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replied in his clear, antique phrasing, too incisive to be mistaken for town dialect. "Since my arrow isn't struck through your heart, you have proof. I haven't come for your death." He lifted his grazed chin.

"Instead I bring formal protest. This writ signed by townsmen to grant sovereign power in Tysan is invalid by first kingdom law. The tenets of this realm's founding charter hold my act as no crime. Your cla~,~m to crown rule is in flagrant breach of due pro,c, ess."

I need no sanction from Fellowship Sorcerers. Lysaer laid down~ the arrow, unruffled. Winter sun through the casement spanned the~ stilled air and exposed him; even so, he gave back no shadow of~j duplicity. For a prince who had lost untold lives to clan tactics, then his best friend and commander to covert barbarian marksmen, this unconditional equilibrium seemed inspired. His reproof held a sor- row to raise shame as he qualified, "I must point out, your complaint as it stands is presumptuous and premature. This writ from Tysan's mayors has not been sealed into law. I have not yet accepted the man- tie of kingship."

To the stir of surprise from disparate city mayors, the murmured dismay from trade factions, and the outright, riveted astonishment of King Eldir's ambassador, Lysaer gave scant attention. "As for treason, let this be your trial." He gestured past the clansman bound before him. "The men assembled here will act as your jurors. No worthlet circle could be asked to pass judgment. You stand before the highest officials of this realm, and the uninvolved delegates from five king- doms. Nor are we without a strong voice from the clans. Mearn s'Bry- dion, youngest brother of Alestron's reigning duke, may serve as your voice in defense."

"I speak for myself!" the barbarian insisted over the scraping dis- turbance as upset chairs were rearranged, and the attendant men of government refocused their interest through the rustle of settling vel- vets. "Let there be no mistake. Since the murder of Maenalle s'Gann- ley, caithdein and steward of Tysan, her successor, Maenol, has appointed me spokesman before witnesses. Upon false grounds of sovereignty, for the act by which you mustered armed force to make war for a wrongful claim of injustice, hear warning, Lysaer s'Ilessid. Forsake your pursuit of Arithon s'Ffalenn. Or no choice remains for the good of this realm. The response from my kind must open a clan declara- tion of civil war."

"I think not." Lysaer set down the arrow. A small move, made with unemotional force; barely enough to stem the explosive outrage from the merchants who had lost profits to the Shadow Master's wiles, and from veteran captains his tactics had broken and bloodied on the

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to le ~is )r- ed of ~re ier est ry- as tis- :el- has ; of 'for ake ood ~ra- vith torn and the FUGITIVE PRINCE.

~iekcL L~tsaer's blue eyes remained stainless, still saddened. His regard upon the captive never wavered. "Rather, I believe your clan ch'~e~ta'm would resist me as an act of insurrection. His grandmother died a convicted thief on the scaffold. He will see worse, I can promise, if he persists in rash overtures of violence. Woe betide your people, should you let your clans be bound in support of a proven criminal. To abet the Master of Shadow against me is to threaten the safety of our cities."

"This is a strict issue of sovereignty!" the clansman pealed back through the sawn and inimical silence. "Your royal inheritance has been disbarred by the Fellowship of Seven because your fitness to rule has been compromised. We serve no cause outside of our land's founding charter! This war you pursue against Arithon of Rathain is engendered by the curse laid on you both by the Mistwraith."

The Lady Maenalle s'Gannley had said the same words in the hour of her execution. The heavyset Mayor of Isaer might have borne wit- ness, since she had been tried and condemned in his city, under his justiciar's tribunal.

Havish's ambassador himself could confirm that the statement held more than a grain of hard truth. But his king's will kept him silent, even as the other dignitaries expressed their searing disbelief.

Ill feeling already ran hot on both sides. However the thundering crosscurrents of hatred bent truth to imperil the prisoner, Havish's representative could do naught but observe.

Lysaer's control was not absolute. Despite his impressive majesty, no matter how staunch his self-command, distrust of old blood roy- alty made his claim to the throne controversial; more telling still, the question just raised against the morality of his dedicated conflict.

