast.
We also get a gratuitous shirtless scene!
Tanned and taciturn where he leaned on the ship’s rail in the stifling heat, Arithon wore only breeches of stained canvas cinched at the waist with tarred cord. By preference while at sea, he dressed from dregs of the ship’s slop chest, as far from the trappings of royal heritage as tattered, plain clothing would allow.
His tourmaline eyes raked across the splintered ochre rubble, where the dun contours of scorched earth stitched the cloudless skyline, and the knees of the headland met sea in lace petticoat ruffles of spent breakers. An ominous, flat inflection demarked his address to the sweating figure by his side. “How long have you known that Kathtairr offered no refuge?”
I appreciate how the land gets more purple prose than Arithon himself. Well, except for "tourmaline eyes". And also, dude is dressed in rags for our horny benefit. Thank you, Ms. Wurts.
Dakar, apparently, has known about the Fellowship bullshit for a while:
The Mad Prophet squeezed his eyes closed against the stabbing glare off the water. “A fair question,” he allowed in shrinking misery. “One I don’t care to answer.” He inhaled the tarred taint of oakum warmed blistering hot in the thought-shattering fall of noon sunlight. More than just heat left him faint. He feared even to expel his discomfited breath, aware to paralysis that if he said nothing, the man at his side would react in spectacular, inventive retaliation.
No use to pretend there had been no intent to lead Arithon in diversion through ignorance.
At least they admit that this was absolutely an attempt to distract him, I guess?
Dakar explains more of the backstory: basically the dragons had destroyed this place long before "Ath Creator sent the Paravians as living gift to redress all the sorrows of the world." The Paravians have never walked on that particular continent.
Dakar gives us the closest thing we get to an explanation for this nonsense:
“The Fellowship needed to buy time,” Dakar blurted. “They wouldn’t say why. Some outside crisis concerning the linked gate worlds has kept them clapped close as clams. The only thing that matters is what you intend to do now.”
It's not much of one.
And, to Wurts's credit, Arithon actually calls him on that. Moreover, he points out a nitpick that I didn't even think of:
“What I intend?” Arithon loosed a piercing, soft laugh. “The clans need a refuge. If a sea search was required to seek the Paravians, Daelion Fatemaster’s sorrows, Dakar! We need not have wasted three years. For a sweep of the oceans, we’ll need a whole fleet, and strong captains, and navigators trained to make star sights.”
...that's a fair fucking point. I'm so used to the heroic stories where one dude heads out on a quest and miraculously finds what they need to find. (And I mean, that actually WILL happen eventually in this series even.) But if someone is specifically going to LOOK for something important in a very large, expansive ocean with no real clue, he's going to need a LOT of manpower.
You can't PLAN on serendipity after all.
Hah, look at this:
Then came the striking, inevitable pause Dakar dreaded, while thought burned behind half-lidded green eyes. Rathain’s prince could connive with appalling invention, until even Sethvir became sorely tested to unriddle the final result.
“You had better hope,” said Arithon s’Ffalenn, “that Cattrick has been busy keeping the letter of my design back in Tysan.”
The impacting force of that statement took a pregnant second to slam home. “In Tysan? Merciful Ath!” Dakar all but shouted. “You’re not plotting to lift Lysaer’s new deepwater keels from the royal yard at Riverton!”
The lean, expressive mouth flexed amid the sharp-planed s’Ffalenn features. Where a stranger might mistake such expression for amusement, Dakar knew to look deeper. But Arithon swung his inscrutable regard to the sapphire edge of the horizon as he said, “For the sake of my peace, don’t share speculation with Feylind.”
Where's the gif again???
Only now, I think Dakar means it with affection.
---
Anyway, we shift to night, and we get some more beautiful environment description here:
Night claimed the far continent of Kathtairr like ground quartz sown on dark velvet. Restless airs scoured the vivid, flint scent of dewfall off its vistas of sun-baked rock. The sky spread above the obsidian hills held no kindly embroidery of clouds. The stark, strewn blaze of Athera’s constellations scribed the arc of the sea where the Khetienn rode at anchor, a stamped silhouette rouged by the glow of her deck lanterns. From his solitary vantage on a shoreside hillock, Dakar could hear the desultory laughter, as sailhands made cracks at each other’s expense. The windborne exchange of camaraderie seemed disjointed in time, splashed like fragmented dream against the acid-leached contours of rain-stripped gullies and sere landscape.
Arithon is, of course, brooding. Dakar isn't going over there on account of the "festering dispute" that apparently arose regarding the Tysan shipworks have apparently abraded nerves which "still remained raw from the ache of a tormented conscience."
And indeed:
For Arithon, Kathtairr’s barren shores delivered more than bitter setback. The afternoon’s truths had sealed the death of a desperate, cherished set of hopes.
Seriously, guys, you could have just TOLD HIM TO GO IN ANOTHER DIRECTION. This was not necessary.
And worse. Remember Jieret's whole vision? The execution? The one Arithon was like "we'll cross that bridge if this shit doesn't work"? Well, this shit didn't work. And since Arithon can't do mage work, Dakar gets the happy joy of trying to use his foresight to learn more.
Dakar's improved himself a lot over the years, but he still has some issues:
Dakar felt inadequate. His birthgiven talent for prophecy had always been unpredictable. Despite five centuries of Fellowship training, his unruly, chance-met bouts of vision still blundered roughshod over his efforts to impose reason or mastery. The gift had ever been an affliction to upset the planned course of his life. Even worse, the stresses of backlash inevitably wrecked his digestion and left him sick as a dog.
We learn a bit more about what he's trying to do:
Dakar held no illusions. He was no sorcerer, no grand power to toy with events. Kathtairr’s vast emptiness diminished all that he was, left him puny as a dust speck afloat on dark waters as he narrowed his scattered awareness. He resisted the pull of a lifetime’s rank cowardice and a sidestepping inclination to indulge in aimless woolgathering. Tonight, for the sake of Arithon’s life, he opened the undisciplined aperture of his talent while the sweat of cold dread slid in drops down his temples and moistened his thatched ginger beard. The salt taste on his lips reminded of tears before the blameless, bitter kiss of the seaspray lately splashed by his inept hand at the oar.
Aw, poor dude.
Anyway, he does manage to call up a vision of a dead Arithon.
He saw pine trees, a bright shoreline where turquoise waters purled into spume, and there, Arithon s’Ffalenn on his knees in white sand, his black sword Alithiel drawn and upraised; and through the bone-hurting chord of grand harmony thrown off by the blade’s spelled defenses, a unicorn poised in the rampant, first thrust of a charge aimed to gore him.
Dakar screamed aloud, earthly flesh unable to bear the beauty and the pain, as the sword Alithiel flashed, then blazed through its star-captured peal of ward resonance. The Riathan Paravian dipped his silver-maned head, a scything horn set to reap; and vision scattered…
...Just a different dead Arithon. Oops.
There are some other flashes too.
Darkness rolled over him, unrelenting and bleak, stabbed through by the rippling, clean harmony of a lyranthe given voice by the hands of a master. Notes plucked out in Arithon’s best style fell like sprays of dropped jewels, or sleet tapping brass, while decades slipped by in a drawn-out, mindless slow agony…
Cryptic.
He saw priests clad in vestments with sunwheel emblems, chanting litanies against the vile works of the dark.
Ominous.
He saw blinding summer sun, and the red, bloodied length of a sword laid across an altar spread in a gold-edged, white cloth.
Not good.
There's more: a new city entangled in old briar, sobs of gut-wrenching agony, a dead child in the dust as a city is burning. A lot of really bad crap.
And I'm rather admiring, I have to admit, because this is all foreshadowing for Sword of the Canon, which is book 9 and 10. She's been planning this for a long-ass time.
Anyway, Dakar comes to:
Nausea knifed through him. He needed to sit up, but lacked the vitality.
A shadow arrived at the edge of his vision. A touch breathless, the voice of a bard phrased an oath ripe enough to scale fish. Then hands left ice-cold from a plunge in the sea grasped his shoulders and hauled him erect.
That succor given just barely in time; the first, rending spasm failed to catch the Mad Prophet facedown. Grateful not to lie heaving in his own filth, he coughed, spat, shivered, groaned, and finally croaked the name of his rescuer. “Arithon?”
“Lie easy.” When that instruction became impossible to carry out, the Master of Shadow held on until the Mad Prophet’s stomach stopped churning.
Aww. Even when they fight, they love each other.
Dakar reports: he couldn't see anything certain. Arithon's simply "too strongly fated" (of course he is). There's too many powerful futures to sort through.
The idea of Arithon getting killed by an angry unicorn is pretty hilarious though, I have to admit.
So anyway, Wurts knows what we want to see:
Seconds passed, filled by the rush of white foam gnawing the bleak, stony shingle. With no word spoken, Arithon settled in the darkness, his shoulders braced to the same rock. No sailhand from the Khetienn accompanied him; he had swum from the anchorage rather than roust out the crew to sway out a longboat. The crossing left him drenched as a seal, and shirtless. Kathtairr’s hazeless starlight sheened the flex of his fingers as he worked the cork from a wine crock, ferried ashore in one of the mesh nets young Feylind tied to catch shiners.
Wet, shirtless Arithon handing Dakar comfort alcohol. Or maybe she just knows what Dakar wants to see. Either way. It's apparently a rare vintage red from Orvandir. Dakar is grateful, having though Arithon was saving it for...
well, for celebration of a successful voyage. Yeah. But homoerotic bonding is almost as good.
The prince who sat in iron quiet beside him seemed to have shed his rancor for that. Arithon reached, recaptured the wine, pulled a deep draft in turn. Starlight strung sparks through the phosphorescent runnels on his skin, and streaked premature silver through black hair as he swallowed. He seemed to think better of speech and, instead, restored the crock into Dakar’s needful grasp.
The Mad Prophet drank deep to drown a lancing, sharp urge to weep. When he next looked, Arithon s’Ffalenn had clasped both his wrists with exquisite, fine-jointed hands, a habit he kept to mask the disfiguring marks of old scars.
The first paragraph is here because it's Arithon looking sexy in the moonlight.
The second paragraph is here because I'm not really sure how this mutual wrist clasping gesture is actually supposed to work. I'm trying it now and it seems very cumbersome. On the other hand, it might simply be that my wrists are not exquisite or fine enough to make it work?
Things get broody and a little too honest.
With his mind still awash in the harrowing images just snatched from the uncertain future, words slipped his grasp before thought. “How can you bear this, year after year? How can you live, self-aware as you are, of the fate that hangs on your choices?”
