The prisoner grinned with his split, swollen lips. “I am not fond of the world as I have found it, General. You name a cause in which I would gladly believe.”
“Haomane’s Wrath is a fearsome thing,” Tanaros warned him.
Speros shrugged. “So was my Da’s.”
It was a boy’s comment, not a Man’s; and yet, the glint in the lad’s eyes suggested it was deliberate, issued as a reckless dare. Against his better judgement, Tanaros laughed. He had found fulfillment and purpose in service to Lord Satoris, in seizing his own warped destiny and pitting himself against the will of an overwhelming enemy. If it afforded him the chance to play a role in Shaping the world that had betrayed him, so much the better.
Did the lad deserve less?
“Vorax,” Tanaros said decisively. “Strike his chains.”
The lamps burned low in her quarters.
There was a veneer of delicacy overlaying the appearance of the rooms to which she had been led. Tapestries in shades of rose, celadon and dove-grey hid the black stone walls; fretted lamps hung from the buttresses, their guttering light casting a patterned glow. These elements had been added, tacked atop the solid bulwark of the fortress in an effort to disguise the brooding mass of Darkhaven.
Cerelinde was not fooled.
This prison had been made for her.
She paced it, room by room, her feet sinking deep into the cloud-soft carpets that concealed the polished floor. What halls had they adorned? Cuilos Tuillenrad? A faint scent arose at her passage. Heart-grass, bruised and crushed by her feet. Oh, this was Ellylon craftsmanship, to be sure! Her kinfolk had woven it in ages past, with fingers more nimble than any son or daughter of Man could hope to emulate. The wool would have been culled from the first coats of yearling lamb, washed with an effusion of the delicate flowers of heart-grass that bloomed for three days only in the spring. Journeymen would have carded it, singing under the open skies, but the spinning, ah! That would have been done by Ellylon noblewomen, for they alone had the nicety of touch to spin wool thread as fine as silk.
Her own mother might have touched it …
Your mother was known to me.
Cerelinde closed her eyes. Unfair; oh, unfair!
It was not true. It could not be true. Time and time again, Malthus had said it: Satoris Banewreaker is cunning, he Shapes truth itself to his own ends. Her father … her father Celendril, she remembered well, for he had died in the Fourth Age of the Sundered World, slain upon the plains of Curonan amid the host of Numireth.
And left her alone.
No. That, too, was a lie; this place bred them like flies. Lord Ingolin had opened the gates of Meronil to all the Rivenlost who had fled the Sunderer’s wrath. Always her place there had been one of honor, even during the long centuries she had refused to hear their arguments. Malthus had been the first to say it, his wise old eyes heavy with grief at the death of his comrades. It is your duty and destiny, Cerelinde.
When a daughter of Elterrion weds a son of Altorus …
What a bitter irony it was!
At first, she had refused out of anger. It was a son of Altorus who had cost them dear on the plains of Curonan; Trachan Altorus, who received the news of Dergail’s defeat, who saw Ardrath the Counselor fall. Too soon he had sounded the retreat, and in that moment Satoris Banewreaker regained the dagger Godslayer and fled.
Long years it had taken for her people to overcome the bitterness of that blow and the ill-will it engendered between their races. Indeed, there were many among the Rivenlost who blamed Men for all the woes of their people; jealous, short-lived Men, who had long ago made war upon the Ellylon, coveting the secret of immortality. None of the House of Altorus, no, but others. And the ill-will flowed both ways, for the descendents of those Men who had kept faith with the Ellylon blamed them for repaying loyalty by drawing them into dire war against the Sunderer.
It was not their fault, not entirely. The lives of Men were brief, flickering like candles and snuffed in a handful of years. How could they hope to compass the scope of the Sunderer’s ambition when Satoris Banewreaker was content to wait ages for his plan to unfold? It was the second reason Cerelinde had refused to hear the arguments of Malthus and Lord Ingolin. Though she was young by Ellylon reckoning, she remembered ages preserved only in the dusty memories of parchment for the sons and daughters of Men.
How would it be, to wed one whose life passed in an eye-blink? One in whose flesh the seeds of death already took root? For century upon century, Cerelinde had never contemplated it with aught but a sense of creeping horror.
And then Aracus had come.
Oh, it was a bitter irony, indeed.
What lie, she wondered, would the Sunderer make of it? The truth was simple: He had won her heart. Aracus Altorus, a King without a kingdom, had ridden into Meronil with only a handful of the Borderguard to attend him. By the time he left, she had agreed to wed him.
Now she knew better the machinations behind that meeting, the long planning that had gone into it. By whatever tokens and arcane knowledge he used to determine the mind of Haomane, the Wise Counselor had divined that the time of reckoning was coming and Aracus Altorus, last-born scion in a line that had endured for five thousand years, must be the one to fulfill the Prophecy. Malthus had begun laying the groundwork for it when Aracus was but a child, visiting the boy in the guise of an aged uncle, filling his ears with portents.
With one wary eye on Darkhaven, for nearly thirty years he had exerted his subtle influence, laying seeds of thought and ambition in the boy that came to fruition in the man. And he had done his work well, Cerelinde thought with rue. The Wise Counselor had set out to Shape a hero.
He had done so.
For all the dignitaries assembled in the Hall of Meronil, they might have been alone, they two. It had passed between them, a thing understood, undetermined by the counsels of the wise. He reached out to grasp his destiny like a man grasping a burning brand. He would love her with all the fierce passion of his mortal heart. And she, she would love him in turn, in a tempestuous blaze. There was sorrow in it, yes, and grief, but not horror. Love, fair Arahila’s Gift, changed all.
And while it lasted, the fate that overshadowed them would be held at bay. Oh, the price would be high! They knew it, both of them. Death would come hard on its heels, whether by sickness or age or the point of a sword. Oronin Last-Born, the Glad Hunter, would blow his horn, summoning the hero home. And Cerelinde would be left to endure in her grief. Even in victory, if the Sunderer were defeated at last and Urulat healed, her grief would endure. But their children; ah, Haomane! Mortal through their father’s blood, still they would be half-Ellylon, granted a length of days uncommon to Men, able to reckon the vast span of time as no mortals among the Lesser Shapers had done before them. Their children would carry on that flame of hope and passion, uniting their races at last in a world made whole.
The image of the half-breed’s crooked face rose unbidden in her memory, Tanaros’ words echoing dryly. Such as he is, your own children would have been …
A lie; another lie. Surely children conceived in love would be different, would be accepted by both races. Was that not the intent of Haomane’s Prophecy? Cerelinde sat upon the immense bed that had been prepared for her, covering her face with both hands. If she could have wept, she would have, but Ellylon could only shed tears for the sorrow of others. A storm of terror raged in her heart and mind. After five thousand years of resistance, she had relented, had accepted her fate. A moment of joy; an eternity of grief. It was enough; merciful Arahila, was it not enough?