Fresh losses still stung. Inside one year, the campaign he pursued against the Master of Shadow had seen the eastshore trade fleet sun- dered and burned at Minderl Bay, then the clash as the armed might of four kingdoms ended in an abattoir of spilled blood at Vastmark.

As new uncertainty threaded tension through the gathering, all eyes fixed on the prince in his tabard of flawless white and gold.

His stance held straight as an arrow nocked to the drawn bow. He perused the assembled dignitaries, nestled like plumed birds in roped pearls and winter velvets; acknowledged the military captains with their muscled impatience; then diverted, to touch last on the single man in the chamber born to a laborer's status. One whose stiff, uneasy stillness stood apart from languid courtiers like a stake ham- mered upright in a lily bed.

"How I wish the threat posed by the Master of Shadow were due ~ANNY WURT$.

only to the meddling of Desh-thiere." A disarming regret rc Lysaer's pause. Then, as if weariness cast a pall over desper~ strength, he relinquished his advantage of height, sat down, a plunged on in bald-faced resolve. "But far worse has come to bear this conflict than rumors of an aberrant curse. This goes beyond a issue of enmity between the Shadow Master and myself. Hard e dence lies on record in the cities of Jaelot and Alestron. Twice, unp voked, Arithon s'Ffalerm wielded sorcery against innocents w destructive result. Now, in the course of the late war in Vastmark more dire accusation came to light. Since it may touch on the c~ here at hand, I ask this gather'mg's indulgence."

The prince beckoned for the plain-clad man to mount the stair the dais. "Your moment has come to speak."

The fellow arose to a scrape of rough boots, his occupation plain his seaman's gait and hands horned in callus from a lifetime sp~ hauling nets. Too diffident to ascend to the level of royalty, he chos stance alongside the accused clansman. His embarrassed g~ remained fixed on his toes, unscuffed and shiny from a recent ref~ bishing at the cobbler's.

"! was born a fisherman at Merior by the Sea," he opened. "WI~ Arithon's brigantine, the Khetienn, was launched, I left my fathe lugger to sign on as one of her crewmen. Under command of the M ter of Shadow, I bore witness to an atrocity no sane man could sa~ tion. For that reason, I deserted, and stand here today. Word monstrous act at the Havens inlet must be told, that justice may col to be served."

Then the words poured from him, often halting, tremulous w remembered horror. Too desperately, he wished to forget what h happened on the summer afternoon as the Khetienn put into one the deep, fissured channels, where the high crags of VastmE plunged in weather-stepped stone to the shoreline of Rockbay H bor. Today, pallid under the window's thin sunshine, the seam recounted the affra~ when two hundred archers under Arith s'Ffalenn had dispatched, without mercy, a company five hund~ and thirty men strong.

"They were murdered!" the sailhand pealed in distress. "The v~ guard were cut down in ruthless waves as they scrambled, expos on the cliff trails. More fell while launching boats in retreat. T1~ were dropped in their tracks by volleys of arrows shot out of co~ from above." The long-sighted seaman's eyes were raised nc locked to a horrified memory. As if they yet viewed the steep, sh~ owed cliffs; the wave-fretted channel of the inlet; the still-runni

24.

rode erate and ~lr oil [any evi- ~pro- with case ir to in in 3ent ~se a ,~aze fur- ~ith ~ad ~ of ark far- toil .ed ey rer ,w, ,d- ng FUGITIVE I)RINCE.

blood of men broken like toys in the brazen, uncaring sunlight. As though, beyond time, living flesh could still cringe from the screams of the maimed and the dying, scythed down in full flight, then tum- bled still quick in their agony into the thrash of the breakers.

"Such slaughter went on, unrelenting." Before listeners strangled into shocked quiet, the damning account unfolded. Impelled now by passionate outrage, scene after scene of inhumane practice were described in the fisherman's slow, southcoast accent. "Those wretches who fled were killed from behind. Any who survived to launch long- boats did so by shielding their bodies behind corpses. Their valor and desperation made no difference. They were cut off as they sought to make sail. Every galley turned in flight was run down and fired at the mouth of the inlet. No vessel was spared. Even a fishing lugger bur- dened with wounded was razed and burned to her waterline. Mercy was forbidden, at Arithon's strict order. By my life, as I stand here, and Dharkaron as my judge, the killing went on until no man who tried landfall was left standing."

