would be smashed by war-bond authority.
Selidie knew, seated amid the echoing chaos of her windowed gallery at Whitehold: the frantic search would find an empty cabin. The Light’s delinquent avatar and his personal servant were not aboard.
On the sore subject of Lord Lysaer’s activity, her own stellar resource fell short. Repeated auguries by Koriani talent sank into murk.
Selidie chewed over her thwarted frustration, irritated by back-ground chatter, and the scrape of filled trunks dragged aside for the porters. Since the scryers tagged the Mad Prophet’s presence well to her west, today’s obfuscation most likely involved a Fellowship Sorcerer’s mark.
Asandir’s ward of guard upon Daliana might be clouding Prime Selidie’s reach. The pesky chit had vanished after her collusion with the Mad Prophet had engineered Lysaer’s abduction from the carnage at Lithmarin. Separated from the spellbinder’s protection in Scarpdale, the inconvenient young woman had never resurfaced, even under an exhaustive search backed by the order’s Great Waystone. Therefore, another bold finger had meddled. Only one other power in reach owned the main strength and audacity.
Selidie called her attendant Seniors to active duty despite the convulsive disarray. “I require an immediate circle of twelve, a cleared room, and the chest that contains the Great Waystone for the purpose of engaging Davien.”
The announcement reeled the room to shocked silence. None dared flout the Prime, no matter the peril inherent in crossing the Fellowship Sorcerers; and of the Seven, the Betrayer was unspeakably dangerous. The most experienced Seniors recalled: last time their Matriarch had wielded the might of the Waystone against him, the affray had seared her to a stub-fingered cripple.
On the moment the Prime Matriarch firmed her resolve, the renegade Fellowship Sorcerer in question stood on a rock slope in the Mathorns, red-and-white hair like a stallion’s mane tumbled over his taut shoulders. Above, like a massive stilled pendulum, a boulder half the size of a house creaked in a sling, cranked vertical by a match-stick brace of fir logs. The stone overweighted its groaning support, suspension maintained by permission and sorcery mighty enough to unravel the mountain beneath.
Being Davien, no such carelessness happened, though from an earth-linked vantage at Althain Tower, Sethvir winced for the timing as Kharadmon swooped in, bristling to level the ancient score of his grievances.
Arctic draught at the nape his first warning, Davien flexed his interlaced fingers in an artistic stretch. “What, no flowering nightshade? No hellebore? Not even the toxic flamboyance of the tiger-lily? Provocative orange would suit us both, if you still style yourself in that obnoxious green cloak.”
Clad himself in autumnal russet and brown, the coarse outdoor wool paired with calfskin boots and cordovan leathers, Davien perched on the pile of casks and provender, stored under tarps in the open. The refuge at Kewar engineered for a shade now required renovation to suit his incarnate release from the dragon’s service. The old entry, drilled out, underwent the critical step of receiving a guardian cap-stone: finicky spells and physical effort interlaced in fraught measure with fatal danger.
Insolent necessity, Davien snatched the interruption to eat. His usual satirical mockery absent, he peeled the wax from a cheese, cracked a loaf of dark bread, and with a thoughtful expression, dug in.
Kharadmon commanded the wind for his voice. The question became, not how many, but which mothballed fight he picked first.
While the shade coalesced for the opening salvo, Davien raised an eyebrow and busily chewed as the tirade unleashed. “Not mentioning your colossal mistakes that saddled us with the rebellion, or the brutal inventiveness that destroyed King Kamridian, sunk in your criminal culpability, what excuse grants you the license to fling Asandir’s gift of survival into our teeth? Also Luhaine’s sacrifice in your behalf! How deadly the irony, that his butchered flesh once paid for your mess at Telmandir, only to lend you the undeserved grace to salvage your reincarnation.”
The Betrayer said nothing. He did not belabour the pertinent truth: that Kharadmon’s culpable action had upset Asandir’s intervention, which would have disarmed Shehane Althain’s sprung defences on the historical hour that he became fatally savaged.
Yet Davien’s weighted silence failed to stem his discorporate colleague’s furious accusations.
“By your passionate claim, our use of clan blood-lines to treat with the Paravians created the schism between town-born and talent. Who’s the yapping hypocrite, now? Your accomplishment’s driven a zealot religion into the bleeding breach. If you’re not shamed by the Light’s slaughter of talent, and while you sat idle as three of us cleaned up the carnage after a drake war, I demand to hear from your lips: by our sworn covenant to protect the Paravians, why have you not stirred to explore what’s befallen the guardian at Northgate? Restored to flesh and bone, can’t you lessen the burden on Asandir? Explain now, in full! By Dharkaron Avenger, why not pursue the reason for Chaimistarizog’s absence?”
Davien straightened and jettisoned his bread-crust. “Sethvir likely knows. And if not, only Asandir has earned the right to inquire.”
Air shrieked to Kharadmon’s incensed recoil. The blast creaked the ropes, and whitened the plies a hairbreadth from flash-freezing the fibres. “Enough cagey evasions. I’ll have answers no matter the threat to your self-centred independence.”
“Some other day,” Davien dismissed.
Behind him, the guardian stone slung on its precarious ropes emitted a crack like the snap of a whip. The gryphon his artistry had yet to carve glowed briefly inside the unstructured granite, while the orb to become the watchful eye suddenly flared livid red. The precursor spell seating its protective enchantments scribed a ring of white fire around Davien’s planted stance and also encompassed the indignant swirl of Kharadmon’s indignant essence.
“What outrageous bombast!” The discorporate Sorcerer’s temper cracked before incredulity. “We’re not under attack.”
“We are, in fact.” Etched in the sharp sunlight and shade of high altitude, Davien flaunted an insolent grin. “Try a surprise visitation steered by the Prime Matriarch. She’s trying the might of the Waystone against us, backed by twelve circled Seniors.”
“You’ll have staged that charade,” Kharadmon huffed.
“Do you truly think?” The Betrayer measured the Fellowship entity pinched in the malicious breach. “If you can’t believe me, at least curb your pique. We’re stuck together for the duration. Unless, of course, you snatch your safe exit and flit?”
Kharadmon snorted. “What, turn tail and run from Prime Selidie’s wiles? Try my patience again!”
Davien laughed. “Then stay at your peril. Her sally to test me isn’t a feint.”
No toothless threat: wielded by a Prime at full strength, the amethyst focus packed force enough to endanger a discorporate Sorcerer. Particularly if the Matriarch drained her subordinates to leverage the contest.
Kharadmon’s presence snuffed out, condensed to a frosty vacuum.
Then Prime Selidie’s concerted blast struck and shattered the rudimentary wards laid into the unfinished cap-stone. Spelled ropes and unpolished granite exploded. Shards flew like knives. Planted inside the nexus with folded arms, Davien seemed unfazed as though he outfaced a social embarrassment. Yet the actualized spells that wrested the lethal missiles aside and crashed them impotently at his feet broke a sweat on his forehead.
He mocked, “A stone-throwing tantrum’s the best you can do?”
Reckless strategy, to taunt a powerful rival maimed under his past round of trickery: bolt lightning stabbed downwards out of clear air. Harm deflected just shy of electrocution, Davien held fast, caged in branched forks that scribbled scorched channels of carbon around him. Through smears of wisped smoke, he needled again, “You won’t have your way using pique for diplomacy.”
Yet his challenge just missed the dismissal of sarcasm. His straits were dire. Yield