“I wouldn’t,” Arithon admitted. His skin pricked into sudden gooseflesh. His thumb traced the thin line healed crosswise overtop of the weals once chafed by iron fetters. The gesture arose from unpleasant recollection of his blood oath, irrevocably given to hold him to life by every means at his command. The terrible vow had been sworn to Asandir just after the destruction of Lysaer’s fleet at Minderl Bay.
A fine example of Fellowship respect for consent, that one. And in fact, Arithon tells us how it happened.
Sensitive now to the one burning question Dakar had never dared ask, Arithon offered his confidence. “You wonder how the Fellowship Sorcerers won my consent to that binding.” A brief pause, while the stars burned in chill unconcern. “I was told the world might not live if I surrendered the struggle in death.” Rathain’s prince tipped his dark crown to rest against striated rocks that sprouted no kindly lacework of lichen. The steep planes of his face might have been sculpted alabaster, except for the small, tensioned wrinkles which nipped at the corners of his eyes. “I saw that I couldn’t trust myself, Dakar. Not once I heard what was left on the gate world of Marak.”
Psychological manipulation really isn't consent, guys. At least not free and clear consent.
It is fair to note that Arithon's basically admitting that if it weren't for the blood oath, he'd have committed suicide. So, I mean, the blood oath probably WAS a good idea. I just really dislike the Fellowship's heavy handed methods.
Also, I think maybe the poor guy might be a little less suicidal if you didn't keep setting him up to fail? It pretty much seems like the Fellowship were like "well, he can't actively commit suicide, so we don't actually have to do anything else to help him, right?"
To my happiness though, Dakar actually seems offended on Arithon's behalf.
Marak!” The Mad Prophet shot straight to a gurgle of sloshed protest from the wine. “Ath, Marak! A crisis on a link world across South Gate. Of course! What else but the severed body of the Mistwraith could frighten the Fellowship dizzy? Dharkaron avenge! The Sorcerers bound you for that?”
“You need not upset yourself.” Arithon’s disarming, peaceful tone but reminded that he owned a masterbard’s tongue. Dissembling cleverness was his second nature. Dakar knew too much not to guess at the pain, and beyond that, to forgiveness that was genuine, as the Shadow Master finished, “If the Fellowship Sorcerers sought to divert me to Kathtairr, they will have had urgent reason.”
Ugh, this poor asshole. I miss the days when you used to happily scheme to make Asandir miserable.
Dakar is at least able to give him SOME explanation: basically, the Fellowship has been building wards, really fucking big and powerful ones. Dakar's seen this in dreams. It's like they're trying to "stave off the advent of their own defeat."
Arithon notes that they really need to find the Paravians. Which leads Dakar to think about how, at least in one vision, Arithon actually does find them. And gets murdered by one. That does seem pretty Arithon-esque. The only thing MORE Arithon would be if this is a result of a terrible decision that would inevitably screw him over.
The torment on his moon-round face must not, after all, have been due to the grit, since Arithon said in that level compassion that always sliced straight to the quick, “Let’s get you back. There’s more wine on the brigantine, and just as well. If I’m going to get in my cups along with you, it’s better done after I’ve launched and rowed your dory from the strand.”
Dakar shut his eyes, beholden beyond utterance. Quick temper and subterfuge aside, the Master of Shadow could be trusted to keep the most damnable letter of his word.
I mean, you could have comfort sex? I'm just saying.
Instead they just share wine and sympathy until Dakar falls asleep. Arithon apparently did stay sober though and orders the ship to head back to the continent.
--
We skip ahead to autumn. Apparently, the Khetienn takes a lot less time coming back than going forth. I know nothing about sailing, so I don't know if that's realistic or not. I'll assume so, since Arithon actually knows where they're going.
They land at Corith, after dark. But...it's not empty. Dakar fears an ambush, but Arithon has a pirate's expertise: It's not a fighting brig. Just one containing a shipment of apples.
We see Feylind now. She was mentioned earlier, and of course, we saw her early on. But it's been three years:
A whispered dance of bare footfalls, Feylind arrived aft to claim her place at the Shadow Master’s side. His equal for height, and grown into a saucy, long-legged, eighteen, she snatched the closed ship’s glass from his hand. The roped braid slid off her shoulder to lick her small breast as she deployed the brass segments. She raked piercing study in turn over the vessel limned dark against needle-worked reflections cast by a low-riding moon.
Eighteen. How time fucking flies. As for the ship in the harbor:
“Dharkaron’s hairy bollocks!” She gave a clear whistle. “The varnish still shines on her figurehead’s tits. It’s a mermaid, and look!” Fired outrage snapped through. “The ship’s carvers at Riverton are a raunchy band of goats. Bedamned if her nipples aren’t gilded!”
“Don’t lose our heading,” gasped Arithon to the quartermaster, who had folded his grizzled face into his elbow to stifle an inopportune smirk of humor.
“Riverton!” Dakar howled in unadulterated fury. “Save us all, you move fast! If that’s Lysaer’s vessel, you’ve had to be conniving at piracy for years! Why am I always the last one to hear what’s afoot?”
But the Shadow Master was himself left no standing to answer. Unable to follow his own sage advice, he lay curled in snorting mirth against the brightwork of the rail, while Feylind pummeled his shoulder with her fist for the fact he took her offended sex lightly.
Is Arithon actually laughing? Goodness. Maybe the sea voyage was good for him after all.
There's some cute banter between Arithon and his sailing apprentice, where he gives her the opportunity to strike sail - with the threat that the repairs will get docked from her dowry. Hah.
The next plans for Feylind is to refit the Khetienn and have Feylind navigate her to Innish for a long awaited familial reunion.
Arithon's pleased by this but Dakar's not. He realizes that if Arithon is sending Feylind away, then he's planning something dangerous.
First though, the ship goes to Caithwood to get some dispatches from the clansfolk there. The clansfolk offer jerky, but no cooking - they don't want to risk fires alerting patrols. Apparently there's a very good tracker, "crown funded" (So much for Lysaer turning down the kingship).
They've even had to set traps for the dogs, something the clansman thinks is "an offense against nature". Aw.
Arithon hears the news about Princess Talith's confinement ("for vapors, due to barrenness and delicate health") and is very skeptical. The clans can confirm that she hasn't been seen in public though, and when Lysaer left Avenor, she wasn't with him.
Lysaer, by the way, has gone to Etarra to "ply his honey tongue in diplomacy." Which to Arithon means there's an "unguarded henyard left for us foxes once again'. Hah.
But things are worse: a herb witch stoned in Quarn, Avenor's troop rolls tripled since Vastmark. The clans are chafing at the bit to pursue their blood grievance. They've been waiting - and it's chafed.
But there's a newcomer here too:
Beyond their maned necks, past the steaming back of a third horse which drooped its head from hard usage, another man stood dismounted. The newcomer was built broad, an obstinate thrust to his massive, squared shoulders. His head wore its cropped hair like filed steel, bristled to cowlicks at the crown. Born ornery, or else given to brainless bravery, he confronted the slightly made Prince of Rathain, feet planted like a balked mastiff’s.
It's Caolle of course!
And while Arithon is not happy to see him, he's outmatched for stubborn loyalty:
“Here I stay, liege,” carped the northern-born clansman who had resigned his life’s post as Earl Jieret’s war captain. “My sword guards your back. Live with that gift or behead me for treason.”
Dakar missed Arithon’s gloved velvet reply. Whatever the content, the sally made the rugged, older swordsman flush crimson.
“So just damn the day of your birth, while you’re at it!” Caolle cracked back. “Since you refused the good grace to die on delivery, Rathain has got a living prince.” Immovable oak when charged with his duty, he hurled his next line like a gauntlet. “I serve the kingdom. Since you plan to hang yourself out in Tysan as bait, you’ll have me along for the sacrifice.”
Sorry man, they love you after all. You'll just have to accept that.
Dakar ends up interceding:
“You might try a smile of welcome, your Grace,” Dakar bored in, well aware how the title would rankle. He pressed brashly on, came between the too-careful expression of blandness that Arithon presented toward his liegeman. “Ice could be turned into sunshine on a wish before you’ll talk Caolle home to Strakewood. He’s by lengths more stubborn than you are, and besides, this time he happens to be right.”
“Say that again to my face, should Jieret’s young son lose his father to a slave galley,” Arithon ripped back in blank rage. “By my oath as Rathain’s crown prince, if that day happens, I’ll see you both bleeding and dead for it.” All smoldering grace, he spun away, caught the reins of the nearest horse Caithwood’s clansmen held ready, then vaulted astride without pause to measure his stirrup length. “For today, keep up if you can.”
But of course, Arithon can't resist being dramatic. Still, now they're three. Well, they will be, once they catch up with Arithon.
We skip ahead four days to see what's up: a fat tinker is settling into a bargeman's hostel. This man might be significant.
If he's not, the man he catches sight of, probably is:
The tinker’s brown eyes touched, then fixed upon a slim man by the hob who had hair like bleached flax, quick eyes of a heathery gray-green, and whose clothing was embroidered and garnished with river pearls. Two tavemmaids fluttered over him like moths. He gave no appearance of leading them on, but his sweet words and kind manner left them desperate in their wish that he had.
A smile twitched the tinker’s tucked lips. He raised a wrist to scratch his snub nose, and behind cover of his sleeve whispered, “That one.”
The tinker isn't alone:
No.” A hulking, thick shadow against paneled walls, the tinker’s companion raised eyebrows like the grizzled pelt of a badger. Half of his leathery face lay swathed in bandages that seeped pus from a suppurating wound. Black gimlet eyes flicked aside and gleamed back in hot disbelief. Then a dubious mumble emerged from beneath the caked dressing.
As to what they're arguing about? There's a clue here:
“Oh, that’s him, make no mistake,” the tinker insisted under cover of metallic commotion as a chubby scullion stacked empty tankards on a tray. “He kept fancy clothes aboard the sloop with his lyranthe.”
So yes, we've got Dakar and Caolle in disguise. While the kind, sweet voiced blond is...well...Medlir 2.0.
And is he?
The blond man from the hearthside confronted him, his fine, beaded doublet masked under a bargeman’s caped wool. “Come,” he said in the razor-cut diction of Arithon s’Ffalenn. “We need to take a little walk.”
Of course!
Arithon is, of course, annoyed that Dakar risked Caolle in here. Dakar points out that Caolle is risking his own life, and that Arithon could have just accepted his offer in Strakewood.
Arithon points out that they might be in Riverton for months, and Caolle has a very distinct clan accent that bandages won't hide. Dakar points out that they can actually work a glamour - something to make Caolle's scar seem worse and garble up his speech.
