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timber. The source, when she traced, proved swathed inheavy mist, identical to
the patch she had divertedShearfish to investigate in the waters to the north
off Felwaithe. Taen's dream-sense shrank in reflexive warning. The evidence
over-whelmingly indicated demon-sign and battle; and what reason for both in
this desolate stretch of ocean, if not Ivainson Jaric?
Pressured now by fear, Taen added caution to her search.Worse than discovery,
she dared not let demons detect herprobe, tap into it, and gain further
knowledge of Jaric. Hermistake with Emien aboardMoonless must never be
repeated.
The Dreamweaver entered the mist with the subtlety ofsnow drifting through
air, and the net she wove to trace wasfine-meshed enough to draw minnows. The
fact that she might be helpless to intervene should she find Jaric in demon
captiv- ity made her palms sweat and her breathing shallow. But thetenacity of
her Imrill Kand upbringing shored her spirit against heartbreak. To find him
alive would bring hope, however dire his circumstances.
She pressed deeper, found a drift of burnt timbers butnothing else, only an
icy, unnatural emptiness which made herflesh crawl. The mist pressed close
about her dream-sense. Itcloaked the wave crests and coiled like smoke through
the troughs. Taen detected no life but schools of scavenger fish come to
investigate the flotsam, yet her foreboding only in-tensified. Something
lurked just past the borders of her per-ception, like movements glimpsed in a
mirror. Her skinprickled as if she were watched by hostile eyes; despite
thefact that she sat in the distant north, surrounded by rock andsoil and thin
grass grazed by goats. The entity which lurked inthe mist seemed
somehowknowing, as though her presencehad been expected.
Taen paused. Even as she sought to refine her probe, aforce brushed light as
feathers down her spine. Suddenly shefelt an overpowering urge to pull back,
leave this stretch of
ocean, and forget the traces of wreckage she had found here.Yet Imrill Kand
offered no haven if the Keys to Elrinfaer fellto enemy hands. Certain her
compulsion was demon-inspired, Taen braced to fight; if the Thienz who came
hunting from Shadowfane saw fit to hide their machinations, she refused tobe
cowed. Power smoldered within her, cleaving the mist for a target to strike.
Yet her dream-probe encountered no Thienz; only the sudden, unexpected
awareness of Ivainson Jaric.
The shock wrenched a cry from Taen's throat. Ablaze withunshed power, and
poised for battle, she yanked back. Coldrock bruised her spine, yet discomfort
to her body became insignificant before the whetted edge of wariness within
hermind. Quite certainly the Firelord's heir had been unveiled because it
suited the purpose of demons for him to be found.Yet Jaric was not taken
captive. He sat alone atCallinde'shelm. His hair was sodden and wind-tangled,
and his eyes stinging from lack of sleep.
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The energies Taen had woven in search of him were stillintact. Power flared
in answer to his presence; she dampened the force instantly, but not before a
spark of contact leapedthrough.
Jaric raised his head. "Taen?" he said, and the hope and theconfusion in his
tone almost broke the Dreamweaver whohuddled in the cold in Imrill Kand. That
narrowest instant ofpity proved fatal. The enchantress hesitated, and the trap
shefeared, the threat that instinctively cautioned her against maintaining any
thread of rapport, overtook her. Thienz grap-pled a foothold through the
contact.
Taen screamed in fear and pain. She slammed up defensivebarriers, too late.
Her compassion for Jaric ran deep, and thegrip of the demons had penetrated
through to its source. Theyhad breached that innermost psyche where she was
unguardedand their attack was engineered with devastating precision. Jaric had
been used as bait, left free and in solitude expressly that demons might snare
her. Once Taen Dreamweaver was rendered impotent to defend, her powers would
not foil thedemon's final possession of their quarry. The last living hen- of
Ivain Firelord would be taken as surely as a wheat stalk razed by a scythe.
The pain of that ripped Taen open to more cruel revelation still: the guiding
mind behind this most deadly plothad been not that of a demonbut that of the
brother she hadlost to Shadowfane.
"No!" Taen's cry echoed over the tors of Imrill Kand. She
struggledto repel the hold upon her mind, even as powerflared and burned her
resistance away to nothing. The beingwho now was Maelgrim had no mercy; all
that remained of hishumanity had been carved into a weapon for killing. He
tradedupon ties his sister would harbor, the same loyalty and stub-born love
that had made her hesitate to strike him down oncebefore on the heights of
Elrinfaer. Maelgrim thrust through the Thienz net to cripple her.
Yet Taen did not crumple. Weeping bitterest tears, shemustered and deflected
the killing blow. Her dream-sense flashed white under the paralyzing agonies
of conflict. Hermind reeled under the backlash, and the suffocating hold ofthe
Thienz released. Taen reached immediately to retaliate, to strike at the
source of Keithland's peril before Jaric could becaptured or slain. But no
force answered. She had dangerouslyoverextended herself, and her powers were
utterly spent.Sapped of energy, Taen opened her eyes to gray mist, and awind
that scoured across the rocks of Imrill Kand. Pain and cold wracked her body,
and her eyes ached from tears.
She tried to stir, and could not. Her limbs felt locked inlead. Afraid now,
for the chill might certainly kill her, shestruggled to lift her head. Her
vision became patched withdarkness. Dizziness wrung her senses like grass
stalks swept up in a whirlpool, and a fierce attack of nausea left her
gasp-ing. Jaric, she thought weakly, but could not rouse enough tofocus her
warning into dream-call. As the void swirled and engulfed her, Taen heard
laughter from the man she had oncecalled a brother. Then the sound shattered
to echoes. Herawareness slipped sickeningly into night, even as the last
terri-ble fact crackled across the link: the Demon Lord of Shadow-fane wanted
more than the Keys to Elrinfaer. He hadcommanded that Jaric be taken alive.
Ivain Firelord might have been hated, even cursed for his cruelties and his
malice.But the son bequeathed to Keithland might do worse; enslavedby demons,
the boy and his prodigious potential for a sor-cerer's mastery might be turned
like a cataclysm against his own kind. A Firelord dedicated to destruction
would surely end hope and extinguish humanity's chance of survival.
Had Taen retained even a glimmer of consciousness, shewould have wept for
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sorrow, that the greatest fear of Jane's heart should now so terribly become
real. But her awareness extinguished like candle flame slapped by a downpour.
Night fell over the tors of Imrill Kand. The broken cloudsof afternoon fused
into darkness and whipping rain thatslashed the rocks, and beat in icy sheets
over mats of flattened grass. Bracken bent to the storm, and run-off drummed
over amud-spattered goat-fleece cloak that only that morning hadbeen new. The
Dreamweaver of Imrill Kand lay beneath, un-moving. Her hands glistened with
rainwater when the lantern-light fell across them; the hair plastered sodden
to her cheekswallowed reflections, seemed a shroud cut from the verycloth of
death.
"Fires, she's here, then," said a soul-weary voice edgedwith bitterness. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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