Janny Wurts - Cycle Of Fire 3 - Shadowfane

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JANNY WURTS

Shadowfane

Prologue

The seeress of the well in Gaire's Main woke gasping in the straw of the

stables where she sheltered. She shivered, blind eyes milky in the moonlight

that spilled from the loft. The visions that had broken her sleep racked her

still, bringing terror beyond anything mortal. The seeress stirred ancient

joints and rose. Clothed in scraps of knotted leather, she groped down the

dusty ladder and made her way past stall and grain stores, then out into the

waning autumn night.

Beyond the barn lay a crossroad and a trough awash with muddy puddles. The

folk of Gaire's Main presently used the sacred spring as a watering place for

beast and household; to them the seeress was a senile beggar woman given to

strange outbursts and mumbling. But tonight no confusion blurred her

movements. She knelt on the chill ground and scrabbled through pig droppings

until she located the stone that founded the mystery of her craft.

The slab was black, laced with metallic streaks of gold, and rinsed clean by

overflow from the spring. Tears brimmed from the seeress's lashless eyes as

she laid her palms against the talisman. Energy welled from the contact. With

a cry of agonized relief, she surrendered her burden of dreams to its

current...

In the wind-whipped darkness of an ocean roiled by the aftermath of a gale, a

boat with tattered sails rolled hove to in the swell. There a black-haired man

dressed in the

cottons of a fisherman reached out to an injured Thienz-demon who clung to a

drift of timber in the waves. Neither kindness nor compassion prompted the

man's action; his spirit was not human, an evil sensed palpably across the

fabric of the seeress's dream.

The rescued demon was not to survive its deliverance from the waves. As its

toadlike fingers closed upon the man's wrist, the seeress sensed its agony,

the burning sting of salt splashed into its gills. Poisoned beyond healing,

the demon endured only long enough to deliver its death-dream, which held

intact the death-dreams of others who had perished earlier, in a backlash of

forces brought about by no natural means.

These memories the Thienz impressed directly into the mind of the human in the

boat, for their significance to mankind's enemies offered proof that an

artifact of paramount significance still existed. Untempered and entire, the

death-dream of the Thienz seared like magma through the young man's awareness.

When he screamed, the seeress screamed with him, and the well-stone beneath

her hands relayed the dying demon's legacy to mankind's most ancient defender

. ..

On an islet far distant from Gaire's Main, the old woman's sending cut like

the cry of a dying doe across a grove of enchanted twilight; there an entity

known as the Vaere received her images with an understanding not given to

mortal men. The news promised grimmest consequences. The dying Thienz had

stumbled upon a secret centuries old. When that knowledge reached the demon

compact at Shadowfane, its full import would be recognized. Then would the

wardenship of the Vaere itself become threatened. Now the untried talents of

the sorcerer's heir but recently come to sanctuary offered the only expedient.

If Ivainson Jaric failed to master his father's talents, if he failed in the

Cycle of Fire while the

compact unriddled the mystery of the Vaere, mankind would suffer extinction at

the hands of demon foes ...

The seeress broke contact with a quivering sigh; and silence ominous as the

calm before cataclysm settled over the grove of the Vaere.

Riddle

Cold came early to the wastes beyond Felwaithe; frosts rimed the lichens and

traced a madman's patterns on the bare rock of the hills. Here, far north of

Keithland's border and the lands inhabited by men, a single lantern burned in

a hall of bleak stone. Within its circle of light, Scait, Demon Lord of

Shadowfane, sat upon a chair fashioned from the bones and the hides of human

victims. He pared his thumb spurs to needlepoints with a penknife, while an

immature Thienz ornamented with beads crouched at his feet, froglike limbs

folded against its loins.

Scait flexed scaled wrists and paused in his sharpening. His upper lip curled

over rows of sharklike teeth as he addressed his grovelling underling. 'What

has occurred that Thienz elders send a hatchling to trouble my thoughts?

Speak, tadpole! What tidings do you bring?'

The Thienz cowered against the icy stone floor. The sovereign of Shadowfane

quite often killed out of temper, and this youngster brought ill news of the

worst import. It flapped its gills in distress. 'Most-mighty, I bring word of

the boats sent into Keithland to capture Ivainson-Firelord's-heir-Jaric. Your

servants have failed. Jaric has reached sanctuary on the Isle of the Vaere.'

Scait hissed explosively. 'Seed-of-his-father, accursed! How did one wretched

boy slip past five dozen Thienz elders?'

Beads chinked against stillness; the Thienz battled an overwhelming instinct

to flee, yet the flash of displeasure

in its master's sultry eyes did not metamorphose into blows. Its crest

flattened in reluctance against its blunt head, the youngster prepared to

offer images of storm and death, and the wreckage of the fleet that had failed

in its directive to take the gold-haired son of Ivain Firelord.