Ultimately though, they're not really dealing with practical concerns here, but Arithon's massive guilt complex:
“Ath, Dakar!” Arithon stopped again, one hand pressed to his face. At long last the misery showed through. “He’s Earl Jieret’s man, and the only foster kin that boy ever had to replace his slaughtered family.”
But this, more than practicalities, is something Dakar knows how to answer:
“You won’t win this one, old friend,” Dakar said at last in gruff sympathy. He turned around in the mat of dead pine needles, ducked a low-hanging branch, and forged the way back toward the tavern. “That’s Caolle’s clan heritage you need purloined ships to try and save. Nor can you shirk all the trappings of your birth or cast off your most sensible liegemen. Some will live and others come to die in the course of your service. That’s their picked fate. Yours is to bear it, until the day comes that the Fellowship Sorcerers grant you their lawful leave to abdicate.”
That stunned through the force of past sorrows. Arithon s’Ffalenn looked back from his shadow-wrought disguise, his eyes for a second reverted to their native, blazing green. “Then we’re stymied.” He smiled in that baiting, bright malice he used to divert stinging words. “A match brought to draw, since the end play can’t happen unless I sire an heir for Rathain. You should all leave me.”
I mean, you could try knocking someone up? Rathain doesn't seem to require an heir be legitimate after all. Or Arithon himself would be discounted.
Dakar's response makes me laugh though:
Dakar chose to ignore that. “I presume you’ll be going into Riverton as a bard? Well, you’ve just acquired two servants. You might want to add some gray hair to fill out the part, since as the fair gallant, you’ll draw the wrong sort of notice traveling with a doting male retinue.”
Wrong, maybe. Inaccurate? I think not.
--
So the next sub-chapter is Design. It's also Autumn 5652.
Koriani stuff this time. We get a nice look at a Koriani orphanage here:
The Koriani orphanage in Capewell was housed in the refurbished shell of a merchant’s palace, a five-storied edifice of extravagant fancy that loomed over the harborside market. Stevedores’ calls and the dickering insults of house matrons never troubled its residents. High marble walls enclosed its stables and inner courtyards. Carved with weathered nymphs and the moss-caked cavities of scrolled waves, the scullery entrance fronted a sun-washed courtyard. A row of gnarled pear trees in tubs were all that remained of the formal herb gardens famed far and wide in past centuries. The branches lay stripped now, blackened skeletons shivering in the veering toss of the gusts off Mainmere Bay.
Morriel's here, by the way.
There's a nice glimpse as to day to day Koriani work here: a cobbler swearing the oath of obligation for a sigil of blessing, while his name is entered into a "List of Service" against a day when they'd ask for payment in boots, shoes or other piece of leather work.
The Koriani primarily work on a barter system rather than for coin (with the exception of small sales of simples and remedies) so as to avoid the corruption of greed.
That's an interesting note, since I think the fatal flaw of the Koriani is greed actually. Just not for money.
But anyway, Morriel here to select some new page boys.
The children seemed one long stream through time, as similar as pebbles in a brook. Unblinking, her obsidian eyes surveyed the dozen odd choices. They stood in a row with their fair hair combed, and clothing brushed formally straight. In age, they ranged from eight to ten.
Some always cringed from the Prime Matriarch’s review. Two stared at their feet. The inevitable coward sniffled and shook, while another near the line’s end presented tearful, flushed cheeks in defiant and terrified silence.
Morriel made her selection on a scant second’s thought. “That one, and that one.” The pair marked apart by her stabbing gesture were close matched in height, and possessed of a china-doll innocence. “Show the others away.”
The other kids get taken off to the kitchen for apple tarts and milk.
This is really rather evocative here:
led them off to the kitchen with a promise of apple tarts and milk.
The Prime surveyed her latest acquisitions with a vulture’s unwinking regard. The near boy watched her back, trapped in awe and macabre fear, as if her withered limbs in their draping purple velvet belonged to a corpse, or some nightmare work of carved calcite. The other child stood frozen with a dripping nose and a chin puckered red in failed effort to dam back his tears.
“You will serve as my page boys until you reach twelve years of age,” Morriel informed, not unkindly, but rasped thin as steel set too long to the grindstone. “The work I ask will be light. Do well, and on your day of dismissal, an apprenticeship will be found with a reputable trade which suits your inclinations.”
“Yes, matriarch,” whispered the boldest of the boys.
The withered twitch of a smile turned a corner of the crone’s lips. “How fine, you have manners, boy. Bravery, too. When you are a man abroad in the world, those virtues will be appreciated. My needs here are simpler. Please recall, when I come to address you, I prefer you say nothing at all.”
Yeah, this will be a fun experience.
(It occurs to me, this might be interesting to revisit when we get to see some interesting flashbacks to Arithon's apprenticeship in Rauven - in a later book.)
Morriel then gets a bit of backstory here:
In one seamless second, she no longer inhabited the chilly autumn courtyard in Capewell. Ten centuries blurred; the friable webs of perception unraveled. The green fields of her village childhood resurged and wrapped her in sun and the fragrant, honeyed heat of summer haze. The boys who rolled tussling and yelling amid the new-sprouted barley were her dark-haired, dark-eyed little brothers. Sprites who clung to her ruffled skirts while she simmered berries into preserves; who brought her their skinned knees and elbows to be nursed; who secreted live beetles inside her jars of dried rose petals.
She loved them like an addiction.
When her talent came on too strong to deny at sixteen, her parents had sent off the young plowman who sued for her handfasting. Deaf to her pleas and her stormy bouts of rage, they sent her dowry to the Koriani Order and pledged her to lifelong service. The boys became the tie that broke her heart. Scene followed scene as she suffered for their loss, huddled under blankets in the echoing, vaulted stone of the dormitory. She wept for her brothers, while merchants’ daughters from Cildorn bemoaned their lost gowns and jewels, and sly-faced craftgirls from Narms vied to take illicit lovers before the day they came to swear vows, and seal themselves forever to the celibate ways of an initiate enchantress.
We're told that even after a thousand years, Morriel wouldn't pick pages that resembled her brothers.
This is interesting though, I've seen flashbacks used to explain character backstory before, but it's pretty rare to have the characters in question react to said flashback as though it were, indeed, a flashback.
But Morriel's a little freaked out. She's just, briefly, found herself in another place and time, and while back now, she's pretty fucking disoriented. She's too old. Her crystal has too many memories and the matrix has grown ornery. And her replacement isn't fully trained yet.
She pulls it together though, to send the new pages off to be fitted for livery. And then, of course, she gets the news that Arithon has returned to the continent.
She orders a closed audience with a clairvoyant. She does NOT send a messenger to Lirenda, and is quite angry at the suggestion that she might. Interesting.
We move to the observatory. Some pretty neat description here too:
The observatory built into the Koriani sisterhouse at Capewell was an edifice evolved through the contrary styles of seven centuries. The dainty, five-sided bronze cupola and the fancifully shuttered casements which overlooked the town’s roof peaks were the latecoming ornaments of folly. Mossy stone walls and the flint sills of old revetments bespoke grimmer beginnings as a watchtower. From its original vantage, merchants had counted inbound ships at the quay. The stone had been reset with arrow slits later, when townsmen fortified against vengeance-bent clansmen through the unsettled years of the uprising. The observatory built on when the keep was roofed over now served as a chamber consecrated for fine magic.
The inside air had gone musty since the pierced shutters were darkened with sheets of tarnished silver. Candles of incense-soaked wax fluttered on the shelves of the sills. The inviting, cushioned benches that once lined the walls were reframed as cupboards with bronze hinges. Door fronts and portals had all been replaced with unpainted oak panels, cut green, dried in fire, then inset with the knotty, counterlooped copper of a thousand runes of ward. Each latch had been painstakingly welded, then sealed by tin sigils with guard spells to deflect any outside prying. The old, timbered floors were flagged over in black slate, unpolished to accept the scribed traceries and seals of forced power.
There, an emaciated predator poised over a webwork of ciphers, Morriel Prime crouched with a sliver of chalk in her hand. If the construct she patterned against the Fellowship’s constraints showed a calculated, terrifying complexity, its driving plot was most simple: since the Sorcerers placed undue value on Prince Arithon’s life, he was himself made the key to arrange their coercion.
So that's what Morriel learned from her meeting with the Fellowship. They need Arithon for the threat on Marak. This means if Morriel can capture Arithon, she'll have a tool against them. Even though she would rather, personally, see him dead to "forestall the prophesied threat to her succession."
Hey, Morriel. Have you considered maybe that the REASON he ends up threatening your succession is because you're trying to abduct/kill him? Just wondering.
Anyway, Morriel's got two initiates here to serve. They're going to be passive participants in the ritual:
As their Prime required, energy, talent, even life force itself might become siphoned from them. By the strict oath of obedience to their order, their Prime Matriarch could demand any sacrifice against the needs of greater humanity.
Being a Koriani kind of sucks. And I say that as an asexual who'd be fine with the celibacy part.
So anyway, ritual time. Lots of magical technobabble. Cool to read, but I'm not recapping it. The gist is, while the Waystone can't act on inanimate objects, it can still act through people. Like certain war captains who are now accompanying him. Especially when they're basically tagged with Fellowship spellbinder seals.
Oops.
They do have to be cautious that their hostile intent won't raise a "disharmony" that will unsettle Arithon's keen sense of empathy. It's a bardic thing.
She does find something useful though:
The interface must therefore be indirect. In velvet-gloved delicacy, Morriel wrought. From the riverside tavern where her quarry last slept, she quested among the dust in the floorboards. Her search yielded three flecks of stubble left from Arithon’s grooming. Before the inn’s chambermaid arrived to sweep, minute sparks of energy flared in the candleless gloom. The Prime’s first tendril of spellcraft embraced those cut snippets of hair, then wound their purloined essence, ephemeral as spun moonlight, into a personal signature to guide the course of her snare.
Well, that's fucking creepy. Guard your hair better, I guess?
Anyway, more spells. Neat. It's basically a net: rumors, hunches, and possible events to send Arithon into flight and into a trap of her making. It's apparently very elaborate. (Morriel still manages to complain about the Waystone that she hadn't even had for 500 years and did fine without, but whatever, lady.)
However, then something goes wrong. One of the initiates balks, "rejecting the sacrifice" when Morriel reaches for her power. It sends Morriel's spells awry and starts to break the conjury. To save it, Morriel has to demand power from the girl who held firm - killing her. Like I said, it sucks to be a Koriani.
She does manage to save it though, and thus has a plan to bring the Fellowship to heel so the Koriani Order "could preside over mankind's freed future."
Hm. Interesting definition of "freed" there. Is there a version that doesn't involve you presiding over it either?
--
The third subchapter is Marvel.
It also takes place in Autumn 5652.
