Close Confidence

      Summer 5648

      The squall passed. Above the swept rocks of the fortress at Corith, stars emerged from the cloud cover. Sea winds combed the headland and slapped through the sailcloth roofed over the ruined north drum keep. Bronzed by the smoking stub of the oil cresset lit to treat Arithon’s hand, Dakar sat awake, keeping watch. Long since, the spooled silk and needles used to close up the gash had been tidied and put away. On the pallet, stone quiet, the Teir’s’Ffalenn lay sprawled in exhausted sleep.

      The Mad Prophet listened to the call of the night-flying owl, mournful between the irregular tap of twine lacings. He waited, alert for the moment of inevitable aftermath. No man mentioned the Havens inlet in the Shadow Master’s hearing that dreams did not come and goad the prince screaming from sleep. Grateful that foresight had seen Lord Jieret dismissed before the inevitable backlash, Dakar settled his chin on plump wrists.

      An hour passed, uneventful. The night smelled of puddled rock, mingled near at hand with the astringent bite of medicinal herbs. Gusts thrummed sighing through the cedars down the slope, cut by the whistle of a sentry, come back from the headland to roust his relief watch. Dakar traced out a fine rune. His trained talent as spellbinder raised an appeal to the air, then bent the element’s given consent to work a small construct of deflection. When the sailor just wakened in the compound raised a noisy string of complaint, no ripple of disturbance crossed the line of soft conjury to upset Arithon’s rest.

      Somewhere in the thickets a fox barked. The midsummer stars arced across the black zenith, their dance unchanged through the centuries since man first inhabited Athera. Against their seasonal harmony, a whispered rustle of discord: on the pallet, one fine-boned hand spasmed closed. The Master of Shadow curled into a locked huddle and loosed a harsh breath through his teeth.

      Dakar crossed to the pallet. He murmured a cantrip to ground his inner strength in the ageless stone of the headland. Then, as Arithon moaned, twisted sidewards, and thrashed, he grasped the slighter man’s shoulder. He caught the fist that snapped up toward his chin, winced for the abuse to new bandages, then pressed down in firm restraint. The prince he resisted might be sorrowfully thin, but his struggles were inventive and difficult. Dakar required main force to prevail. He turned the sharp s’Ffalenn features into the blankets and stifled the rising, agonized groan into the muddle of bedding.

      “Wake,” he murmured. “Arithon, throw off the dream and come back.” He barbed each word in spell-turned clarity. “This is Corith, and everyone is safe.”

      Dakar waited, spoke again. He absorbed the next onslaught of redoubled, blind fight as the Shadow Master tried to bludgeon free. Against his undignified need to cry out, the Mad Prophet held steadfast, until the corded tension under his hands dissolved through a spasm of transition. The Teir’s’Ffalenn in his care passed from nightmare into living remembrance of a horror no passage of time might erase. Then, as often happened, Dakar waited, silent, while the Master of Shadow softly wept.

      The cresset by then had dwindled to a coal. Rinsed by ruby light, the Mad Prophet stayed his sympathy, while Rathain’s crown prince cocked an elbow and pushed himself upright. The single-handed sail to slip pursuit from the mainland had worn him. The resilience never recovered since Vastmark had abraded further in the months spent ashore. Terrors of guilt and conscience dulled the green eyes that regarded Dakar through the gloom, left them lusterless as sea-battered glass. The expressive, fine bones of the Masterbard’s hand rested slack on the coverlet, bundled flesh sapped of small grace.

      “Daelion Fatemaster forgive me for the way I treated Jieret,” were the first words the Shadow Master said. He looked fevered. Minutes passed as he steadied his breathing, and his high, sweating flush subsided back into pallor. “He is Rathain’s true caithdein, courage and honor to his core. So like his father, he’s become. Does he know even yet what he means to me? Should he take harm from Lysaer’s miscalled judgments, I don’t think I could stand it. Let Dharkaron Avenger redress his wronged feelings. I had to send him back to his people.”

      “You did right,” Dakar soothed. “Lord Jieret will go, and soon after, the Khetienn will sail.”

      An interval passed without speech. Arithon tipped back his tangled head and rested against the worn stone of the bastion. The steep, angled features of his ancestry carved sharper in the uncertain scrawl of deep shadows. “If Cattrick succeeds, we’ll have ships,” he murmured, his ongoing effort to control his fraught nerves sketched in pained creases around his eyes. “The clans can be taken to safety. We only have to find the Paravians.” His hope was a refuge from the drive of Desh-thiere’s curse behind the strong wardspells that masked them.

      In the dimness, Dakar averted his face. Ill practiced at patience, he fiddled with his sleeve cuffs, then launched on a sharp change in subject. “What will you do about Jieret’s new augury?”

      “Ignore it, unless the Khetienn’s search fails.” Arithon’s bitterness scraped through like old rust. “What can I do anyway? My mage-sight’s still blind. Given your help, I couldn’t even scry through to find a sane outcome in Vastmark. Ath knows, since that blunder, naught’s changed.”

      “Stop,” Dakar snapped. “You can’t let your past write the future.” Like ill omen, the fading last flame in the torch dipped to an ember and died. This moment, Dakar found no comfort in darkness. “Right now you would do best by sleeping,” he advised.

      An oath ripped back in sharp, precise syllables. Bedding rustled. Arithon settled prostrate on the cot. His limbs did not move, but through mage-sight, Dakar sensed his eyes were still open. When an hour passed, and his needling conscience kept him wakeful, he loosed a soft word in resignation.

      The spidered threads of the spell already prepared between Dakar’s hands enfolded his consent on a thought. The wide, tortured gaze became masked by the sweep of black lashes. Tight breathing steadied. Arithon s’Ffalenn relaxed fully at last, the unquiet gnaw of his lacerated spirit eased back into dreamless rest.

      Weary, aching, the Mad Prophet arose from long vigil. He shuffled his way to the keep’s narrow doorway, and in the drawing pull of the earth through his bone marrow, measured the interval before dawn. Another figure bulked dark alongside the drum tower’s threshold. Lord Jieret lay curled there, his great sword at hand, and his hawk features set in repose. A contradictory tautness knit through his body warned of the fact he was wakeful. Dakar chose not to speak, but stepped out, his intent to seek solitude and settle drawn nerves on the heights overlooking the sea.

      A grip like fixed iron trapped his ankle. He tripped, crashed flat, and bit back an outraged howl as his cheek slapped into a mud puddle. Then outcry became moot. Rathain’s caithdein rolled over his felled form and pinned him facedown in the dirt. A predatory hand vised his nape and a knife bit a slanting, cold line across the pouched skin of his throat. Dakar gasped. Contact with the