But the sovereign Lord of Shadowfane refused direct sharing. Instead he

twisted the blade of his knife and pricked at the stuffed human thigh that

comprised the throne arm. 'I would know the particulars of Jaric's escape from

one who is senior, and experienced. Fetch me Thienz-eldest, for no other will

suffice.'

The young demon bobbed hasty obeisance, then scuttled from the dais, its

discharge of fear and relief a palpable stink in the air. Once clear of the

steps, it spun and fled around the mirror pool set into the floor beyond.

Scait watched with slitted eyes as it vanished into the gloom of the doorway;

rage born of frustration bristled the long hackles at his neck. He had hoped

to capture Jaric, enslave and manipulate his Firelord's potential for the ruin

and sorrow of humanity. Now this recent failure by the Thienz invited terrible

risk. Ivainson Jaric might survive the Cycle of Fire; then would humans gain

another Vaere-trained sorcerer, one powerful enough to free Anskiere of

Elrinfaer from his prison of ward-spelled ice. The paired threat of

Stormwarden and Firelord would pose a serious inconvenience, if not a direct

impediment, to the conquest planned by the demon compact at Shadowfane.

Scait paced, knife clenched between spurred fingers. He ground his teeth in

agitation until the Thienz elder he had summoned presented itself before the

dais.

Lest an underling of no consequence sense his distress, the Lord of Shadowfane

smoothed his long hackles and sat. As the elder completed its obeisance, he

scraped one spur across the bared edge of his knife and demanded,

'How did Ivainson-Fire-lord's-heir-Jaric come to reach the Isle of the Vaere?'

The Thienz replied in words, the barest ruffle of its crest hinting defiance.

'Ivain's-get-Jaric arranged the release of a weather ward of Anskiere's.'

Offered the clear, precise image of a stormfalcon's feather, and the

blue-violet shimmer of sorcery that had released a ruinous gale across the

southwest reaches, Scait bared his teeth.

The Thienz hastily continued. 'Storm-death did not bring the bane of all

Thienz-cousins sent hunting. Another hazard entirely prevented their closing

with the prey.' The Thienz closed tiny eyes and sent the death-dream salvaged

from a failing survivor by Maelgrim Dark-dreamer. In precise, empathic images,

the Lord of Shadowfane shared the last memories of three Thienz who had

huddled in drenched misery aboard a boat many leagues to the south.

Only moments before death, they whimpered among themselves, their shared

thoughts riddled with terror. The storm that Ivain Firelord's heir had caused

to be unleashed had bashed and capsized and drowned the crews of seven

companion vessels. The Thienz who sailed aboard the last boat trembled,

fearful their own doom would follow.

Scait hissed. The dagger dangled forgotten in his grip as the doomed

creatures' vision filled his sensors. At one with the memories of the Thienz

who had crouched afraid in that-boat-sent-to-apprehend-Jaric, he, too, beheld

the roiling and spume-frothed crests of gale-whipped ocean.

Suddenly the air seemed to shimmer. Sky and swells rippled, blurred, and

shifted into pearly mist; then fog in turn dissolved, transformed to a

prismatic chaos of energy, all shattered bands of colour and light. The

display lasted only a moment before cruel fields of energy blistered the

Thienz' bodies. They fell, crying curses, the agony of their dying accompanied

by wood

that popped and steamed, and canvas that burst sullenly into flame.

The dream ended. Scait's lids snapped open, unveiling irises hard as topaz.

Needle rows of teeth gleamed as he framed words in speculation. 'Tell me,

lowly toad. What memory does that death-dream call to mind?'

Possessed of the eidetic recall common to all demons, the Thienz squirmed

uneasily upon the carpet. This death was the same as that dreamed by

ancestor-among-the-stars who died, trapped by the expanding field of a time

anomaly when a ship drive malfunctioned. But such interpretation is

questionable. Keithland's humans have lost all memory of technology.'

'Not entirely.' Scait snapped his jaws closed. Delicately he stroked his

dagger across the arm of his throne. 'Veriset-Nav,' he mused triumphantly.

'This dream gives proof beyond doubt. The navigational guidance module must

have survived the crash of star-probe-Corrine-Dane-accursed. We have only to

find it, and recover the unit intact, and our exile from home-star will be

ended.'

The Thienz wailed, its crest flattened against its earless skull.

'Lord-highest, you suggest the impossible. Where can we seek? Corinne Dane's

emergency systems capsule plunged into ocean, destroyed.' The Thienz paused to

whistle soulfully, its tune an expression of knowledge lost.