We're with Lysaer this time. He's making the trek to Etarra. They've just passed Erdane.
Some banter between page and man-at-arm leads to this interesting exchange though:
At the page’s unsettled review of the landscape, the man-at-arms loosed a gruff chuckle. “Before sun, there’s the truth, and may Light strike me down if I’m lying.”
“Have a care. His Grace might hear your profanity.” The page tipped a weighted glance behind, where Prince Lysaer rode a horse length to the rear of his standard-bearer.
Lysaer's really embracing the divinity kick, I see. The purple prose at least obliges:
Through the sulfurous silt of puffed dust, the Prince of the Light rode bareheaded, his gleaming, fair hair a diffracted halo in the citrine glare of strong sunlight. Even through dirt, his presence seemed uncanny, a master-work wrought of alabaster and gilt against the monochrome landscape. The bullion-fringed banner and the stitched silk of its sunwheel seemed brass without luster in comparison.
And it has its effect:
Voice muffled to awe, the page boy ventured, “Do you believe the realm’s seneschal, that his Grace is sent as Ath’s servant to drive scourge and shadow from the land?”
The burly captain shrugged mail-clad shoulders. “I couldn’t speak the creator’s intent, boy. But Prince Lysaer, now, he’s real. His powers can be seen and felt.” Eyes trained ahead, he finished in respect, “Whether his Grace has divine origins or not, I’ll swear by his name as our given defender against evil.”
But will the captain stay so pragmatic when archers attack?
But no casualty had fallen to bowfire. The prince remained astride his blooded cream charger, stopped in the middle of the roadway. Amid a cavalcade churned into panic, he sat with a statue’s composure. No mere assassin’s ambush held the power to ruffle his uncanny poise. Heaven’s own lightning must leap to defend him, and out of a cloudless, clear sky.
The arrow lay banished to a lacework of blue smoke and a fading whiff of dry carbon.
“Angel of Ath!” the guard captain swore.
Maybe, maybe not.
That said, it's interesting that the captain still swears to Ath, when the chips are down, not "the Light".
We do get even MORE divinely purple prose though:
Lysaer commanded the tableau like a stage, his lofty magnificence set apart. The moment hurt for pure splendor. For a handful of heartbeats, time’s flow seemed erased, the lesser movements of men and beasts jarring.
The page boy, by the way, got unseated in the commotion. Lysaer gestures, and the valet scrambles from the baggage train to "offer him succor". I remember a time when Lysaer might have comforted the kid himself. But...
Yet the Prince of the Light offered no reprimand as he stirred from that terrible stillness. Swathed in the blinding, stitched glitter of his surcoat, he urged his charger toward the verge. Where the crumbled old tracery of wheel ruts gave way to the tangled brush of the plain, he drew rein. The object of his gaze might have been some beggar’s bundle, discarded among the bent weed stalks, except for the hand flung splayed on the earth, blistered with weeping, raw burns.
The archer of course. Unconscious, not dead. So that he can be tried and conscripted. Of course.
The boy, with a broken collarbone, gets to ride behind Lysaer. Both Valet and boy protests - he'll stain Lysaer's surcoat.
Lysaer laughed. His blue eyes held the unshakable, kind censure that melted the hearts of his servants. “Should a man who follows my banner be worth less than a few yards of silk? I think not.” The diamond in his ring scribed fire on the air as he extended his hand toward the page boy. “Come, lad. Share my saddle, and save your brave face for some worthier fight against darkness.”
Lysaer does know how to use a dramatic moment, doesn't he?
Anyway, they eventually get to the city of Miralt. They're slow enough that Miralt has plenty of time to dramatic welcome them - with silver-gilt helms, bright bardings stitched from dyed silk. Lysaer is both pleased and dismayed by the fanfare.
He decides to bypass the likely long-winded welcome by outmatching them for pageantry. And thus, we get to see Lysaer's best talent: turning purple prose into a weapon.
When the lanterns on the city walls hove into view, Lysaer laid the reins of his weary charger in one hand, raised his right fist, and discharged his gift in a hazed, gold corona over the vanguard of his retinue.
Gemstones and bullion leaped into dazzling clarity. Mail sparkled. Light hazed the sweated coats of the destriers to the gloss of polished satin. A crisp, clear call from the head of the royal column, and the guards in the train raised pennoned lances in salute. The sunwheel standard fluttered in the wash of warmed air, while night became riven to high noon.
Lysaer s’Ilessid in his brilliant white surcoat became the shining center point in their midst. From battlements and gate arch, the rowed ranks of Miralt’s garrison watched his advance in gaping awe. Those city ministers and guildsmen called from home by peremptory summons forgot their complaint. The prince’s unearthly presence might have seemed an arrogant excess of pageantry, but for the young page riding pillion behind.
As the pair neared the gates, all eyes could see the rich surcoat was not stainless white, but marred with bloodstains and dirt. The boy who besmirched its purity was tear streaked, an ordinary mousy-haired victim of mischance who clung in pain-shocked need for solace. The contrast between the child’s needy suffering and the Prince of the Light’s remote majesty framed an indelible image of mercy.
To his credit, I think Lysaer does genuinely care about the child. But I also think he knew exactly what this would look like.
And in fact, Lysaer uses his injured page to cut everything short. His retinue is housed at the barracks, while the Mayor offers his own his own palace to Lysaer.
Lysaer inclined his head. “Light’s blessing on you,” he said, the gracious assurance behind such acknowledgment no less than his regal due.
I do enjoy unsubtle parallels. Lysaer is not a man who would wear rags at sea.
Lysaer does manage an additional coup. Instead of heading straight to the Mayor's house, he disappears. Folks swiftly realize that he's gone on to the shrine to "give thanks for today's safe deliverance."
The thoroughfares went from tight to impassable. Not even the city guard could maintain their patrols. Balked citizens crammed into the taverns. Inebriated tosspots were displaced into corners as drudges rushed to light candles, and rumor sparked rampant speculation. The anomaly was noticed, that none of Lysaer’s weary guardsmen stripped weapons or mail to retire. Half of their hard-bitten number had remained at Ath’s shrine, firmly determined to stay through the night on bent knee in thankful prayer. Others whose tastes were more boisterous shed propriety and got themselves garrulously drunk. To throngs of avid listeners, they described miracles and lightning bolts that seared lethal arrows from clear sky.
“He’s blessed, our prince,” they pronounced in stark reverence. “We’ve borne witness with our own eyes. The shining powers of divine creation saved his Grace from a deadly attack.”
"Angel of Ath" indeed. Link yourself to the pre-existing god and eventually supplant it.
There's an outcry then, as hysterical townsfolk decide that they want the blood of the archer. After all, Lysaer is their only defense against darkness, and his death would strand them "without help or hope."
They seize torches and cobblestones, bricks and rails, down the streets in a riot toward the citadel.
Then, of course, they face Lysaer himself. And this is maybe an interesting bit of foreshadowing...
The front ranks cringed back. They knew whom they faced: Lysaer s’Ilessid, just returned from the shrine, and en route to the mayor’s hospitality.
To others behind, the detail was obscured. Due redress for a murdering, traitorous clansman seemed balked by one man, and the threat of a grandame’s tossed jakes.
“Just cut down the lamebrain!” shouted a knife-bearing smith.
Of course, Lysaer uses his light to dramatically take control of the crowd.
“No man held in bonds for the sake of royal justice shall be subject to violence or bloodshed!” Lysaer cried through the well of shocked motion. “Disperse and return to your wives and families, and leave the fate of clan criminals to me.”
When they protest, Lysaer asserts his divinity again:
“He is but a man!” Lysaer rebuked. His gift snapped and blazed. Through that flood of dire brilliance, the diamond white silk and gold trim of his surcoat shot his presence in scintillant outline. “Alone with a bow, do you really believe one mortal clansman could bring down the righteous arm of the Light?”
Obviously Lysaer wins the day. But it is a lesson, isn't it?
Religious fervor is not quite the same kind of tool as the self-interest that Lysaer's used to exploiting from the townsfolk that he meets. It's more visceral and irrational. Faith and fear and all that in between.
Religion can be wonderful, a source of strength and community for people. But it can get out of control very quickly. As we saw here. Lysaer's always made his position on hostages clear. But that edict doesn't matter in the face of mass fear and rage.
And for a moment there, for some of those people, even Lysaer himself didn't matter. The ones who could see him clearly, they were fine. But the ones farther away...they just saw a "lamebrain" to be cut down.
Religion is a strange and powerful thing and doesn't necessarily require a living representation of divinity to function. It might behoove Lysaer to remember that.
But right now, the "Prince of the Light" has laid down the law:
“No criminal act can be healed by rash action,” the Prince of the Light exhorted. “This clansman you would burn was misled by evil. Before execution, he deserves all your pity. My law has sentenced him to chained service at the oar, a miserable fate. He’ll know the whip and the indignity of slavery, sore enough suffering for the error of his ways. No one, no matter how outraged, will take his life out of hand! Death will deliver him from the galleys soon enough, but only on the hour appointed by powers outside mortal judgment!”
He sends them home, with his peace and his blessings. If anyone still burns to fight in the morning, they can sign up with Lysaer's captain at arms. He leaves to a worshipful chant: “Hail the blessed lord! Hail the Light! Death to the Spinner of Darkness!”
--
Our final, sneak peek section is Moments.
We're still in autumn 5652, by the way.
The first is Mearn - he's still ensconced in Avenor. He's received a message from Arithon asking him to look into the disappearance of "Lady Talith, Princess of Tysan."
Yes, FINALLY.
(And it's a funny character beat, how Arithon is so adamant about Talith's status. Maybe Lysaer isn't the only one projecting his mother issues onto her...)
The second is "far to the east of Miralt Head" - Jieret's scouts are intercepting messages calling the town mayors to Etarra to pledge to the "Alliance of Light". The clans will have to flee into deep cover.
The third is at the Koriani observatory. It's locked up tight until Lirenda gets there. Even if Morriel's dead inside. I doubt Arithon would be so lucky though.
It's funny to me. I am honestly not sure if Ms. Wurts intends the Fellowship to be as aggravating as they are to me. She's not a subtle writer, by any means, but she is pretty thorough, and as we see at the beginning of this chapter and earlier instances, she generally does seem to anticipate a lot of reader complaints/questions about their motivations.
But they're still presented pretty uncritically, with the only callouts (while valid) coming from characters who are objectively worse. Or at least doing more direct harmful things.
This chapter starts in Spring-Early Autumn 5652.
Happily, Ms. Wurts spares us from having to do math by telling us that this is three years after Lysaer got excommunicated by the Fellowship (Bet it had fuck all effect on his actual ability to do shit).
