‘What do you fear?’ the old man repeated. His entreaty held a note of compassion that belled through explosive stillness.
The woman’s gaze fell. ‘I fear to burn. You know this.’ The stiff, clawlike hand clasped to the artifact spasmed to trembling frailty. Whatever malevolent force the stick channeled seemed poised, unstable as the suspended cling of a waterdrop.
The old man surveyed her desperate stance and discerned deeper meanings behind her simple admission. ‘You’re cold. The winter is cruel where folk are made fearful of those who sell the old remedies. You may take my word for your safety and the promise of shelter.’ He shed his rag coat in one fluid motion. ‘Go to freedom in Havish in exchange for leaving that stick.’
‘You have no right to release a crown convict!’ pealed the Crown Examiner in flushed rage.
‘But I have, in this case.’ Underneath the drab motley, in startling transformation, the old man wore wine red robes with edged borders of black interlace that looked newly made from the tailor’s.
‘Your bond, I can trust,’ the crone relented. Her short laugh held an unlooked-for delight as she yielded and curtsied, and let him accept the stick from her unsteady grasp.
The pending sense of danger built and trembled on the air. Though the candles burned straight in the draftless atmosphere, the stone floor seemed to rock without movement.
With no fanfare, no warning, the old man ran his gnarled palm hard down the length of the wood. The staff spoke, a chilling vibration of sound like the wail of a terrified child. In shattering contrast, the light that bloomed under his sure touch was wrought out of limpid clarity. A wash of bound energies whined past and dispersed. The candles streamed then, and the scentless backwash ruffled the feathers and damp hats of the magistrates, and shot queer, starred pulses off the steel of the guards’ helms and weaponry. Nor was the staff scatheless. The carved runes dissolved in a spatter of red sparks, licking scintillant fire through the odd, silent courtier’s pale ermines and exquisite linked diamond studs.
What remained in the old man’s hand was an oak stick, polished and plain, now innocuous as a countryman’s walking cane.
‘Thank you, grandmother.’ The elder returned the stick to the crone with unstudied, gallant courtesy.
At his back, the Examiner’s outrage inflamed the bunched mass of courtiers.
‘You’ve no right to grant a reprieve to crown prisoners!’ Lord Vorrice burst out. To Avenor’s taciturn Lord Commander at Arms, he ordered, ‘Restrain him, at once.’
The guards moved. The metallic notes struck off their mail and edged weapons splashed echoes the full length of the warehouse.
The old man glanced up, droll. ‘Are you foolish?’ He engaged the masked gaze of Lord Commander Sulfin Evend, even as the royal guards closed and surrounded him.
Amid the official party, the sleek crown councilman seemed the only other man to appreciate the irony of the challenge.
Nor was Sulfin Evend either hot-blooded or rash, to rise to the old man’s baiting. His calm called a halt on the guardsmen’s aggression, and his speech stopped them cold between strides. ‘Sethvir of Althain,’ he addressed, his formality reamed through by corrosive sarcasm. ‘Why have we the pleasure?’
The named title electrified the gathering to fear. A hairsbreadth from bloodshed, guardsmen gripped their weapons, and the magistrates shrank, feathered hats and jeweled finery shuddering to the beat of sped pulse.
The person revealed as a Fellowship Sorcerer stepped away from the crone, his fingers clasped behind his back like a child caught out stealing sweetmeats. ‘Oh, shall we bandy words, now, instead of engaging with weaponry?’ He winked at Sulfin Evend. ‘For one thing, there will be young wives in Etarra who want living husbands brought safely home to their hearthstones.’
‘The crown would be grateful,’ Sulfin Evend agreed, as cutting as any unsheathed steel in this surprise ambush of courtesies. ‘Though your charitable thought is of questionable standing since your colleague was the one who cursed these men to enchanted sleep in the first place.’
Sethvir raised mild eyebrows, offended. ‘Asandir did no such thing. He merely allowed Caithwood’s live trees to respond to an unfair endangerment. Or did you not make your eloquent case in Lysaer’s state council to sue for a decree of burning and destruction?’
‘This is rubbish!’ broke in Vorrice. ‘A tree can bind three whole companies of fighting men into a lethal coma? What an asinine flight of fantasy!’
‘Actually, no. They prefer not to kill.’ Sethvir sidled another half step, disarmingly patient. ‘Nor will they, if everyone stays reasonable.’ While the crone snatched her chance to melt into the shadows, he coughed politely, craned his neck, then raised his hand to fend off the converging bristle of pole arms. ‘How uncivilized we are,’ he chided. ‘After taking the trouble to travel in winter, I’d rather not step out beforetime.’
Under Sulfin Evend’s unflinching regard, the guards stiffened their weapons and held their ground.
Sethvir shrugged. ‘Have things your way.’ He dismissed the Lord Commander as he might have abandoned an instant’s idle survey of a fly. ‘You overdressed blunderers make a splendid display, intimidating all the wrong people.’ All devilment, he beckoned to the cowering royal secretary. ‘Come forward, man. Stop shaking as well. Nobody’s going to skewer someone’s liver on a pike. Your wooden-faced high councilmen are merely going to set royal seal to an edict that pledges the heartwood of the forests Lysaer’s grant of protection, for all time.’
‘You won’t get the Prince’s signature,’ the Lord Commander interjected in venomous loyalty. ‘I’ll kill if you try to use these poor victims’ lives for extortion.’
Sethvir actually smiled. ‘Impasse. I can leave.’ As Sulfin Evend shifted forward to engage the guard, he added, ‘Don’t make your men party to an embarrassing mistake. No mere unsheathed steel can gainsay me.’
‘I will find your weakness. Take that as my warning.’ The Lord Commander’s burning gaze took weight and measure of Sethvir’s timeworn features before he signaled his men to lower their weapons and stand down. ‘Go from this place. Make your way back to your tower in Atainia empty-handed. We can afford to lose every man who lies here in the cause of true service to the Light.’
Again Sethvir raised tangled eyebrows. This time his inquiry focused on the smooth countenance of the one crown councilman, whose silence was now striking, and whose masked intelligence bespoke deeper motives behind unobtrusive restraint.
‘Every living man’s sword counts in this war against shadow,’ that glittering personage contradicted. ‘Nor will your evil works claim even one who lies stricken for the sake of another’s stiff pride. You may dictate your terms,’ he said to the Sorcerer. ‘Rest assured, I hold the authority to sign documents in the absence of his Grace, the Blessed Prince.’ Wholly contained, his hair combed silk under the uncertain flutter of candlelight, he finished in unruffled majesty. ‘Make no mistake. This is not capitulation. We are large enough in the strength of our faith to meet your demands and recover.’
‘You can’t yield,’ Lord Examiner Vorrice interrupted, his breath thickened to fury. ‘Prince Lysaer would never bow to a threat, nor give this enemy any footing for demand.’
‘Peace, Vorrice,’ murmured the high councilman, unperturbed, his collar of jewels like pinned points of ice hung on a nerveless wax statue. ‘There is no demand our Alliance cannot grow to overcome, given time.’ To Sethvir, he assured, ‘My writ will be honored. The secretary and the clerks can draw up a document in state language, and the ring on my hand will stand as the seal for Prince Lysaer’s personal bond.’
‘A