But Scait ignored its protests. Preoccupied, he arose from his chair. Wire

ornaments jangled against scaled knuckles as he paced the dais.

Like an ill-sewn frog puppet, the Thienz twisted its blunt head to follow its

master's steps. 'Mightiest, Set-Nav is lost, still.'

'Perhaps not.' Scait jerked to a stop. He leered down at the Thienz. 'I say

all along that Set-Nav may have hidden behind a persona called the Vaere.'

At this the Thienz rocked back on webbed feet,

snorted, then burst into croaking peals of laughter. 'Mightiest, O mightiest,

you surely jest! We know the Vaere! Human superstition, brought forward from

earliest, most barbaric remnants of old Earth culture.' All in the compact

knew that Tamlin originated in a tale conceived by primitive ballad singers;

funny indeed, if mankind might be witless enough to mistake the most

sophisticated technology its people ever created with a make-believe creature

of faerie!

'Silence!' Scait's short hackles lifted in warning. 'Be still,

one-who-forgets.'

The demon beneath the dais quivered at the insult. It rolled whiteless eyes as

Scait leaned over and thrust the knife toward its chin. 'Myth or not, facts

are these: Tamlin of the Vaere reputedly trained our greatest foe, Anskiere,

and also Ivain Firelord. And, one-who-forgets, remember that humans possess no

senses to differentiate between the dream-state and reality experienced!

Recall that Corinne Dane's Set-Nav guidance unit came equipped with mind-link

modules.'

Such machines could induce a man to dream for years, and still preserve his

body. The Thienz blinked, jolted to sober reflection. The time-differential

field of the star drive neatly accounted for the unnatural ageing that

afflicted those mortals who received their sorcerer's training from the Vaere.

Scait shot to his feet, eyes ablaze with excitement. 'Now, one-who-forgets,

let scornful laughter pucker your tongue with the taste and the texture of

excrement. For I think humankind does not know its sorcerers are guided to

mastery by technology its people once possessed.'

The Thienz whuffed its gills, silent, while Scait subsided back into his

chair. Strangely, terribly, the Demon Lord's reasoning suggested truth. Man

might have forgotten his vanquished empire among the stars; yet an electronic

guidance system endowed with intelligence, self-repair,

and the logic to master the bewildering mathematics of interstellar navigation

would never lose its loyalty, or its mission. As killers and imprisoners of

creatures with paranormal endowment, Stormwarden and Firelord might indeed

continue the starprobe Corinne Dane's original directive: to discover means of

defending mankind against the psionic warfare of aliens.

Curled in idle malice upon his chair of human remains, Scait qualified the

Thienz' thought. 'Toad, you misjudge. Deliberately Set-Nav may have cloaked

its identity as Tamlin, that the compact might overlook its existence.'

The Thienz twisted the tiny fingers of its forelimbs and moaned, while in

abrupt agitation the Demon Lord stabbed the dagger to the hilt into stuffed

human upholstery. 'O toad, the death-dream of your companion brings promise of

triumph-and-trouble. We must unravel the riddle of Tamlin, for time is

precious. Ivain-son-cursed-sorcerer's-heir-Jaric escaped us. Now, surely as

stars turn, a firelord could emerge to balk us. If so, we might face the

hatching of the Morrigierj unprepared.'

The Thienz stiffened. It raised, then lowered its webbed crest, and a tremble

invaded its limbs. The memories-of-ancestors knew Morrigierj, that

grand-master entity spawned each three thousand years to bind the collective

powers of the Gierj into a single force; of all sentients sworn to the compact

of Shadowfane, the mindless Gierjlings owned a latent capacity for destruction

that intimidated even the strongest demon. With a squeak of apprehension, the

Thienz fled the chamber; it slid with a scrape of claws around the doorjamb

and scuttled like a dog down the stairwell.

Scait laughed at its flight. His threat had been a lie designed to intimidate;

when the silly Thienz paused to think, it would recall that no grand hatching

could occur without maturity of a Morrigierj spore. Since his predecessor's

death at Anskiere's hand, the Demon Lord held

power against the machinations of ambitious subordinates; at best, his

supremacy at Shadowfane was precariously secured. With his current plot to

defeat mankind thrown into setback, underlings must be kept cowed to

discourage rivals; for challengers there would be, unless Scait found means to

counter the threat posed by the possibility of a new firelord. The discovery

of Set-Nav, though of paramount significance, was of secondary importance to

politics and power within the compact.