We get some nice environmental description:
Just over three years after Lysaer’s expulsion from the compact by the Fellowship of Seven, the brigantine Khetienn lay anchored off the distant shores of the continent half a globe away. An equatorial sun sliced her shadow in hard outline on the chipped crystal sparkle of salt water. Few fish swam those jewel-toned shallows. Bird cries never wove through the air. The only wild voice was the rasp of light breezes, flapping the single staysail left set to draw ventilation through the hatches. Throughout the logged course of six voyages, after arduous problems with restocking stores to provision for repeated ocean crossings, the brigantine had put into every cove, bay, and inlet along Kathtairr’s blighted coast.
We also get a gratuitous shirtless scene!
Tanned and taciturn where he leaned on the ship’s rail in the stifling heat, Arithon wore only breeches of stained canvas cinched at the waist with tarred cord. By preference while at sea, he dressed from dregs of the ship’s slop chest, as far from the trappings of royal heritage as tattered, plain clothing would allow.
His tourmaline eyes raked across the splintered ochre rubble, where the dun contours of scorched earth stitched the cloudless skyline, and the knees of the headland met sea in lace petticoat ruffles of spent breakers. An ominous, flat inflection demarked his address to the sweating figure by his side. “How long have you known that Kathtairr offered no refuge?”
I appreciate how the land gets more purple prose than Arithon himself. Well, except for "tourmaline eyes". And also, dude is dressed in rags for our horny benefit. Thank you, Ms. Wurts.
Dakar, apparently, has known about the Fellowship bullshit for a while:
The Mad Prophet squeezed his eyes closed against the stabbing glare off the water. “A fair question,” he allowed in shrinking misery. “One I don’t care to answer.” He inhaled the tarred taint of oakum warmed blistering hot in the thought-shattering fall of noon sunlight. More than just heat left him faint. He feared even to expel his discomfited breath, aware to paralysis that if he said nothing, the man at his side would react in spectacular, inventive retaliation.
No use to pretend there had been no intent to lead Arithon in diversion through ignorance.
At least they admit that this was absolutely an attempt to distract him, I guess?
Dakar explains more of the backstory: basically the dragons had destroyed this place long before "Ath Creator sent the Paravians as living gift to redress all the sorrows of the world." The Paravians have never walked on that particular continent.
Dakar gives us the closest thing we get to an explanation for this nonsense:
“The Fellowship needed to buy time,” Dakar blurted. “They wouldn’t say why. Some outside crisis concerning the linked gate worlds has kept them clapped close as clams. The only thing that matters is what you intend to do now.”
It's not much of one.
And, to Wurts's credit, Arithon actually calls him on that. Moreover, he points out a nitpick that I didn't even think of:
“What I intend?” Arithon loosed a piercing, soft laugh. “The clans need a refuge. If a sea search was required to seek the Paravians, Daelion Fatemaster’s sorrows, Dakar! We need not have wasted three years. For a sweep of the oceans, we’ll need a whole fleet, and strong captains, and navigators trained to make star sights.”
...that's a fair fucking point. I'm so used to the heroic stories where one dude heads out on a quest and miraculously finds what they need to find. (And I mean, that actually WILL happen eventually in this series even.) But if someone is specifically going to LOOK for something important in a very large, expansive ocean with no real clue, he's going to need a LOT of manpower.
You can't PLAN on serendipity after all.
Hah, look at this:
Then came the striking, inevitable pause Dakar dreaded, while thought burned behind half-lidded green eyes. Rathain’s prince could connive with appalling invention, until even Sethvir became sorely tested to unriddle the final result.
“You had better hope,” said Arithon s’Ffalenn, “that Cattrick has been busy keeping the letter of my design back in Tysan.”
The impacting force of that statement took a pregnant second to slam home. “In Tysan? Merciful Ath!” Dakar all but shouted. “You’re not plotting to lift Lysaer’s new deepwater keels from the royal yard at Riverton!”
The lean, expressive mouth flexed amid the sharp-planed s’Ffalenn features. Where a stranger might mistake such expression for amusement, Dakar knew to look deeper. But Arithon swung his inscrutable regard to the sapphire edge of the horizon as he said, “For the sake of my peace, don’t share speculation with Feylind.”
Where's the gif again???
Only now, I think Dakar means it with affection.
---
Anyway, we shift to night, and we get some more beautiful environment description here:
Night claimed the far continent of Kathtairr like ground quartz sown on dark velvet. Restless airs scoured the vivid, flint scent of dewfall off its vistas of sun-baked rock. The sky spread above the obsidian hills held no kindly embroidery of clouds. The stark, strewn blaze of Athera’s constellations scribed the arc of the sea where the Khetienn rode at anchor, a stamped silhouette rouged by the glow of her deck lanterns. From his solitary vantage on a shoreside hillock, Dakar could hear the desultory laughter, as sailhands made cracks at each other’s expense. The windborne exchange of camaraderie seemed disjointed in time, splashed like fragmented dream against the acid-leached contours of rain-stripped gullies and sere landscape.
Arithon is, of course, brooding. Dakar isn't going over there on account of the "festering dispute" that apparently arose regarding the Tysan shipworks have apparently abraded nerves which "still remained raw from the ache of a tormented conscience."
And indeed:
For Arithon, Kathtairr’s barren shores delivered more than bitter setback. The afternoon’s truths had sealed the death of a desperate, cherished set of hopes.
Seriously, guys, you could have just TOLD HIM TO GO IN ANOTHER DIRECTION. This was not necessary.
And worse. Remember Jieret's whole vision? The execution? The one Arithon was like "we'll cross that bridge if this shit doesn't work"? Well, this shit didn't work. And since Arithon can't do mage work, Dakar gets the happy joy of trying to use his foresight to learn more.
Dakar's improved himself a lot over the years, but he still has some issues:
Dakar felt inadequate. His birthgiven talent for prophecy had always been unpredictable. Despite five centuries of Fellowship training, his unruly, chance-met bouts of vision still blundered roughshod over his efforts to impose reason or mastery. The gift had ever been an affliction to upset the planned course of his life. Even worse, the stresses of backlash inevitably wrecked his digestion and left him sick as a dog.
We learn a bit more about what he's trying to do:
Dakar held no illusions. He was no sorcerer, no grand power to toy with events. Kathtairr’s vast emptiness diminished all that he was, left him puny as a dust speck afloat on dark waters as he narrowed his scattered awareness. He resisted the pull of a lifetime’s rank cowardice and a sidestepping inclination to indulge in aimless woolgathering. Tonight, for the sake of Arithon’s life, he opened the undisciplined aperture of his talent while the sweat of cold dread slid in drops down his temples and moistened his thatched ginger beard. The salt taste on his lips reminded of tears before the blameless, bitter kiss of the seaspray lately splashed by his inept hand at the oar.
Aw, poor dude.
Anyway, he does manage to call up a vision of a dead Arithon.
He saw pine trees, a bright shoreline where turquoise waters purled into spume, and there, Arithon s’Ffalenn on his knees in white sand, his black sword Alithiel drawn and upraised; and through the bone-hurting chord of grand harmony thrown off by the blade’s spelled defenses, a unicorn poised in the rampant, first thrust of a charge aimed to gore him.
Dakar screamed aloud, earthly flesh unable to bear the beauty and the pain, as the sword Alithiel flashed, then blazed through its star-captured peal of ward resonance. The Riathan Paravian dipped his silver-maned head, a scything horn set to reap; and vision scattered…
...Just a different dead Arithon. Oops.
There are some other flashes too.
Darkness rolled over him, unrelenting and bleak, stabbed through by the rippling, clean harmony of a lyranthe given voice by the hands of a master. Notes plucked out in Arithon’s best style fell like sprays of dropped jewels, or sleet tapping brass, while decades slipped by in a drawn-out, mindless slow agony…
Cryptic.
He saw priests clad in vestments with sunwheel emblems, chanting litanies against the vile works of the dark.
Ominous.
He saw blinding summer sun, and the red, bloodied length of a sword laid across an altar spread in a gold-edged, white cloth.
Not good.
There's more: a new city entangled in old briar, sobs of gut-wrenching agony, a dead child in the dust as a city is burning. A lot of really bad crap.
And I'm rather admiring, I have to admit, because this is all foreshadowing for Sword of the Canon, which is book 9 and 10. She's been planning this for a long-ass time.
Anyway, Dakar comes to:
Nausea knifed through him. He needed to sit up, but lacked the vitality.
A shadow arrived at the edge of his vision. A touch breathless, the voice of a bard phrased an oath ripe enough to scale fish. Then hands left ice-cold from a plunge in the sea grasped his shoulders and hauled him erect.
That succor given just barely in time; the first, rending spasm failed to catch the Mad Prophet facedown. Grateful not to lie heaving in his own filth, he coughed, spat, shivered, groaned, and finally croaked the name of his rescuer. “Arithon?”
“Lie easy.” When that instruction became impossible to carry out, the Master of Shadow held on until the Mad Prophet’s stomach stopped churning.
Aww. Even when they fight, they love each other.
Dakar reports: he couldn't see anything certain. Arithon's simply "too strongly fated" (of course he is). There's too many powerful futures to sort through.
The idea of Arithon getting killed by an angry unicorn is pretty hilarious though, I have to admit.
So anyway, Wurts knows what we want to see:
Seconds passed, filled by the rush of white foam gnawing the bleak, stony shingle. With no word spoken, Arithon settled in the darkness, his shoulders braced to the same rock. No sailhand from the Khetienn accompanied him; he had swum from the anchorage rather than roust out the crew to sway out a longboat. The crossing left him drenched as a seal, and shirtless. Kathtairr’s hazeless starlight sheened the flex of his fingers as he worked the cork from a wine crock, ferried ashore in one of the mesh nets young Feylind tied to catch shiners.
Wet, shirtless Arithon handing Dakar comfort alcohol. Or maybe she just knows what Dakar wants to see. Either way. It's apparently a rare vintage red from Orvandir. Dakar is grateful, having though Arithon was saving it for...
well, for celebration of a successful voyage. Yeah. But homoerotic bonding is almost as good.
The prince who sat in iron quiet beside him seemed to have shed his rancor for that. Arithon reached, recaptured the wine, pulled a deep draft in turn. Starlight strung sparks through the phosphorescent runnels on his skin, and streaked premature silver through black hair as he swallowed. He seemed to think better of speech and, instead, restored the crock into Dakar’s needful grasp.
The Mad Prophet drank deep to drown a lancing, sharp urge to weep. When he next looked, Arithon s’Ffalenn had clasped both his wrists with exquisite, fine-jointed hands, a habit he kept to mask the disfiguring marks of old scars.
