The Light ebbed, then dwindled, then died. Sprawled prone on the pillow before his altar at Avenor, Cerebeld shuddered in release. As always, the limp aftermath caught him defenseless.
He bit back a cry, ripped to desolation as his mind was cast into separation.
By now, he knew there existed no remedy for the dimmed prison of mortal limitation. He could only endure, drawn onward by the obdurate steel of his faith. One ritual to the next, he breathed for the moments when the exalted presence entered and claimed him as instrument.
At length, he gathered himself and arose. He felt hollow, diminished, a lackluster shell that stepped through the motions of living. Dry duty sustained him. The needs of the faithful required teaching and guidance. Their prayers must be led by rote. Amid the drab, puppet players he ministered, Cerebeld moved like the addict, perpetually craving the next golden dawn, when his being could rise and rejoice once again in communion with divine rapture.
Winter 5670
Solstice Moon Fortnight
In the Kingdom of Rathain, the trade cities of Etarra, Darkling, and Morvain hear Cerebeld’s chosen priests speak the word of the Light calling for the Alliance’s faithful to muster; while on the westshore, mounted couriers leave Narms bearing news of Lysaer’s arrival, and exhorting the surrounding town garrisons to join the campaign to run down the Shadow Master in Daon Ramon Barrens…
In Baiyen Gap, caught critically short of supplies since the demise of his supply train, Jaelot’s bespelled captain berates his sergeants rather than bow to the quandary of defeat, ‘Every man present will fare on half rations! A third of the company must continue to advance. The rest will make camp and butcher horses for sustenance until a forced march back to Jaelot can arrange for another pack train to relieve us…!’
En route to Karfael, the royal patrol dispatched from Avenor receives a southbound courier bearing news of Khadrim attacks deep in Westwood; warned of the terror and death newly suffered by the region’s trappers and farm hamlets, young Prince Kevor refuses safe return to West End, and claims his heir’s right to ride at the fore, alongside the field captain’s banner…
Winter 5670
The eighty-league ride up the Eltair road from Jaelot to the city of Highscarp offered every discomfort of winter travel to the tight-knit party of enchantresses summoned for audience with the new Prime. Posthouses were few and scattered, and at this season, packed to the rafters. Day or night, the heaving waves of the bay shed chill spume, whipped on the biting east wind. Progress suffered the caprice of changeable weather. Ragged clouds and fair sky warred in crazy quilt patterns, brewed into fogs and wet snowfall as the air off the warmed, southern currents of the Cildein met the ice-honed fronts from the north. A steady onslaught of storms funneled through the Skyshiel summits, howling with shrill fury down the gorges; or they raged inland off the whitecapped bay and unburdened their tropical moisture.
As tangled were the contentions chafing the oathsworn ties of Koriani loyalty. Each enchantress bound to the initiate’s purple held a different view of the Prince of Rathain’s late escape. Cadgia’s circle of seeresses accepted the failure with stoic good spirits, the event just another professional setback to crimp the cogs of higher authority. For Elaira, withdrawn into worried silence concerning the fate of two fugitives abroad in the Skyshiel wilderness, the affray kept its bittersweet edge of snatched victory. Whatever accounting awaited in Highscarp at the hand of Morriel’s successor, her heart’s love still anchored the core of her private thoughts.
Lirenda vacillated. Her porcelain-fair features flushed to rage when discussion touched upon Arithon, or else chilled to an ice-sculpture mask of balked hatred as she choked on the rags of her shame. Once past the jolting news of Morriel’s death, the disparate facts sifted down to a core of disturbing suspicions. Lirenda wrestled her reservations concerning Selidie’s abrupt accession alone, while the winter rigors of the Eltair coast rankled her fastidious taste for silk clothes and comfort and cleanliness.
The days passed like punishment: over roads that softened to muck in the hollows and open-air campsites left trampled by the uncouth livestock tethered on their way to slaughter. Those rare nights spent under a roof offered poorly washed linen, and smoking hearths, and stifling taprooms jammed with boisterous drovers, and bearded, swaggering caravan guards who played dice, roared jokes, and pinched doxies.
On a blustery morning twoscore days past solstice, the travel- worn group of enchantresses drew rein before Highscarp’s gatehouse. Lirenda was windburned and aching tired, wrapped like the rest in mantle and gloves that reeked of woodsmoke, wet horse, and the turpentine bite of the evergreen boughs that had served her as last night’s bedding. The uncivilized journey had revised her priorities. Vengeance-bent hatred of Arithon s’Ffalenn could wait on her need for a bath.
‘If you’re primed for hot water, we’re facing a setback,’ an intrusive voice broached from the sidelines.
Lirenda turned her head, fixed her smoldering gaze on Elaira, who rode with her hood blown back. The gusts played havoc with her bronze plait, streaming tendrils of flyaway hair and snagging the ends into elf locks.
Nonplussed by hot glares and glacial silences, Elaira raised her eyebrows. ‘Look. Over there.’ She pointed toward the swarm of beggars jostling for coin in the lee of Highscarp’s outer keep, most of them missing hands or a foot from mishaps working the quarries. ‘See for yourself. That’s one of our initiates giving alms at the city’s main gatehouse. She’s looking our way. What will you wager? I say the Prime’s scryers have already broken the news of our arrival. Whom do you guess they’ll call onto the carpet for the privilege of the first reprimand?’
‘You might pretend to an earnest concern.’ Lirenda’s fist tightened without thought on the rein. Her mount, in sharp protest, shook its wet crest. A spray of fine droplets snapped off its mane, laden with gravel and ice melt. ‘Brute beast!’ Lirenda blotted her face with her sleeve, then added a silken warning.
‘The new Prime may not prove so lenient toward the weakness you bring to our order.’
‘But I have no regrets,’ Elaira attacked in stripped candor. ‘If I must suffer for my part in Jaelot, the price will be well worth the outcome. Why not join the company of the damned with good cheer? At least bet that chunk of grade amethyst in your cloak brooch. If you forfeit your dignity, you’d have a stake to enliven the sordid end play.’
Yet if Lirenda envied her younger peer’s gift to find humor amid life’s adversity, the haughty set to her lips did not soften. Nor would her cynical silence relent, even as the initiate by the gatehouse abandoned her clamoring circle of beggars. Red-faced from the cold, she threaded a no-nonsense course through the traffic and accosted the sisters from Jaelot.
‘Enchantress Elaira!’ She delivered her unwelcome summons across the clattering rush of guild couriers and the tumult of oxcarts laden with ale casks and firewood. ‘You are called to appear for immediate audience before your