Scait thought bitterly upon Jaric. Once he had glimpsed the boy's aura;

demon-perceived clarity had sensed the ringing patterns of energy that mapped

a gifted human's aptitude for mastery of Sathid-bonded forces. Never until

then had any demon imagined that humans, even rare ones, might hold so much

latent affinity for power. Untrained, such individuals could easily be

enslaved and turned to the detriment of their own kind; the loss of Jaric's

talents stung doubly. Scait bristled his hackles in frustration. Humanity bred

and proliferated like pest parasites. Except for the wizards inhabiting the

towers at Mhored Kara, most were blind to the psychic energies of the mind.

Perhaps among Keithland's teeming towns, other children born with such gifts

were overlooked.

Scait blinked and shifted in his chair. If such children existed, they might

be taken and exploited. Yet members of the compact could not cross into

Keithland to explore without drawing notice. Subterfuge would be necessary.

The lantern suddenly flickered; in its failing light, Scait's teeth flashed in

a leer of wild excitement. There existed one for whom such restrictions would

not exist. Maelgrim Dark-dreamer's talents were already controlled by the

compact; through him, a way could be found to conduct such a search

undetected. Excited now, Scait reached in thought for the mind of the Thienz

elder who had recently departed his presence.

Where is Maelgrim now?

The image sent in reply was prompt, but clouded with a resentment most

probably effected by the ruse concerning the Morrigierj; Scait chose

forbearance in his lust for information. All of Maelgrim's Thienz crew had

perished of salt poisoning; alone in a boat severely-battered by the aftermath

of the storm set loose by Jaric, the Dark-dreamer currently struggled to patch

tattered canvas, that he might sail for Shadowfane and the north. Scait

clicked his spurs in irritation; his new plan must wait until the

boy-slave-human returned, a delay that might extend through several months,

since winter's inevitable gales would brew up weather unfavourable for

passage. Forced to patience, the Demon Lord brooded upon the possibilities

presented by rediscovery of the Veriset-Nav computer. Hours passed. The lamp

flickered out and predawn gloom infused Shadowfane's empty hall. Spurred

fingers stroked the dagger left embedded in cured human flesh, while, outside,

wind wailed like a funeral dirge across the frostblasted fells.

Twenty-seven generations after the fall of the probe ship Corinne Dane, the

navigational computer that had calculated courses between stars analysed its

latest acquisition, a sorcerer's son who aspired to undertake the Cycle of

Fire. Small, lean, and calloused from the rigours of the storm that had

delivered him to the fabled isle, Jaric was remarkably like his sire, Ivain;

except here and there lay clues to differences that extended beyond mere

flesh.

The boy's sun-bleached hair and seafarer's tan seemed oddly misplaced under

the red-lit glimmer of the control panels. His clothing had been meticulously

mended with a sail needle, before being torn again. His rope belt was not

tasselled, but perfectly end-spliced; only his bootlaces revealed haste or

impatience, one being tied with sailor's knots, the other whipped into tangles

that the mechanical

arms of the robots unsnarled with difficulty. The body beneath the clothing

proved bruised and abraded, the legacy of hardship and stress.

The father had chosen his path to mastery in far less agony of spirit; unlike

his son, he had arrived upon the isle with a companion at his side, his

passage uncontested by hunting packs of Thienz. Much hope or much setback

might arise from Jaric's experience. Unaffected by sentiment, the guardian of

mankind's future reviewed his candidacy for the Cycle of Fire with precise and

passionless logic.

The boy under scrutiny remained unaware that the creature he knew as Tamlin of

the Vaere was an entity fabricated by a sophisticated array of machinery.

Taken into custody from the woodland clearing where he had succumbed to

drugged sleep, and bundled by robots into a metal-walled chamber hidden

beneath the soil, Ivain-son Jaric presently rested within a life-support

capsule that once had equipped the starship's flight deck.

Servo-mechanisms laboured over his body, completing hookups that in the past

had enabled human navigators to interface with the Veriset-Nav's complex

circuitry. Like every human visitor before him, Jaric would experience only

dreams during his stay upon the fabled isle.

The Vaere had kept its true form secret since the crash of Corinne Dane.

Ejected intact from its parent ship, the unit retained power generators and

drive field; but with Starhope fallen to enemies, a distress flare would draw

attack rather than rescue. Set-Nav found itself shepherd to refugees incapable

of defending its data from aliens who could reprogram its functions for their

own use. Even as the germ plasms of earth-type flora and fauna had survived

and altered the face of Keithland, so had the guidance computer changed,

adapted, and evolved, cloaked in a guise of myth. Despite time and attrition,

its primary directive remained. Set-Nav even yet sought

means to end the predations of psionically endowed aliens that mankind now

called demons.

In its latest, most effective offensive, Veriset-Nav trained psi-talented

humans to mastery of a double Sathid-link that gained them direct control over

the elements. Jaric was the latest candidate for a procedure fraught with

danger.