The first paragraph is here because it's Arithon looking sexy in the moonlight.
The second paragraph is here because I'm not really sure how this mutual wrist clasping gesture is actually supposed to work. I'm trying it now and it seems very cumbersome. On the other hand, it might simply be that my wrists are not exquisite or fine enough to make it work?
Things get broody and a little too honest.
With his mind still awash in the harrowing images just snatched from the uncertain future, words slipped his grasp before thought. “How can you bear this, year after year? How can you live, self-aware as you are, of the fate that hangs on your choices?”
“I wouldn’t,” Arithon admitted. His skin pricked into sudden gooseflesh. His thumb traced the thin line healed crosswise overtop of the weals once chafed by iron fetters. The gesture arose from unpleasant recollection of his blood oath, irrevocably given to hold him to life by every means at his command. The terrible vow had been sworn to Asandir just after the destruction of Lysaer’s fleet at Minderl Bay.
A fine example of Fellowship respect for consent, that one. And in fact, Arithon tells us how it happened.
Sensitive now to the one burning question Dakar had never dared ask, Arithon offered his confidence. “You wonder how the Fellowship Sorcerers won my consent to that binding.” A brief pause, while the stars burned in chill unconcern. “I was told the world might not live if I surrendered the struggle in death.” Rathain’s prince tipped his dark crown to rest against striated rocks that sprouted no kindly lacework of lichen. The steep planes of his face might have been sculpted alabaster, except for the small, tensioned wrinkles which nipped at the corners of his eyes. “I saw that I couldn’t trust myself, Dakar. Not once I heard what was left on the gate world of Marak.”
Psychological manipulation really isn't consent, guys. At least not free and clear consent.
It is fair to note that Arithon's basically admitting that if it weren't for the blood oath, he'd have committed suicide. So, I mean, the blood oath probably WAS a good idea. I just really dislike the Fellowship's heavy handed methods.
Also, I think maybe the poor guy might be a little less suicidal if you didn't keep setting him up to fail? It pretty much seems like the Fellowship were like "well, he can't actively commit suicide, so we don't actually have to do anything else to help him, right?"
To my happiness though, Dakar actually seems offended on Arithon's behalf.
Marak!” The Mad Prophet shot straight to a gurgle of sloshed protest from the wine. “Ath, Marak! A crisis on a link world across South Gate. Of course! What else but the severed body of the Mistwraith could frighten the Fellowship dizzy? Dharkaron avenge! The Sorcerers bound you for that?”
“You need not upset yourself.” Arithon’s disarming, peaceful tone but reminded that he owned a masterbard’s tongue. Dissembling cleverness was his second nature. Dakar knew too much not to guess at the pain, and beyond that, to forgiveness that was genuine, as the Shadow Master finished, “If the Fellowship Sorcerers sought to divert me to Kathtairr, they will have had urgent reason.”
Ugh, this poor asshole. I miss the days when you used to happily scheme to make Asandir miserable.
Dakar is at least able to give him SOME explanation: basically, the Fellowship has been building wards, really fucking big and powerful ones. Dakar's seen this in dreams. It's like they're trying to "stave off the advent of their own defeat."
Arithon notes that they really need to find the Paravians. Which leads Dakar to think about how, at least in one vision, Arithon actually does find them. And gets murdered by one. That does seem pretty Arithon-esque. The only thing MORE Arithon would be if this is a result of a terrible decision that would inevitably screw him over.
The torment on his moon-round face must not, after all, have been due to the grit, since Arithon said in that level compassion that always sliced straight to the quick, “Let’s get you back. There’s more wine on the brigantine, and just as well. If I’m going to get in my cups along with you, it’s better done after I’ve launched and rowed your dory from the strand.”
Dakar shut his eyes, beholden beyond utterance. Quick temper and subterfuge aside, the Master of Shadow could be trusted to keep the most damnable letter of his word.
I mean, you could have comfort sex? I'm just saying.
Instead they just share wine and sympathy until Dakar falls asleep. Arithon apparently did stay sober though and orders the ship to head back to the continent.
--
We skip ahead to autumn. Apparently, the Khetienn takes a lot less time coming back than going forth. I know nothing about sailing, so I don't know if that's realistic or not. I'll assume so, since Arithon actually knows where they're going.
They land at Corith, after dark. But...it's not empty. Dakar fears an ambush, but Arithon has a pirate's expertise: It's not a fighting brig. Just one containing a shipment of apples.
We see Feylind now. She was mentioned earlier, and of course, we saw her early on. But it's been three years:
A whispered dance of bare footfalls, Feylind arrived aft to claim her place at the Shadow Master’s side. His equal for height, and grown into a saucy, long-legged, eighteen, she snatched the closed ship’s glass from his hand. The roped braid slid off her shoulder to lick her small breast as she deployed the brass segments. She raked piercing study in turn over the vessel limned dark against needle-worked reflections cast by a low-riding moon.
Eighteen. How time fucking flies. As for the ship in the harbor:
“Dharkaron’s hairy bollocks!” She gave a clear whistle. “The varnish still shines on her figurehead’s tits. It’s a mermaid, and look!” Fired outrage snapped through. “The ship’s carvers at Riverton are a raunchy band of goats. Bedamned if her nipples aren’t gilded!”
“Don’t lose our heading,” gasped Arithon to the quartermaster, who had folded his grizzled face into his elbow to stifle an inopportune smirk of humor.
“Riverton!” Dakar howled in unadulterated fury. “Save us all, you move fast! If that’s Lysaer’s vessel, you’ve had to be conniving at piracy for years! Why am I always the last one to hear what’s afoot?”
But the Shadow Master was himself left no standing to answer. Unable to follow his own sage advice, he lay curled in snorting mirth against the brightwork of the rail, while Feylind pummeled his shoulder with her fist for the fact he took her offended sex lightly.
Is Arithon actually laughing? Goodness. Maybe the sea voyage was good for him after all.
There's some cute banter between Arithon and his sailing apprentice, where he gives her the opportunity to strike sail - with the threat that the repairs will get docked from her dowry. Hah.
The next plans for Feylind is to refit the Khetienn and have Feylind navigate her to Innish for a long awaited familial reunion.
Arithon's pleased by this but Dakar's not. He realizes that if Arithon is sending Feylind away, then he's planning something dangerous.
First though, the ship goes to Caithwood to get some dispatches from the clansfolk there. The clansfolk offer jerky, but no cooking - they don't want to risk fires alerting patrols. Apparently there's a very good tracker, "crown funded" (So much for Lysaer turning down the kingship).
They've even had to set traps for the dogs, something the clansman thinks is "an offense against nature". Aw.
Arithon hears the news about Princess Talith's confinement ("for vapors, due to barrenness and delicate health") and is very skeptical. The clans can confirm that she hasn't been seen in public though, and when Lysaer left Avenor, she wasn't with him.
Lysaer, by the way, has gone to Etarra to "ply his honey tongue in diplomacy." Which to Arithon means there's an "unguarded henyard left for us foxes once again'. Hah.
But things are worse: a herb witch stoned in Quarn, Avenor's troop rolls tripled since Vastmark. The clans are chafing at the bit to pursue their blood grievance. They've been waiting - and it's chafed.
But there's a newcomer here too:
Beyond their maned necks, past the steaming back of a third horse which drooped its head from hard usage, another man stood dismounted. The newcomer was built broad, an obstinate thrust to his massive, squared shoulders. His head wore its cropped hair like filed steel, bristled to cowlicks at the crown. Born ornery, or else given to brainless bravery, he confronted the slightly made Prince of Rathain, feet planted like a balked mastiff’s.
It's Caolle of course!
And while Arithon is not happy to see him, he's outmatched for stubborn loyalty:
“Here I stay, liege,” carped the northern-born clansman who had resigned his life’s post as Earl Jieret’s war captain. “My sword guards your back. Live with that gift or behead me for treason.”
Dakar missed Arithon’s gloved velvet reply. Whatever the content, the sally made the rugged, older swordsman flush crimson.
“So just damn the day of your birth, while you’re at it!” Caolle cracked back. “Since you refused the good grace to die on delivery, Rathain has got a living prince.” Immovable oak when charged with his duty, he hurled his next line like a gauntlet. “I serve the kingdom. Since you plan to hang yourself out in Tysan as bait, you’ll have me along for the sacrifice.”
Sorry man, they love you after all. You'll just have to accept that.
Dakar ends up interceding:
“You might try a smile of welcome, your Grace,” Dakar bored in, well aware how the title would rankle. He pressed brashly on, came between the too-careful expression of blandness that Arithon presented toward his liegeman. “Ice could be turned into sunshine on a wish before you’ll talk Caolle home to Strakewood. He’s by lengths more stubborn than you are, and besides, this time he happens to be right.”
“Say that again to my face, should Jieret’s young son lose his father to a slave galley,” Arithon ripped back in blank rage. “By my oath as Rathain’s crown prince, if that day happens, I’ll see you both bleeding and dead for it.” All smoldering grace, he spun away, caught the reins of the nearest horse Caithwood’s clansmen held ready, then vaulted astride without pause to measure his stirrup length. “For today, keep up if you can.”
But of course, Arithon can't resist being dramatic. Still, now they're three. Well, they will be, once they catch up with Arithon.
We skip ahead four days to see what's up: a fat tinker is settling into a bargeman's hostel. This man might be significant.
If he's not, the man he catches sight of, probably is:
The tinker’s brown eyes touched, then fixed upon a slim man by the hob who had hair like bleached flax, quick eyes of a heathery gray-green, and whose clothing was embroidered and garnished with river pearls. Two tavemmaids fluttered over him like moths. He gave no appearance of leading them on, but his sweet words and kind manner left them desperate in their wish that he had.
A smile twitched the tinker’s tucked lips. He raised a wrist to scratch his snub nose, and behind cover of his sleeve whispered, “That one.”
The tinker isn't alone:
No.” A hulking, thick shadow against paneled walls, the tinker’s companion raised eyebrows like the grizzled pelt of a badger. Half of his leathery face lay swathed in bandages that seeped pus from a suppurating wound. Black gimlet eyes flicked aside and gleamed back in hot disbelief. Then a dubious mumble emerged from beneath the caked dressing.
As to what they're arguing about? There's a clue here:
“Oh, that’s him, make no mistake,” the tinker insisted under cover of metallic commotion as a chubby scullion stacked empty tankards on a tray. “He kept fancy clothes aboard the sloop with his lyranthe.”
So yes, we've got Dakar and Caolle in disguise. While the kind, sweet voiced blond is...well...Medlir 2.0.
And is he?
