Initiate’s Trial: First book of Sword of the Canon. Janny Wurts
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might find some sort of menial labor in town. Aware he was unwanted, he moved off unasked, to assist an old woman who struggled to lift hampers of yarn from a neighbouring wagon. Diligent as he seemed, the local tavern might hire him to scrub tankards and sweep.
‘He will be better off,’ Efflin snapped, and dealt Tarens a shove to break his reverie. ‘Anything here offers much better prospects than blocking the trade-road for shiftless amusement.’
Autumn 5922
Hard Reckoning
The Fellowship Sorcerer entered the order’s sisterhouse at Whitehold empty-handed, his purpose to close the terms of an ancient score, declared in an hour of bitter defeat on a morning well over two centuries ago. He came clothed in formality. His robe of immaculate indigo velvet brushed the marble floor, while the silver braid that bordered his sleeves gleamed in the early sun shafted through the hall’s sea-side windows. Pale steel were his eyes, steady as he took the measure of the Prime Matriarch of the Koriathain, enthroned in state panoply to meet him.
Always dangerous, the enchantress sat above everyone else in the room. Her coquette’s beauty was regaled in the deep purple gown and red ribbons of her supreme office, and her massive chair, atop a canopied dais, overshadowed the initiate sisters selected to witness the momentous audience. Where the Sorcerer was required to stand at her feet, his immense strength leashed in stilled patience, she glittered in extravagant triumph. Pale aquamarine were her eyes, hard as her jewels of amethyst and diamond, and just as stone cold, while she savoured her moment to hound him to humiliation.
She had cornered his game, or so she believed. The flicker of gilt thread in the gloves worn to mask her grotesquely scarred hands all but shouted her defiant scorn. Peremptory, invigorated by the thrill of her victory, she gestured for him to open the proceedings.
‘Prime Matriarch,’ he greeted, too self-contained to sound cowed, though the grandiose hall with its stone-vaulted splendour had been staged for demeaning spite. Lean and tall though the Sorcerer was, the soaring pillars that upheld the domed ceiling diminished his upright stature. More, the silent regard of the ranked Senior sisters picked to share his Fellowship’s demise seared the atmosphere to contempt.
The weathered lines on the Sorcerer’s features might have been quarried, with his hawk’s profile straitly expressionless. ‘I have come in accord to confirm the reckoning owed by our mutual promise.’
Perfect with youth, though she was in fact aged, her vitality engineered by dark spellcraft that had repeatedly cheated mortality, the Prime Matriarch tipped her coiffed head to acknowledge his careful greeting. ‘Asandir.’ Her coral lips turned, a smile made cordial by poisonous satisfaction. ‘We accept, by your presence, the promised acknowledgement that your Fellowship’s debt is now due. The last invasive free wraith from Marak has been duly banished by Athera’s Masterbard. The event occurred yesterday. This dawn, by the covenant carved onto stone in the King’s Chamber at Althain Tower, the stay of execution your Fellowship demanded on behalf of Prince Arithon of Rathain is named forfeit. Our order’s sovereignty requires his death. By the pledge held and sworn by Crown auspices to Koriathain, and sealed by the prophet apprentice under your Fellowship’s oversight, we choose to reject a further hearing.’
Asandir said nothing.
Stung, perhaps, by his dead-pan silence, Prime Selidie sat forward and jabbed. ‘My order will seize its deferred satisfaction! Did you really believe our initial demand would be softened by your past effrontery when you forced our hand?’
Malice spiked the Prime’s anger. The sweet hour of ascendancy heated her blood, all the more rich since the vicious riposte thrust upon her by the Fellowship Sorcerers’ underhand tactic: a deadly influx of wraiths unleashed on the world as their ruthless weapon in counter-threat. Unconscionably, they had gambled! The survival of Mankind on Athera had been callously tossed on the board as their bargaining chip, with the innocent populace placed at risk under a lethal threat to buy Arithon’s chance for reprieve. Centuries she had waited for the deferred moment to exact her treasured revenge. She fully intended to relish this long-sought, moral requital.