Of countless human subjects, only Anskiere and Ivain had survived to achieve

dual mastery; but their success had justified the deaths of their

predecessors. Paired crystals had granted them power enough to eradicate some

species of demons and imprison others. The task of freeing Keithland from

threat had begun. But talent capable of training for such feats was sparse,

ever difficult to obtain; Ivainson, whose life was already sought by demons,

possessed potential both precious and rare.

A switch closed. Lights flickered green over the access console, tinting Jaric

like a wax figure while programs designed for complex navigational mathematics

exhaustively mapped his potential. The Vaere matched the crippling self-doubt

of this boy's childhood against his determination to achieve a Firelord's

inheritance. It tallied strength, weakness, and raw potential and completed

its model with direct observations shared by the Dreamweaver, Taen.

Information streamed into the data banks, then transmuted, meshed and

interwoven to a sequence of intricate probability equations. Inflexibly

logical, the Vaere calculated Jaric's potential to survive the dual mastery

that comprised the Cycle of Fire.

The conclusion was disturbing. Never in Keithland history had the Vaere

detected such raw potential for power in the mind of a man; yet the latent

ability Jaric possessed proved coupled with a personality sensitive to the

point of fragility, balanced upon a selfhood newly and precariously

established. Considered alone, this analysis might have disqualified the boy

from training; but

now, with demons aware of the origins of the Vaere, the slimmest opportunity

counted.

An access circuit closed. Alongside Jaric's statistics the Vaere added the

composite analysis of Keithland, then an estimated projection of the

Dark-dreamer's acquired power. The forecast proved bleak. Maelgrim's mastery

derived from a Sathid already dominated by Thienz-demons; his talents would be

like his sister's, but reversed. Where Taen wove dreams to heal and defend,

her brother would spin visions to destroy. She could influence individuals;

but with the combined might of Shadowfane's compact to back him, Maelgrim

might instigate wholesale madness, corrupt governments, or incite soldiers to

war against the very cities they were armed to protect. Before such an

onslaught, even the defences at Landfast might topple.

The Vaere sequenced scenarios of possible counter-moves for days and nights

without let up. At the end, only one held hope. Shadowfane's invasion might be

deterred if the Stormwarden, Anskiere of Elrinfaer, were freed from the ice.

That task required a firelord's skills. Time was too short to seek an

alternative for the Cycle of Fire, even should a second candidate exist within

Keithland's population.

Had the Vaere reacted as a mortal, such a quandary would have caused grief and

trepidation; being a machine of passionless logic, it executed decisions

within a millisecond. Jaric must be placed in jeopardy; after a brief training

period, the boy must attempt Earthmastery. If he retained control after

primary bonding, he must go on to attempt mastery of a second Sathid matrix,

the most difficult challenge a sorcerer could attempt. He must endure and

survive the Cycle of Fire. Should he fail, if the Sathid entities he must

battle for dominance conquered his will, both he and Anskiere would perish.

Then the defence of Keithland would rest upon a Dreamweaver's frail and

inadequate resources.

Lights blinked and vanished, and the consoles went dark beside the amber glow

of the life-support unit. Veriset-Nav initiated an entry command, and the

circuitry that cross-linked the master navigator's capsule shifted status to

active. Monitors winked to life, glowing blue over a boy framed in a nest of

silvery wires. The heir of Ivain Firelord stirred in the depths of his sleep,

even as the guidance systems from Corinne Dane induced the first of a series

of dreams designed to prepare him for the trials of a sorcerer's mastery.

Unaware his senses were subject to illusion, Jaric believed that he roused to

twilit silence in the grove of the Vaere. He opened his eyes to grass and

flowers, and to the same enchanted clearing where he had earlier fallen

asleep. A chill roughened his flesh. Nothing appeared to have changed, and

that unsettled him. His hands still stung with abrasions from muscling

Callinde's helm against storm-winds. Both clothing and skin glittered with

salt crystals, crusted by spray upon his person. Puzzled, for he had expected

some sign of great magic, he blinked and pushed himself erect. The soil felt

cool under his palms. Overhead, the trees arched in the silvery half-light

like a congregation of leaf-bearded patriarchs. Irritated to discover that his

body had stiffened during his rest on damp ground, the boy stretched, then

froze with his arms half-raised. Tamlin of the Vaere sat perched on the low

grey rock at the centre of the grove.

An insouciant grin crinkled the tiny man's features. His beard tumbled in

tangles over his fawn coloured jacket. Beads and feathered bells sewn to the

cuffs jingled merrily in rhythm with his booted feet, which swung idly above

the tips of the flowers, and the pipe in his hand trailed smoke like braid

through the air.

Jaric raked back mussed hair, wary of the Sightless black eyes that watched

his every move. 'How long have you been here?'