The fisherman stirred, came back to himself, and shifted his feet in self-consciousness. "All that I saw took place before the great rout at Dier Kenton Vale."

The last line trailed into appalled, awkward stillness. City officials sat in their numbed state of pride, pricked down the spine by an incomprehensible fear Their poise like struck marble, every veteran commander sweated inwardly, forced to accept that the wretched, slaughtered companies could as easily have been their own men.

The moment hung and then passed. Deep breaths were drawn into stopped lungs. Bodies shifted and hat feathers quivered, and humid hands fumbled through scrips and pockets in quest of comforting handkerchiefs.

Then the floor loosened into talk all at once.

"Ath show us all mercy!" The minister of the weaver's guild fanned a suety face with the brim of his unwieldy bonnet. "What sick- ness of mind would drive a human being to command such a letting 0fblood?"

"The killing appears to have been done for no reason," the Khetienn's deserter stressed mournfully. "No one who landed at the Havens survived. The wyverns there scavenged the corpses."

But the ambassador from Havish weighed the sailor's lidded gaze, that darted and shied from direct contact. Instinct suggested this wit- ness had withheld some telling fact from his speech. For malice, per- haps, or personal rancor against his former captain, he might slant his account to spark vengeful impetus to Lysaer's ongoing feud.

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"But Arithon s'Ffalerm never acts without design." T impact of Lysaer's rebuttal spun electrifying tension in.

man alive is more clever, or sane. This Spinner of Da~ have his reason, cold-blooded, even vicious, to hav effected such slaughter."

Lysaer stood, fired now by conviction which no Ic keep still. The light shimmered across his collar yoke template to his distress. "We know the scarps above Vale were splintered into a rock fall. Earth itself was s weapon to break the proud ranks of our war host. If th~ that territory are prone to slides, the ruin rained down was a feat beyond all bounds of credibility. What exploitation of a natural disaster were the cause? Cou fact have been used to cleave a new fault line? Even structure of the shale?"

Disturbed murmurs swept the benches. Feathers ripi vet hats tipped, as men shared their fears with their neigl "Arithon s'Ffalenn was born to mage training!" ~ exhorted above the noise. "Through his seemingly wan at the Havens, could he not have tapped the arcane pow very fabric of the earth?"

On orchestrated cue, the shriveled little man in sc started up from his unobtrusive dreaming. "The premis out precedent," he affirmed in a drilling, treble quave proscribed practices that herb witches use to tap fore magnetism."

A stunning truth. Every common man-at-arms who e~ illicit love philter had observed the filthy practice.

"These distasteful creatures will slay a live animal, tl~ ing spells from the spilled effervescence of its life essenc, more potent the power to be gained, if the sacrificial human?" The scholar cast his accusation above an un~ lous anger. "Be sure, the massed deaths of five hundred be enough to cleave the very mountains in twain t~ unconscionable destruction on our troops!"

"The question is raised," Avenor's deep-voiced ju through the uproar. He nodded in respect to his addressed the bound clansman. "If the Master of Sha~ dark magecraft, the preeminent arcane order on this conl stepped forth to denounce him. The Fellowship Sorcei spoken. Nor have they acted to curb his vile deeds. Tt Althain himself is said to feel each drop of blood spilh

26.

FUGITIVE PRINCE.

Every death at the Havens would be known to him. Why should he let this atrocity pass?"

A mayor in the front row raised an imperious fist. "The opposite has happened, in practice!"

A scathing point; more than once, the Sorcerers had stood as ^rithon's spokesmen.

Havish's royal ambassador stiffened, then stamped down his urgent protest. In even-handed fairness, hard against their better judgment, the Fellowship Sorcerers had also endorsed today's return of the princess's purloined ransom. Lysaer's avoidance of that truth was duplicitous. Pained by the loyalty due his own king, the ambas- sador endured through the unjust malignment, while Avenor's justi- ciar widened the charges in his sonorous, gravelly bass.

