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paradox by a beauty beyond her five senses to encompass.
Through the haze of her tears, Lirenda understood that she faced none else but
the ghost of a centaur. One of the Ilitharis Paravian race, vanished from the
continent since the advent of Desh-thiere's mists through South Gate.
The creature tipped its horned head. Stars and moon shot like sparks through
its substanceless outlines. "I am Shehaiit, Althain, spirit tied to this
place as prime guardian. My bones are this Tower's foundation, as its wards
are my charge for eternity. " Lirenda blinked, her dignity eclipsed by wonder
for the first time since earliest childhood. "You were a sacrifice?"
The centaur spirit glowered like a thunderhead. "Never!
His rebuttal rang in a bell tone too deep for hearing, but the frost-touched
grasses underneath its planted hooves shimmered like thrown cullet in
vibration. "My life was a gift freely yieldedfor necessity, that the
sanctuary you came here to violate should stand against trifling ignorance.
At this, Lirenda bridled. "I came here, not through folly, but to reclaim
from the Fellowship Sorcerers what was never theirs to begin with."
The centaur bared its teeth in a wolfish snarl. "The Seven are neither
thieves nor hoarders!
Never less comfortable for being caught on her knees, Lirenda tried again to
stand erect. No muscle in her legs would support her.
Rankled to anger for the failing, she said in metallic acerbity, "Your
presumption is false. Or why should the Sorcerers keep our Waystone in their
custody since the uprising five hundred years past?
Had they deigned to return it, I should scarcely have come to raise a
Koriani circle against them."
"For your choice we have ceded this place into care of those who vwore to
uphold the compact. The Fellowship has stood by their bond.
" The centaur folded massive arms, its outlines pale quartz shot with stars.
"The granite blocks themselves gave consent to the bindings which protect what
lies inside this tower. The stones' gift was no loan, to be reversed. They
would crack and run to sand, ere they yielded their office. Go hither. Any
violent use of force in this place is an offense. " Lirenda pushed back her
hood, her hair a spilled fall of ebony over her back. Sarcasm chipped her
reply. "How else would you make Sethvir give back what is ours?"
A terrible, fey light glanced through the spirit's eyes. It stamped a
substanceless forehoof, its movement dire elegance, and its strength beyond
the pale of reasoned vision.
"Does your order spurn the grace of manners and hospitality? What else should
you do but knock at the door? Why not make your request when
Althain's Warden is present to admit you! Your timing is
regrettable, since Sethvir embarked this morning for the court of King Eldir
at
Ostermere. " Lirenda retorted in tart disbelief, "What surety have I
that the Sorcerer will listen?"
An electrum sheen of moonlight glanced off the crown of antlers as the centaur
tossed its forelock; neat, flat ears with pointed tips nested like shells amid
the strands. "Did he refuse you, I should give you the door myself. Yet hear
warning, mortal daughter. Try entry against my will at the risk of life and
limb, and that of each one of your companions.
Its message finished, the apparition frayed at the edges, then dissolved like
whirled flecks of salt.
Lirenda felt herself hurled out of altered vision. She knelt in crumpled
skirts on a swath of dank grass, broken and humbled and weeping. Such beauty
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as she had never imagined might exist drove her heart, thudding in bursts fit
to bound through the walls of her chest.
She struggled to compose herself, to shake off an awe that left her paralyzed.
The Skyron crystal lay before her, stamped into scintillant reflection by the
moon. She uncurled shaking fingers and reclaimed its dense weight. Time had
cracked its unnatural suspension. The third lane's currents rang once again
to the onrushing surge of coming equinox.
Her confused, restored seniors crowded about her as she stumbled back to her
feet.
They asked, unaware why their circle of power had gone wrong. All were
oblivious to Shehane Althain's hidden might, that for one perilous, hidden
moment, had swept their breathing lives like cast-off thread cuttings into his
realm on the spirit plane.
Lirenda clenched her jaw. She forced her spine straight, then clawed her hood
up to hide the smeared tracks of her tears. Shamed and at a loss, she groped
to find words to say why she had reason to dismiss the support of her
colleagues, then stay on alone until Sethvir's return.
Morriel would be livid to know her successor had been forced to bend pride.
Yet no choice remained. The latent power of one Ilitharis
Paravian brooked no further argument.
Lirenda must come to plead a sorcerer's indulgence, or else abandon her charge
to return with the order's lost Waystone.
Pinig Ripples
At Ostermere, ensconced in the royal kitchens over a plate of scones and jam,
Sethvir pauses to chuckle over the success of his spell of illusion, that had
tricked the Koriani First Senior to belief she had
conversed with the spirit of Althain's dedicated guardian; her limited
learning might never reveal the truth: that, had the tower's Warden lacked the
foresight to beg a stay of tolerance, her meddling would indeed have raised
the ward wrought from the bones of Shehane
Althain, and neither she nor her ill-advised circle of accomplices would have
escaped with their lives....
Over the coals of the bonfire lit to celebrate his wedding on spring equinox,
Jieret s'Valerient, Earl of the North and caithdein of
Rathain, stands with his bride to bid farewell to his war captain, summoned
south to serve his prince in Vastmark: "Be his shield, Caolle, and go with my
blessing, for no other sword would I entrust to safeguard our liege in my
place. . .
Under a great cloud of dust, clan scouts sent out of Alland drive a great herd
of cattle and horses across the Forthmark road; and bound into Vastmark in
their company to recover the stowaway twins are the former guardsman and the
widow who had fled Lysaer's grasp at
Merior....
CHAPTER 5. Three Ships
Princess Talith weathered her forced passage to the Cascains with all the ill
grace of a brooding goose in a Ppullet's crate. While she stayed immured in
the stern cabin, her handmaid emerged at measured intervals for whining bouts
that began with demands, and finished with piteous pleading. The Khetienn's
brigand captain should order his vessel about and make port at Los Mar for the
sake of her ladyship's health.
"She's seasick?" Arithon inquired. Poised at the mizzenmast shroud, his
loose-fitted sailhand's shirt fluttered by the east breeze and his feet braced
to balance the mild roll of the ship, he regarded the servant's hand-wringing
affectations with rapt, disingenuous green eyes.
The recount of Talith's suffering filled a long and tiresome interval.
At the finish, while the handmaid blinked in dewy-eyed expectancy, he shrilled
a whistle through his teeth, then told the topmen who answered to break out
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