The blond man from the hearthside confronted him, his fine, beaded doublet masked under a bargeman’s caped wool. “Come,” he said in the razor-cut diction of Arithon s’Ffalenn. “We need to take a little walk.”
Of course!
Arithon is, of course, annoyed that Dakar risked Caolle in here. Dakar points out that Caolle is risking his own life, and that Arithon could have just accepted his offer in Strakewood.
Arithon points out that they might be in Riverton for months, and Caolle has a very distinct clan accent that bandages won't hide. Dakar points out that they can actually work a glamour - something to make Caolle's scar seem worse and garble up his speech.
Ultimately though, they're not really dealing with practical concerns here, but Arithon's massive guilt complex:
“Ath, Dakar!” Arithon stopped again, one hand pressed to his face. At long last the misery showed through. “He’s Earl Jieret’s man, and the only foster kin that boy ever had to replace his slaughtered family.”
But this, more than practicalities, is something Dakar knows how to answer:
“You won’t win this one, old friend,” Dakar said at last in gruff sympathy. He turned around in the mat of dead pine needles, ducked a low-hanging branch, and forged the way back toward the tavern. “That’s Caolle’s clan heritage you need purloined ships to try and save. Nor can you shirk all the trappings of your birth or cast off your most sensible liegemen. Some will live and others come to die in the course of your service. That’s their picked fate. Yours is to bear it, until the day comes that the Fellowship Sorcerers grant you their lawful leave to abdicate.”
That stunned through the force of past sorrows. Arithon s’Ffalenn looked back from his shadow-wrought disguise, his eyes for a second reverted to their native, blazing green. “Then we’re stymied.” He smiled in that baiting, bright malice he used to divert stinging words. “A match brought to draw, since the end play can’t happen unless I sire an heir for Rathain. You should all leave me.”
I mean, you could try knocking someone up? Rathain doesn't seem to require an heir be legitimate after all. Or Arithon himself would be discounted.
Dakar's response makes me laugh though:
Dakar chose to ignore that. “I presume you’ll be going into Riverton as a bard? Well, you’ve just acquired two servants. You might want to add some gray hair to fill out the part, since as the fair gallant, you’ll draw the wrong sort of notice traveling with a doting male retinue.”
Wrong, maybe. Inaccurate? I think not.
--
So the next sub-chapter is Design. It's also Autumn 5652.
Koriani stuff this time. We get a nice look at a Koriani orphanage here:
The Koriani orphanage in Capewell was housed in the refurbished shell of a merchant’s palace, a five-storied edifice of extravagant fancy that loomed over the harborside market. Stevedores’ calls and the dickering insults of house matrons never troubled its residents. High marble walls enclosed its stables and inner courtyards. Carved with weathered nymphs and the moss-caked cavities of scrolled waves, the scullery entrance fronted a sun-washed courtyard. A row of gnarled pear trees in tubs were all that remained of the formal herb gardens famed far and wide in past centuries. The branches lay stripped now, blackened skeletons shivering in the veering toss of the gusts off Mainmere Bay.
Morriel's here, by the way.
There's a nice glimpse as to day to day Koriani work here: a cobbler swearing the oath of obligation for a sigil of blessing, while his name is entered into a "List of Service" against a day when they'd ask for payment in boots, shoes or other piece of leather work.
The Koriani primarily work on a barter system rather than for coin (with the exception of small sales of simples and remedies) so as to avoid the corruption of greed.
That's an interesting note, since I think the fatal flaw of the Koriani is greed actually. Just not for money.
But anyway, Morriel here to select some new page boys.
The children seemed one long stream through time, as similar as pebbles in a brook. Unblinking, her obsidian eyes surveyed the dozen odd choices. They stood in a row with their fair hair combed, and clothing brushed formally straight. In age, they ranged from eight to ten.
Some always cringed from the Prime Matriarch’s review. Two stared at their feet. The inevitable coward sniffled and shook, while another near the line’s end presented tearful, flushed cheeks in defiant and terrified silence.
Morriel made her selection on a scant second’s thought. “That one, and that one.” The pair marked apart by her stabbing gesture were close matched in height, and possessed of a china-doll innocence. “Show the others away.”
The other kids get taken off to the kitchen for apple tarts and milk.
This is really rather evocative here:
led them off to the kitchen with a promise of apple tarts and milk.
The Prime surveyed her latest acquisitions with a vulture’s unwinking regard. The near boy watched her back, trapped in awe and macabre fear, as if her withered limbs in their draping purple velvet belonged to a corpse, or some nightmare work of carved calcite. The other child stood frozen with a dripping nose and a chin puckered red in failed effort to dam back his tears.
“You will serve as my page boys until you reach twelve years of age,” Morriel informed, not unkindly, but rasped thin as steel set too long to the grindstone. “The work I ask will be light. Do well, and on your day of dismissal, an apprenticeship will be found with a reputable trade which suits your inclinations.”
“Yes, matriarch,” whispered the boldest of the boys.
The withered twitch of a smile turned a corner of the crone’s lips. “How fine, you have manners, boy. Bravery, too. When you are a man abroad in the world, those virtues will be appreciated. My needs here are simpler. Please recall, when I come to address you, I prefer you say nothing at all.”
Yeah, this will be a fun experience.
(It occurs to me, this might be interesting to revisit when we get to see some interesting flashbacks to Arithon's apprenticeship in Rauven - in a later book.)
Morriel then gets a bit of backstory here:
In one seamless second, she no longer inhabited the chilly autumn courtyard in Capewell. Ten centuries blurred; the friable webs of perception unraveled. The green fields of her village childhood resurged and wrapped her in sun and the fragrant, honeyed heat of summer haze. The boys who rolled tussling and yelling amid the new-sprouted barley were her dark-haired, dark-eyed little brothers. Sprites who clung to her ruffled skirts while she simmered berries into preserves; who brought her their skinned knees and elbows to be nursed; who secreted live beetles inside her jars of dried rose petals.
She loved them like an addiction.
When her talent came on too strong to deny at sixteen, her parents had sent off the young plowman who sued for her handfasting. Deaf to her pleas and her stormy bouts of rage, they sent her dowry to the Koriani Order and pledged her to lifelong service. The boys became the tie that broke her heart. Scene followed scene as she suffered for their loss, huddled under blankets in the echoing, vaulted stone of the dormitory. She wept for her brothers, while merchants’ daughters from Cildorn bemoaned their lost gowns and jewels, and sly-faced craftgirls from Narms vied to take illicit lovers before the day they came to swear vows, and seal themselves forever to the celibate ways of an initiate enchantress.
We're told that even after a thousand years, Morriel wouldn't pick pages that resembled her brothers.
This is interesting though, I've seen flashbacks used to explain character backstory before, but it's pretty rare to have the characters in question react to said flashback as though it were, indeed, a flashback.
But Morriel's a little freaked out. She's just, briefly, found herself in another place and time, and while back now, she's pretty fucking disoriented. She's too old. Her crystal has too many memories and the matrix has grown ornery. And her replacement isn't fully trained yet.
She pulls it together though, to send the new pages off to be fitted for livery. And then, of course, she gets the news that Arithon has returned to the continent.
She orders a closed audience with a clairvoyant. She does NOT send a messenger to Lirenda, and is quite angry at the suggestion that she might. Interesting.
We move to the observatory. Some pretty neat description here too:
The observatory built into the Koriani sisterhouse at Capewell was an edifice evolved through the contrary styles of seven centuries. The dainty, five-sided bronze cupola and the fancifully shuttered casements which overlooked the town’s roof peaks were the latecoming ornaments of folly. Mossy stone walls and the flint sills of old revetments bespoke grimmer beginnings as a watchtower. From its original vantage, merchants had counted inbound ships at the quay. The stone had been reset with arrow slits later, when townsmen fortified against vengeance-bent clansmen through the unsettled years of the uprising. The observatory built on when the keep was roofed over now served as a chamber consecrated for fine magic.
The inside air had gone musty since the pierced shutters were darkened with sheets of tarnished silver. Candles of incense-soaked wax fluttered on the shelves of the sills. The inviting, cushioned benches that once lined the walls were reframed as cupboards with bronze hinges. Door fronts and portals had all been replaced with unpainted oak panels, cut green, dried in fire, then inset with the knotty, counterlooped copper of a thousand runes of ward. Each latch had been painstakingly welded, then sealed by tin sigils with guard spells to deflect any outside prying. The old, timbered floors were flagged over in black slate, unpolished to accept the scribed traceries and seals of forced power.
There, an emaciated predator poised over a webwork of ciphers, Morriel Prime crouched with a sliver of chalk in her hand. If the construct she patterned against the Fellowship’s constraints showed a calculated, terrifying complexity, its driving plot was most simple: since the Sorcerers placed undue value on Prince Arithon’s life, he was himself made the key to arrange their coercion.
So that's what Morriel learned from her meeting with the Fellowship. They need Arithon for the threat on Marak. This means if Morriel can capture Arithon, she'll have a tool against them. Even though she would rather, personally, see him dead to "forestall the prophesied threat to her succession."
Hey, Morriel. Have you considered maybe that the REASON he ends up threatening your succession is because you're trying to abduct/kill him? Just wondering.
Anyway, Morriel's got two initiates here to serve. They're going to be passive participants in the ritual:
As their Prime required, energy, talent, even life force itself might become siphoned from them. By the strict oath of obedience to their order, their Prime Matriarch could demand any sacrifice against the needs of greater humanity.
Being a Koriani kind of sucks. And I say that as an asexual who'd be fine with the celibacy part.
So anyway, ritual time. Lots of magical technobabble. Cool to read, but I'm not recapping it. The gist is, while the Waystone can't act on inanimate objects, it can still act through people. Like certain war captains who are now accompanying him. Especially when they're basically tagged with Fellowship spellbinder seals.
Oops.
They do have to be cautious that their hostile intent won't raise a "disharmony" that will unsettle Arithon's keen sense of empathy. It's a bardic thing.
She does find something useful though:
The interface must therefore be indirect. In velvet-gloved delicacy, Morriel wrought. From the riverside tavern where her quarry last slept, she quested among the dust in the floorboards. Her search yielded three flecks of stubble left from Arithon’s grooming. Before the inn’s chambermaid arrived to sweep, minute sparks of energy flared in the candleless gloom. The Prime’s first tendril of spellcraft embraced those cut snippets of hair, then wound their purloined essence, ephemeral as spun moonlight, into a personal signature to guide the course of her snare.
Well, that's fucking creepy. Guard your hair better, I guess?
Anyway, more spells. Neat. It's basically a net: rumors, hunches, and possible events to send Arithon into flight and into a trap of her making. It's apparently very elaborate. (Morriel still manages to complain about the Waystone that she hadn't even had for 500 years and did fine without, but whatever, lady.)