'Always, and never.' The Vaere made no effort to qualify his oblique

statement, but bit down on his pipestem, drew, and puffed out a perfect smoke

ring. 'Are you going to ask why?'

Jaric tucked his knees within the circle of his arms and frowned. 'Would you

answer?'

Tamlin laughed. Feathers danced on his sleeves as he lowered his pipe, yet his

mirth dispersed with the smoke ring. 'I have no answers, only riddles. Do you

still desire a firelord's mastery?'

Aware his integrity was under question, Jaric chose his reply with care. 'I

wish Keithland secure from demons.' He rose, too nervous to keep still any

longer.

'No difference, then, son of Ivain.' The Vaere leapt from his perch and landed

in grass that did not rustle; full height, he stood no higher than Jaric's

hip. 'To spare your people, you must conquer all weakness, then master the

skills that were your father's. Are you prepared?'

'No.' Jaric waited, tense down to his heels. Hemmed in by the eerie stillness

of the grove, he shied from remembering the demons, and the fate that awaited

the people and the woman he loved if he failed. 'Is any man born prepared to

suffer madness? I can do nothing more than try.'

'You say!' Bells clinked briskly as Tamlin took a step forward. 'You cannot

survive the Cycle of Fire without first mastering the earth. For that, your

resolve must be unassailable. Is it?

Jaric swallowed. With a bitter heart, he pictured Taen Dreamweaver's smile,

bright as the song of the wood-larks in Seitforest; he remembered the banners

flying free over the towers of Landfast, and the Kielmark's wild anger when

Cliffhaven stood threatened by armies with

demon allies. These things he treasured, and longed to protect. But it had

been the wild dans of Cael's Falls and their sacrifice of thirty-nine lives to

preserve him from demon captivity that had irrevocably sealed his resolve to

attempt the Cycle of Fire. Nothing short of death could deflect Jaric from his

decision, though the passage to a firelord's mastery had worked upon Ivain a

total annihilation of identity: a vicious, irreversible insanity that caused

people across Keithland to fear him. Years after the morning he had ended his

misery with a dagger thrust through his heart, Ivain Firelord was remembered

with curses. The mention of his name caused folk of all stations to raise

crossed wrists in the sign against evil brought on by sorcery.

Tamlin gestured and the pipe vanished instantly from his hand. He spoke as

though he were privy to the boy's dark fears. 'Son of Ivain, you will need

more than determination. The^Sathid crystal you must subjugate to gain

Earthmastery will already be self-aware at the time it links with your

consciousness. It will explore your innermost self, back to the time of birth,

seeking weakness that can be turned to exploit you. How much of your past can

you face without flinching?'

Though pressured where he was most vulnerable, Jaric refused to give ground.

From the instant he reached the fabled isle, Tamlin seemed bent on

intimidating him. The idea dawned that the Vaere's words might not be warnings

but a ploy intended to provoke him.

'So!' Tamlin sprang aggressively on to the stone, his gaze turned terribly,

piercingly direct. 'Your mind is quick. But anger will not be enough to

overcome what lies ahead. Shall I prove that?'

Without further warning the Vaere clapped his hands. A dissonant jangle of

bells tangled with Jaric's shout as the ground dissolved from beneath his

feet. His senses overturned, and he tumbled backwards into a memory from his

past.

Mastery of Earth

The fruit trees in Morbrith's walled orchard stood stripped of leaves, and

branches rattled like bones in the grip of ice and wind. Yet the gardens Jaric

recalled from childhood were not desolate, even in the harshest freeze of

winter. The footprints of small boys rumpled the snow between the paths, and

laughter rang through frosty air. Only Jaric, an assigned ward of the Smith's

Guild, hung back from the rough play of his peers. On the morning of his

fourth birthday, a big man who smelled of horses had taken him from the hearth

of his latest foster-mother. From now on, he understood he would live in the

loft over the forge with the rest of the guild apprentices. The other boys

were older than Jaric by several years; in the cruel fashion of children, they

resented the intruder in their midst.

'Why, he's nothing but a baby!' Garrey, the eldest, had mocked, and the rest

followed his lead like a pack.

Cold air bit through Jaric's mittens. Longingly he watched the apprentices run

and leap at tag-ball; earlier, Garrey had told him he was unwelcome to join

their play. But the game fascinated a boy whose foster-mother had kept him

separate from her own children, and whispered when she thought he would not

hear that his presence brought ill luck to her house. Drawn by the laughter,

the running, and the carefree scuffling of the young, Jaric edged closer.

Unwittingly he crossed the boundary line of the game.

