Peril’s Gate. Janny Wurts

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ you yourself honor his royal trust to the point where you won’t accept bread crusts without the old-law bonds of honest friendship.’

      ‘I’ll have surety before cake,’ Elaira insisted, her mettle steadfast under pressure. ‘A hard ride up the coast would make anybody thin. I’ll recover on gruel in a tavern, but after you’ve listed your terms of demand to offset my presumed gift of freedom.’

      While Lirenda sucked in a breath of amazement, Selidie tucked her neat, coquette’s fingers around the scrolled handle of a teacup. ‘You should have been a merchant, the way you read nuance.’ She waved the hovering servants away. Steam plumed against the dimmed fall of the tapestries as she spooned in a thick gob of honey. Her gaze stayed thoughtfully level, but not discomposed, as she savored a lingering sip.

      ‘Merchants can’t traffic in slaves or prisoners, under terms of the Fellowship’s compact,’ Elaira attacked. ‘You need Arithon as your leverage to upset the old order, and to reach him, you plan to use me. I would have this over with.’

      Selidie slapped down her cup. The furious chime of the spoon struck through silence, no less a warning than the testing tap of crossed sword steel. Robed in the Prime’s mantle, and charged with the unsheathed power of her office, Selidie glared down with quicksilver eyes. ‘Girl, you rankle! Don’t expect I’ll forgive your brash insolence. Hear your orders. Then decide what course you will take from this chamber. I will grant you the loan of a scrying quartz. You will use it to shadow the Prince of Rathain and report if he dies of wound fever. If he lives, you may engage your own powers as you will. I prefer him kept clear of Lysaer s’Ilessid and the armed forces of the Alliance.’

      ‘No limits?’ Elaira said, her voice rocked unsteady. The candlelight flared like chipped rust through her hair as she hung on the pause for an answer.

      Selidie watched, snake still in her chair, while the steam twined the gloom like the half-coiled ribbons of a spell. ‘No limits but one: if his Grace survives the winter, you will go to him when the thaws reopen the Skyshiel passes. You will attach yourself to his company and behave exactly as you please until such time as his life becomes threatened. Then, you will be free to intercede in his behalf. You have claimed we’ve forgotten our precepts of mercy. Let this prove you wrong. You are given my sanction to wield the power of the Koriani Order in the cause of Prince Arithon’s life.’

      ‘Merciful Ath, of course!’ Elaira shot to her feet. ‘With the usual condition that he would owe us his personal oath of debt for our service. Even the Fellowship must honor that stricture, no matter if the price we demand should seal his final downfall.’

      Selidie inclined her head. ‘We have never granted exception for royal birth or any other privilege of rank.’ A brittle smile bent her lips. ‘The choice remains yours, whether or not to offer your prince the option of our help. You are, as you see, the initiate best suited to carry out this mission. The only direct command you will bear is to stay involved with Prince Arithon’s affairs.’

      ‘A feat far easier said than accomplished.’ Elaira drew a steady breath that laid bare the unyielding mettle of her character. ‘If I don’t go, I suppose you’d send Lirenda?’

      ‘My ends can be served out of love, or from hatred,’ Selidie agreed in poisoned logic. ‘Which emotion will sway Arithon’s fate in the straits of his uncertain future?’

      ‘Love, of course.’ Elaira shouldered the weight of that vicious irony, no less besieged by the dumbstruck antagonist who now looked daggers at her back. ‘I have leave to start immediately?’

      ‘As you wish.’ Selidie raised the blank sphere from its tripod and gestured for Elaira to approach. An admonition followed as the crystal changed hands, too quiet for Lirenda to overhear. Then the audience ended. Elaira descended the dais and curtseyed, giving the ritual words of obedience. When she arose, her eyes glittered with unshed tears. Granted a terrible grace of reprieve, and the Prime’s formal word to depart, she beat a tormented retreat and slipped through the outer doorway. The Prime’s grant of choice held no triumph for her, but the promise of pain and a perilous, double-edged burden.

      Prime Matriarch Selidie reclined in her chair, brilliant eyes closed through a moment of pleased relief. While the Waystone and the Skyron danced with the scintillant light of her ebullience, she said, ‘That woman had the straight courage to refuse me.

      Our order’s future may ride on the stunning, weak fact that she didn’t.’

      Lirenda cut in with acidic accusation. ‘I have leave to speak? Such a love as she bears could well be strong enough to allow your chosen quarry to die.’

      ‘Less willingly than hatred.’ Selidie flexed the hand she had used to bond with the Waystone as though the stone’s malice still seared an invisible burn through her flesh. ‘You will learn in due time. The carrot wins better cooperation than the stick.’

      Lirenda arose, a whisper of damp silk masking her stifled resentment. ‘Where’s the carrot, for me?’

      ‘You were no invited witness.’ Selidie met her opening advance with wide-lashed, malevolent challenge. ‘Be most careful how you speak. I choose my weapons with meticulous care. When the last crisis breaks, Elaira will dance to the very same constraints that I’ll use to break and scatter the power of the Fellowship.’

      Lirenda tested Selidie’s bitter thread of logic: that if Arithon provided a viable cipher to disrupt the grip of the compact, he must also be key to the world’s future balance. Neither the Sorcerers nor Elaira would sacrifice Athera to deny mankind’s rightful claim to seize dominance. A last, closing stride brought Lirenda to the foot of the low stair, her reflection overlaid in multiple imprint on the Alliance forces still marching through snow in the scrying spheres. ‘I thought you wanted the Shadow Master dead! Or is his Grace of Rathain no longer a threat to Koriani continuance?’

      Selidie plucked a slice of cake from the plate and licked butter icing from her fingers. ‘He was a thorn in the path of Morriel’s succession. That issue is ended.’ She nibbled, amused, as she sensed Lirenda’s probe for the crone now securely ensconced within the purloined flesh of youth. ‘As you see, prime power has been transferred intact. The guard has changed. My predecessor is dead, her ashes dispersed by the rituals of due ceremony. Choose your stand on that matter very carefully.’

      Lirenda regarded the creature before her with a lioness’s glare and a loathing that curdled her blood. ‘You dare to warn me?’ Challenged by an initiate who possessed eighth-rank training, Selidie must realize her unnatural state was transparently obvious. ‘I’m amazed you have the bald-faced effrontery to allow me to live!’

      ‘You weren’t listening. I never, ever cast off useful tools.’ Selidie shook out a napkin and whisked away a small blizzard of crumbs. ‘Did you think you retained any shred of good standing to bandy high charges against me? The facts lie against you. Your ambition left enemies, particularly since you made no secret of your disdain for my novice incompetence. In Jaelot, you fumbled a major assignment. Prince Arithon went free. Tell me truth, sister.’ The malice that flashed in those steel-rivet eyes held a chilling familiarity. ‘Will your integrity survive the course of a formal Ceremonial Inquiry?’

      Lirenda’s skin rose to a violent flush.

      ‘I thought not.’ Selidie rescued her cooled cup of tea, tapping the gilt rim with a fingernail. ‘Like Elaira, you must follow my bidding, even if that leaves you with lifelong penance, scrubbing floors in the Highscarp sisterhouse. Who listens to rancor from the mouth of the fallen? You are excused. Understand clearly СКАЧАТЬ