‘Such arrogance!’ Selidie chided, drunk on the precedent that the Sorcerer stood at her mercy. ‘Did you lie awake night after night, all these years, hopeful that time would soften our committed stance?’
Asandir only inclined his head, hair glinted white in the unkind glare that stabbed down from the lancet window.
‘Well, our terms have not changed.’ The Prime restated, crisp, ‘I will have the Koriathain released from the tyranny of your compact. Grant our demand. Or Prince Arithon dies before sundown. For his life, and the continuance of Rathain’s royal lineage, how will your Fellowship plead?’
‘We choose not to plead,’ Asandir stated, quiet. ‘The old law that grants humanity’s right to exist on Athera remains intact. And enforced! We stand upon principle. My dear!’ he exclaimed, not amused as the Matriarch stiffened. ‘Should my ultimatum surprise you? This world’s future has never been mine to bequeath! Mankind dwells here by the grace of our surety. That interest is our charge to balance and never set under your order’s purview to negotiate!’
Selidie’s eyes narrowed. Her malice had roots. Beyond question, she knew: Arithon s’Ffalenn was the linch-pin on which the Fellowship’s purpose depended; also, the cipher to leverage her gain. If Asandir would not bend his terms, if his Fellowship’s stance remained obdurate, she would follow through. Arithon would be killed, and with no mercy, if only to void the old prophecy that forecast the failure of her succession.
‘I live for the day!’ the Matriarch pronounced. ‘Your stubborn ethics have just signed the death warrant for your captive prince.’
Asandir raised open hands. ‘So be it.’ Like rinsed granite, his face, as he added, ‘My course of noninterference is hereby confirmed. Expect me to remain as the Fellowship’s witness. I will stay present only until the bitter ending’s accomplished.’
Selidie regarded him, dissecting his manner to gauge the hidden depths of his discomfort. Field Sorcerer to the Fellowship, he would keep his adamant poise, along with the letter of his spoken pledge: no record in history ran contrary. Nonetheless, the air trembled, taut as a roughly plucked string. The breadth of raw power in his contained presence could have broken the natural rise and set of the sun.
Selidie laughed until the hall echoed. ‘Your Warden should have sent someone more inventive! How the collar and leash must chafe your proud neck! Or is this a novelty? A twisted attempt to pique your jaded nerves? Are you grown tired enough in your dotage to find relief as a passive observer?’
‘I am waiting,’ said Asandir, clipped impatient. ‘My word, struck in closure, is all you require.’
‘Do as I say, and be done here?’ Prime Selidie laid the swathed stumps of her hands on the purple silk over-dress, artfully draped over her lap. Her sharp focus heightened like a hunting cat’s toying with a pinned mouse. ‘Should I rush the moment? When every exchange made with you before this has demeaned our needs as a pittance?’ Emotion leaked through, the first tremor of rage, transmitted by volcanic fury. ‘How does it feel, now the tables have turned? Should I not enjoy watching your years of planned strategies flicked hither and yon, hapless as chaff in a storm wind?’
On an occasion less fraught with peril, Asandir might have smiled before he attacked. ‘Glendien’s bastard daughter threw a wrench in your works? Is it true, as I’ve heard, that every quartz crystal she ever touched became shattered to fragments? I could relieve your order of that embarrassment. If her natural father is condemned to die, you’ve no further need for a hostage to guarantee our share of the bargain. I would gladly accept on my Fellowship’s behalf if the Koriathain would release Teylia back to us.’
‘What! Leave you the means to extend your pestiferous royal lineage and seat a successor on Rathain’s vacant throne?’ Selidie gloated outright. ‘Not a chance! Teylia was wrested away from your charge. Inept or not, even aged past senility, she may find a useful place in our order yet. No. Her loyalty stays tied to me. Unless you would care to rethink your position and release