"What is the Fellowship's silence, if not evidence of collaboration?

By this lack of intervention, events would suggest that the Sorcerers may support all of Arithon's actions against us."

"They gave their vaunted sanction to Rathain's crown prince,"

Etarra's Lord Harradene allowed. "If the Fellowship stands together as the Shadow Master's ally, the consequence can't be dismissed.

They may have become corrupted. If they deem the use of dark mage- craft as no crime, Prince Lysaer, as the public defender of the inno- cent, would naturally be obstructed in his legitimate claim to rule tysan."

The clan prisoner's sharp protest became shouted down by another voice as accented as his own. "Now there's a braw, canting spiel, well fitted for a mealymouthed lawyer!"

Mute on the benches, the ambassador from Havish shut his eyes in relief.

Volatile as spilled flame in the red-and-gold surcoat of Alestron's unvanquished clan dukes, Mearn s'Brydion, appointed delegate of his brother, sprang up in pacing agitation. "While you bandy conjec- ture in mincing, neat words, let us pay strict attention to procedure! If this slaughter at the Havens ever happened, where's hard proof?" He cast suspicious gray eyes toward the sailhand, impervious himself to the looks turned his way by townsmen distrustful of his breeding.

"Or will you sheep dressed in velvets let yourselves be gulled by the word of a man disaffected?"

As the deckhand surged forward, flushed into outrage, Mearn raised a finger like a blade. "I've not said you're a liar! Not outright.

Arithon's a known killer, that much I grant. I witnessed the debacle he caused in our armory. But whether his slaughter of these compa- nies at the Havens took place as a blood crime, or some cruel but

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expedient act of war, the killing was done on the soil of Shand. Can mix your legalities for convenience. Town law won't apply to a kin~ dom. Under sovereignty of Shand's founding charter, as written b the Fellowship of Seven, Prince Arithon's offense is against Lot Erlien, High Earl of Alland. As caithdein of that realm, the Te s'Taleyn is charged to uphold justice in the absence of his high kinI The question of Prince Arithon's guilt falls under his province !

determine."

"What is the old law to our city councils?" cried the plump, ri~ boned spokesman from Isaer. "Just hot wind and words! TI~ caithdeins' authority was broken when the uprising threw dow crown rule. And even if our mayors cared to bow to dead precedent has this new evidence against Arithon not tainted the clans' leg~ claim? What if the Fellowship's morals are debased? Shall we wa and watch our cities become victimized?"

Talk rose, scored through by a treble run of panic. Even the sallo~ bored Seneschal of Avenor thumped his stick fist to be heard. "Shoul we risk being deceived, or stay willfully blind, then suffer the sam ruin that leveled whole buildings in Jaelot?"

From all quarters of the chamber, heads turned. Ones bare an close cropped to accommodate mail, and others fashionably coife~ Earrings swung, and jewelry chinked, as every face trained on th Prince of the Light. He alone could speak for both factions, throug hard-won respect and ties to an old blood inheritance.

Yet it was Lord Shien, joint captain of Avenor's field troops, whos remark stormed the floor into quiet. "If the barbarian before th~ council was sent as an envoy to declare his chieftain's enmity, w have sure trouble here at home!" A large man, with meaty, chappe knuckles and a frown that seemed stitched in place, he raised the bu bellow he used to cow recruits. "And whether or not the Master c Shadow has embraced wickedness, or sacrificed lives to buy powe dissent from the clans will give him a free foothold here to exploit. ~ dare not allow such a weakness. Not before such dire threat."

Attention swung back. Like blood in the water amidst schoolin sharks, men fastened their outrage upon the offender held boun, within reach. "Sentence the archer! Condemn him for treason! LE him die as example to his brethren!"

"Do that," interceded the long-faced justiciar, "and according t town edict, he dies on the scaffold, broken one limb at a time."

"He was sent to contest a legitimate point of law!" Mearn s'Br~ dion warned. "Take his life in dishonor, and your clans here wi~ never be reconciled."

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. Can't t king- ken by 'Lord e Teir t king.