Garrey missed a difficult catch. A burly boy, but quick.

he spun and dashed after the ball, only to encounter Jaric standing squarely

in his path. He checked and slipped, and barrelled heavily into the younger

child. Knocked to one knee, Jaric struggled to regain his feet. Garrey whirled

before he could run.

Scowling, his red face speckled with snowflakes, the larger boy curled his lip

in contempt. 'Hey! Milk-nose!'

He did not turn from Jaric as the tag-ball glanced off the wall beyond. The

rebound became soundlessly absorbed by a snowdrift as Garrey's companions

closed in a semicircle around the slight, blond boy who had clumsily spoiled

their play. Jaric backed one step, two, then stopped, cornered against the

thorny stems of a rosebush.

'You're not wanted,' said Garrey. He stripped off his gloves and raised

crossed fists in the traditional sign against ill fortune. 'Your own mother

tried to kill you, don't you know? And afterwards, the father who spared your

life got hung, condemned by the Earl's justice for her murder.'

'No,' whispered Jaric. 'You lie, surely.'

'Do I so? Then where's your mother, whore's get? And your father?' Garrey

grinned, displaying gapped teeth where a horse had kicked him. His tone turned

boastful. 'I saw Kerain die. His face turned purple, and his eyes bled. Ask

the Guildmaster.' The older boy knocked Jaric to the ground with a savage

shove. Other boys joined in, striking with fists and boots.

But Kerainson, whose upbringing had been charged to the Smith's Guild, hardly

felt the blows that pummelled his body. A peer's thoughtless cruelty had

revealed the truth behind the townsfolk's tendency to shun him. For the first

time he had words to set to the dream that broke his sleep, week after

restless week. The nightmare left him wailing in terror from a remembered

flash of silver, followed by a man's bruising grip, and blood smell, and

terrible shout mingled with a woman's scream of anguish.

As Garrey's band of apprentices tumbled him over and over in the snow, Jaric

felt the darkness of those nightmares return. He choked and bit his lip, but

could not smother the scream that rose in his throat. Once that scream

escaped, another followed, and another, until his senses reeled and drowned in

reverberations of remembered fear.

That day in the past, the apprentices had pulled back. Alarmed, they fled the

presence of the boy who screamed as if crazed in the snow. They ignored him

when he recovered; and pursued by a horror no longer formless, the boy had

repeatedly fallen ill rather than watch their play from the sidelines. Now a

man grown, Jaric felt both memory and snow melt away into air. His last cry

rang without echo within the grove of the Vaere. Yet even as he separated past

from present, the hands now calloused from sword and sheet line remained

clenched across his eyes.

Bells tinkled nearby. Jaric drew a shaking breath and forced his sweating

fingers to loosen. When he looked up, Tamlin stood over him, his bearded

features vague in the twilight.

'Ivainson Jaric, to achieve a sorcerer's powers, you must first master

yourself. The training will go hard for you. I say again, are you prepared?'

Jaric swallowed. He spoke in a voice still husky from tears. 'Yes.'

Tamlin did not relent. 'Would you return to the memory you just left, and

suffer the pain of that experience ten times tenfold?'

Blond hair gleamed in the half-light as Jaric lifted his head. Brown eyes met

black, the former angrily determined, the latter fathomlessly dark. For a

moment human and Vaere poised, motionless. Then Jaric rose.

He glared down at the fey form of his tormentor, his stance the unwitting

image of Ivain's.

'Yes,' he said softly. 'Send me back to suffer if you must. Only don't turn me

away empty-handed. Should you do that, all that I value will perish. To watch

and be helpless would be worse than any torment a Sathid could devise.'

'Very well, then.' Tamlin gestured with a shimmering jingle of bells. 'You

have earned the chance to train.' He paused, and a gleam of admonition lit his

eyes. 'But remember, self-defence will not avail if on the day of trial no

weapon is ready to your hand.'

Tamlin winked and promptly vanished. Left alone in the glade, Jaric barely

grasped that he had gained the chance to attempt a sorcerer's mastery.

Instead, chagrined, he wondered how Tamlin had learned of the sword he

inevitably forgot to carry, to the repeated dismay of his instructors.

Lights flickered, patternless as stars across the consoles, as the Vaere

sorted the data acquired during Jaric's first trial of will. If the early

figures showed promise, they also outlined need for major work to come. To

survive the Cycle of Fire, Jaric must bring his present-day resilience to bear

upon the inadequacies of his childhood. Motivated, not by hope, but by the

relentless reality of numbers, the Vaere sorted options and prepared for the

future.

Mechanical extensions trapped the small, squirming bodies of two earth-diggers

from the soil beneath the forest floor. Barely a handspan across, the

creatures lacked both eyesight and measurable intelligence; yet within their

living bodies Set-Nav would create the seeds of a sorcerer's command of

elements. Machinery hummed, and gears spun in frictionless silence. The

earth-diggers squeaked protest as needles pierced their

hides, inoculating each of them with a separate solution of Sathid matrix.