However, then something goes wrong. One of the initiates balks, "rejecting the sacrifice" when Morriel reaches for her power. It sends Morriel's spells awry and starts to break the conjury. To save it, Morriel has to demand power from the girl who held firm - killing her. Like I said, it sucks to be a Koriani.
She does manage to save it though, and thus has a plan to bring the Fellowship to heel so the Koriani Order "could preside over mankind's freed future."
Hm. Interesting definition of "freed" there. Is there a version that doesn't involve you presiding over it either?
--
The third subchapter is Marvel.
It also takes place in Autumn 5652.
We're with Lysaer this time. He's making the trek to Etarra. They've just passed Erdane.
Some banter between page and man-at-arm leads to this interesting exchange though:
At the page’s unsettled review of the landscape, the man-at-arms loosed a gruff chuckle. “Before sun, there’s the truth, and may Light strike me down if I’m lying.”
“Have a care. His Grace might hear your profanity.” The page tipped a weighted glance behind, where Prince Lysaer rode a horse length to the rear of his standard-bearer.
Lysaer's really embracing the divinity kick, I see. The purple prose at least obliges:
Through the sulfurous silt of puffed dust, the Prince of the Light rode bareheaded, his gleaming, fair hair a diffracted halo in the citrine glare of strong sunlight. Even through dirt, his presence seemed uncanny, a master-work wrought of alabaster and gilt against the monochrome landscape. The bullion-fringed banner and the stitched silk of its sunwheel seemed brass without luster in comparison.
And it has its effect:
Voice muffled to awe, the page boy ventured, “Do you believe the realm’s seneschal, that his Grace is sent as Ath’s servant to drive scourge and shadow from the land?”
The burly captain shrugged mail-clad shoulders. “I couldn’t speak the creator’s intent, boy. But Prince Lysaer, now, he’s real. His powers can be seen and felt.” Eyes trained ahead, he finished in respect, “Whether his Grace has divine origins or not, I’ll swear by his name as our given defender against evil.”
But will the captain stay so pragmatic when archers attack?
But no casualty had fallen to bowfire. The prince remained astride his blooded cream charger, stopped in the middle of the roadway. Amid a cavalcade churned into panic, he sat with a statue’s composure. No mere assassin’s ambush held the power to ruffle his uncanny poise. Heaven’s own lightning must leap to defend him, and out of a cloudless, clear sky.
The arrow lay banished to a lacework of blue smoke and a fading whiff of dry carbon.
“Angel of Ath!” the guard captain swore.
Maybe, maybe not.
That said, it's interesting that the captain still swears to Ath, when the chips are down, not "the Light".
We do get even MORE divinely purple prose though:
Lysaer commanded the tableau like a stage, his lofty magnificence set apart. The moment hurt for pure splendor. For a handful of heartbeats, time’s flow seemed erased, the lesser movements of men and beasts jarring.
The page boy, by the way, got unseated in the commotion. Lysaer gestures, and the valet scrambles from the baggage train to "offer him succor". I remember a time when Lysaer might have comforted the kid himself. But...
Yet the Prince of the Light offered no reprimand as he stirred from that terrible stillness. Swathed in the blinding, stitched glitter of his surcoat, he urged his charger toward the verge. Where the crumbled old tracery of wheel ruts gave way to the tangled brush of the plain, he drew rein. The object of his gaze might have been some beggar’s bundle, discarded among the bent weed stalks, except for the hand flung splayed on the earth, blistered with weeping, raw burns.
The archer of course. Unconscious, not dead. So that he can be tried and conscripted. Of course.
The boy, with a broken collarbone, gets to ride behind Lysaer. Both Valet and boy protests - he'll stain Lysaer's surcoat.
Lysaer laughed. His blue eyes held the unshakable, kind censure that melted the hearts of his servants. “Should a man who follows my banner be worth less than a few yards of silk? I think not.” The diamond in his ring scribed fire on the air as he extended his hand toward the page boy. “Come, lad. Share my saddle, and save your brave face for some worthier fight against darkness.”
Lysaer does know how to use a dramatic moment, doesn't he?
Anyway, they eventually get to the city of Miralt. They're slow enough that Miralt has plenty of time to dramatic welcome them - with silver-gilt helms, bright bardings stitched from dyed silk. Lysaer is both pleased and dismayed by the fanfare.
He decides to bypass the likely long-winded welcome by outmatching them for pageantry. And thus, we get to see Lysaer's best talent: turning purple prose into a weapon.
When the lanterns on the city walls hove into view, Lysaer laid the reins of his weary charger in one hand, raised his right fist, and discharged his gift in a hazed, gold corona over the vanguard of his retinue.
Gemstones and bullion leaped into dazzling clarity. Mail sparkled. Light hazed the sweated coats of the destriers to the gloss of polished satin. A crisp, clear call from the head of the royal column, and the guards in the train raised pennoned lances in salute. The sunwheel standard fluttered in the wash of warmed air, while night became riven to high noon.
Lysaer s’Ilessid in his brilliant white surcoat became the shining center point in their midst. From battlements and gate arch, the rowed ranks of Miralt’s garrison watched his advance in gaping awe. Those city ministers and guildsmen called from home by peremptory summons forgot their complaint. The prince’s unearthly presence might have seemed an arrogant excess of pageantry, but for the young page riding pillion behind.
As the pair neared the gates, all eyes could see the rich surcoat was not stainless white, but marred with bloodstains and dirt. The boy who besmirched its purity was tear streaked, an ordinary mousy-haired victim of mischance who clung in pain-shocked need for solace. The contrast between the child’s needy suffering and the Prince of the Light’s remote majesty framed an indelible image of mercy.
To his credit, I think Lysaer does genuinely care about the child. But I also think he knew exactly what this would look like.
And in fact, Lysaer uses his injured page to cut everything short. His retinue is housed at the barracks, while the Mayor offers his own his own palace to Lysaer.
Lysaer inclined his head. “Light’s blessing on you,” he said, the gracious assurance behind such acknowledgment no less than his regal due.
I do enjoy unsubtle parallels. Lysaer is not a man who would wear rags at sea.
Lysaer does manage an additional coup. Instead of heading straight to the Mayor's house, he disappears. Folks swiftly realize that he's gone on to the shrine to "give thanks for today's safe deliverance."
The thoroughfares went from tight to impassable. Not even the city guard could maintain their patrols. Balked citizens crammed into the taverns. Inebriated tosspots were displaced into corners as drudges rushed to light candles, and rumor sparked rampant speculation. The anomaly was noticed, that none of Lysaer’s weary guardsmen stripped weapons or mail to retire. Half of their hard-bitten number had remained at Ath’s shrine, firmly determined to stay through the night on bent knee in thankful prayer. Others whose tastes were more boisterous shed propriety and got themselves garrulously drunk. To throngs of avid listeners, they described miracles and lightning bolts that seared lethal arrows from clear sky.
“He’s blessed, our prince,” they pronounced in stark reverence. “We’ve borne witness with our own eyes. The shining powers of divine creation saved his Grace from a deadly attack.”
"Angel of Ath" indeed. Link yourself to the pre-existing god and eventually supplant it.
There's an outcry then, as hysterical townsfolk decide that they want the blood of the archer. After all, Lysaer is their only defense against darkness, and his death would strand them "without help or hope."
They seize torches and cobblestones, bricks and rails, down the streets in a riot toward the citadel.
Then, of course, they face Lysaer himself. And this is maybe an interesting bit of foreshadowing...
The front ranks cringed back. They knew whom they faced: Lysaer s’Ilessid, just returned from the shrine, and en route to the mayor’s hospitality.
To others behind, the detail was obscured. Due redress for a murdering, traitorous clansman seemed balked by one man, and the threat of a grandame’s tossed jakes.
“Just cut down the lamebrain!” shouted a knife-bearing smith.
Of course, Lysaer uses his light to dramatically take control of the crowd.
“No man held in bonds for the sake of royal justice shall be subject to violence or bloodshed!” Lysaer cried through the well of shocked motion. “Disperse and return to your wives and families, and leave the fate of clan criminals to me.”
When they protest, Lysaer asserts his divinity again:
“He is but a man!” Lysaer rebuked. His gift snapped and blazed. Through that flood of dire brilliance, the diamond white silk and gold trim of his surcoat shot his presence in scintillant outline. “Alone with a bow, do you really believe one mortal clansman could bring down the righteous arm of the Light?”
Obviously Lysaer wins the day. But it is a lesson, isn't it?
Religious fervor is not quite the same kind of tool as the self-interest that Lysaer's used to exploiting from the townsfolk that he meets. It's more visceral and irrational. Faith and fear and all that in between.
Religion can be wonderful, a source of strength and community for people. But it can get out of control very quickly. As we saw here. Lysaer's always made his position on hostages clear. But that edict doesn't matter in the face of mass fear and rage.
And for a moment there, for some of those people, even Lysaer himself didn't matter. The ones who could see him clearly, they were fine. But the ones farther away...they just saw a "lamebrain" to be cut down.
Religion is a strange and powerful thing and doesn't necessarily require a living representation of divinity to function. It might behoove Lysaer to remember that.
But right now, the "Prince of the Light" has laid down the law:
“No criminal act can be healed by rash action,” the Prince of the Light exhorted. “This clansman you would burn was misled by evil. Before execution, he deserves all your pity. My law has sentenced him to chained service at the oar, a miserable fate. He’ll know the whip and the indignity of slavery, sore enough suffering for the error of his ways. No one, no matter how outraged, will take his life out of hand! Death will deliver him from the galleys soon enough, but only on the hour appointed by powers outside mortal judgment!”
He sends them home, with his peace and his blessings. If anyone still burns to fight in the morning, they can sign up with Lysaer's captain at arms. He leaves to a worshipful chant: “Hail the blessed lord! Hail the Light! Death to the Spinner of Darkness!”
--
Our final, sneak peek section is Moments.
We're still in autumn 5652, by the way.
The first is Mearn - he's still ensconced in Avenor. He's received a message from Arithon asking him to look into the disappearance of "Lady Talith, Princess of Tysan."
Yes, FINALLY.
(And it's a funny character beat, how Arithon is so adamant about Talith's status. Maybe Lysaer isn't the only one projecting his mother issues onto her...)
The second is "far to the east of Miralt Head" - Jieret's scouts are intercepting messages calling the town mayors to Etarra to pledge to the "Alliance of Light". The clans will have to flee into deep cover.
The third is at the Koriani observatory. It's locked up tight until Lirenda gets there. Even if Morriel's dead inside. I doubt Arithon would be so lucky though.