Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Miscreant
Two princes, dark and fair
Cursed by the mistwraith, Desh-thiere
Hate bound them
Blood crowned them
'Til cold death, war must hound them:
Vie for the shadows and the light
Die blind in the shadows, burned in the light
Cry, "Down the shadows, hail the light!"
Verse from a children's game
Fourth Age 1220
On the morning the Fellowship Sorcerer who had crowned the king at Ostermere fared northward on the old disused road, the five years of peace precariously reestablished since the carnage that followed the Mistwraith's defeat as yet showed no sign of breaking.
The moment seemed unlikely for happenstance to intrude and shape a spiraling succession of events to upend loyalties and kingdoms. Havish's coastal landscape, with its jagged, shady valleys, wore the mottled greens of late spring. Dew still spangled the leaf tips, touched brilliant by early sunlight. Asandir rode in his shirtsleeves, the dark, silver-banded mantle lately worn for the royal coronation folded inside his saddle pack. Hair of the same fine silver blew uncovered in the gusts that whipped off the sea, that tossed the clumped bracken on the hillcrests and fanned gorse against lichened outcrops of quartz rock. The black stud who bore him strode hock deep in grass, alone beneath cloudless sky. Wildflowers thrashed by its passage sweetened the air with perfume and the jagging flight of disturbed bees.
For the first time in centuries of service, Asandir was solitary, and on an errand of no pressing urgency. The ruthless war, the upsets to rule and to trade that had savaged the north in the wake of theMistwraith's imprisonment had settled, if not into the well-governed order secured for Havish, then at least into patterns that confined latent hatreds to the avenues of statecraft and politics. Better than most, Asandir knew the respite was fated not to last. His memories were bitter and hurtful, of the great curse cast by the Mistwraith to set both its captors at odds; the land's restoration to clear sky bought at a cost of two mortal destinies and the land's lasting peace.
Unless the Fellowship Sorcerers could find means to break Desh-thiere's geas of hatred against the royal half brothers whose gifts brought its bane, the freed sunlight that warmed the growing earth could yet be paid for in blood. With the restored throne of Havish firmly under its crowned heir, Asandir at last rode to join his colleagues in their effort to unbind the Mistwraith's two victims from the vicious throes of its vengeance.
Relaxed in rare contentment, too recently delivered from centuries of sunless damp to take the hale spring earth for granted, he let his spirit soar with the winds. The road he had chosen was years overgrown, little more than a crease that meandered through thorn and brush brake to reemerge where the growth was browsed close by deer. Despite the banished mists, the townsmen still held uneasy fears of open spaces, once the sites of forgotten mysteries. Northbound travelers innately preferred to book their passage by ship.
Untroubled by the afterpresence of Paravian spirits, not at all disturbed by the foundations of ancient ruins that underlay the hammocks of wild roses, the Sorcerer rode with his reins looped. He followed the way without misstep, guided by memories that predated the most weathered, broken wall. His appearance of reverie was deceptive. At each turn, his mageheightened senses resonated with the natural energies that surrounded him. The sun on his shoulders became a benediction, both counterpoint and celebration to the ringing reverberation that was light striking shadow off edges of wild stone.
When a dissonance snagged in the weave, reflex and habit snapped Asandir's complaisance. His powers of perception tightened to trace the immediate cause.
Whatever bad news approached from the south, his mount's wary senses caught no sign. The stallion snorted, shook out his mane, and let Asandir rein him over to the verge of the trail. Long minutes later, a drumroll of galloping hooves startled the larks to songless flight. When the messenger on his laboring mount hove into view, the Sorcerer sat his saddle, frowning, while the stud, bored with waiting, cropped grass.
The courier wore royal colors, the distinctive scarlet tabard and gold hawk blazon of the king's personal service snapped into creases against the breeze. No common message bearer, he owned the carriage of a champion fighter. But the battlebrash courage that graced his reputation was missing as he hauled his horse to a prancing, head-shaking halt.
The man was a fool, who eagerly brought trouble to the ear of a Fellowship Sorcerer.
Briskly annoyed, Asandir spoke before the king's rider could master his uncertainty. "I know you were sent by your liege. If my spellbinder Dakar is cause and root of some problem, I say now, as I told His Majesty and the realm's steward on my departure: there is no possible difficulty that might stem from an apprentice's misdeeds that your high king's justice cannot handle."
The messenger nursed lathered reins to divert his eye-rolling mount from her sideward crab steps through the bracken. "Begging pardon, Sorcerer. But Dakar got himself drunk. There was a fight." Sweating pale before Asandir's displeasure, he finished in a crisp rush. "Your spellbinder's got himself knifed and King Eldir's healers say he'll bleed to death."
"Oh, indeed?" The words bit the quiet like sheared metal. Asandir's brows cocked up. Features laced over with creases showed a moment of fierce surprise. Then he started his black up from a mouthful of grass and spun him thundering back toward the city.
Alone in the derelict roadway on a sidling, race-bred horse, the royal courier had no mind to linger. He was not clan kindred, to feel at ease in the wild places where the old stones lay carved with uncanny patterns to snag and bewitch a man's thoughts.