Set-Nav placed the squalling animals in cages. The first would host its

crystal until its flesh transformed to seed-matrix at the completion of the

Sathid's cycle; when it was secondarily bonded to a human subject, memories

stored from the matrix's previous existence would expand. From them Jaric must

shape his Earthmaster's powers. If he succeeded, the remaining digger would be

set aflame. Sathid matrix recovered from its ashes would initiate Jaric to the

Cycle of Fire, if his courage did not fail him. For by the most conservative

estimate, Set-Nav determined that Keith-land had less than a year to offset

the threat of Maelgrim. All too soon the dark dreams of demons would influence

humanity toward destruction.

In Keithland the days shortened. Crops ripened to harvest, gathered in before

the frosts that withered the stubble in the fields. Leaves cloaked the

hillsides in colours until winter winds ripped them away; but while snowfall

might silt the thickets elsewhere with drifts, time and season remained

constant on the Isle of the Vaere. Grasses flowered soft as spring above the

installation that housed Set-Nav. Securely dreaming inside his silver capsule,

the boy who aspired to a firelord's mastery slowly completed his training.

Through months of careful schooling, Tamlin taught him to reshape the

nightmares of his childhood. The insecurities Jaric had known as an apprentice

scribe were painstakingly unravelled, early uncertainty excised by the

confidence of later achievements until recognition of his own self-worth

underlay the boy's being like bedrock. For the first time in his life, Jaric

could explore his past without feeling haunted by inadequacy.

Yet the freedom inspired by his accomplishment was not to last. The moment the

odds of probability favoured

success, Set-Nav recovered the seed Sathid that had survived the first

earth-digger's death and dissolved it in saline solution. Jaric felt no pain

as the needle pierced his unconscious flesh. Even as an alien entity entered a

vein in his wrist, he dreamed of a twilit grove; there a tiny man dressed in

leather and bells delivered final instructions.

'Remember, your danger lies in the weakness within yourself.' Bells tinkled as

the Vaere wagged his finger at the young man who sat before him on the grass.

He had been born slight, this son of Ivain; blighted early by rejection and

misunderstanding, still he had grown to manhood. Now the hope of Keithland's

survival rested upon his shoulders. Forcefully, Tamlin resumed.

'Fear must be controlled at all times, or you will be lost, forever

subservient to the will of the Sathid. If you block the matrix's first attempt

at dominance, it will revert and turn its previous memories of the soil

against you. You are near then to victory, but do not be careless. At that

moment, you must seize control and unriddle the mysteries of the earth. If you

misstep then, you shall perish.'

Kneeling, Jaric fingered the petals of a flower that rested against his knee.

The softness of the bloom reminded him of Taen's skin; thought of her woke a

tremble deep in his gut. He forced the memory away, only to recall the face of

Mathieson Keldric, the elderly fisherman whose boat had borne him safely

through seas and storms. Before Keldric and Callinde there had been the

forester who had taught him independence, a master scribe who had given him

literacy, and later, thirty-nine clansfolk who had lost their lives to secure

his safety. Jaric reviewed the sacrifices made by the Kielmark, Brith, and

sharp-tongued Corley; and lastly, he considered the Stormwarden, locked living

in his tomb of ice. Except for his geas of summoning, Anskiere had

forced no man's will, though his rescue depended upon sacrifice of another.

'Boy,' said Tamlin softly.

Jaric flinched, and the flower stem snapped between his fingers. He glanced

up, bleak with the realization that if he failed his father's inheritance, he

would be more fortunate than his friends and fellows. Dead, he would not have

to suffer through the demise of Keithland.

Tamlin folded his arms, his hair and beard shining silver in the gloom of the

grove. 'Boy, whatever your father's reputation, remember this: Ivain gave

himself for the greater good. He preserved far more than he destroyed in the

time he served Keithland as Firelord.'

But where Ivain had begun his trial of Earthmastery with a shrug and a whistle

on his lips, Jaric knelt in silence. He did not look as Tamlin's form faded

away into air. Left vulnerable and alone, the boy felt a presence that was no

part of himself stir within his mind; already the Sathid germinated inside his

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JANNYWURTSShadowfanePrologueTheseeressofthewellinGaire'sMainwokegaspinginthestrawofthestableswhereshesheltered.Sheshivered,blindeyesmilkyinthemoonlightthatspilledfromtheloft.Thevisionsthathadbrokenhersleeprackedherstill,bringingterrorbeyondanythingmortal.Theseeressstirredancientjointsandrose.Clothed...

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