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a roar that punished thought and broke, hurl-ing foam against steely bastions
of ice. Awed by the breadth of the cliffs, Jaric glanced up. But the structure
soared upward, obscured by coiling wraiths of mist. He inched across a
crevice. The cliff shelved beyond, cut like a road across the face of a
precipice. Beyond lay a steep drop to the sea. Breakers battered beneath with
the force of primordial creation.
Jaric moved cautiously toward the brink. Pebbles rolled under his boots,
bounced outward into air and vanished. He took another step and another.
Sorcery flashed, sudden and blinding as lightning overhead. Wind gusted
through the defile and built to a screaming rush of sound. Certain the geas
had broken free of Taen's protective barrier, Jaric cried out. He flung both
hands over his face, prepared to be ripped into agony by Anskiere's implacable
summoning.
But the storm died. Wind dropped, weak as a spent breath; the rain ceased.
After the violence of rampaging elements, the land seemed deadened under an
eerie and unnatural silence. Jaric lifted his head in wonder. Surf still broke
over the reefs below; but the wave crests unravelled into foam and subsided,
no longer flayed to tatters by the gale. Mist eddied over the defile.
Trembling in the midst of calm, Jaric watched the storm dissolve around him.
Storm clouds tore asunder and sunlight cast a mantle of gold across Jaric's
shoulders. Peace claimed him. Breezes whispered through his hair and a single
black-barred feather drifted down. Jaric caught the quill as it passed. He
turned its knife-edge length between his hands and wondered what should be
done with the seed of the stormfalcon's power.
"Keep it safe, Ivainson Jaric," said the wind.
Jaric started. He stared wildly about, but the rocky escarp-ment remained
empty as before and the ice beyond as majest-ically desolate. The voice could
only be sent by the Stormwarden of Elrinfaer, who had wrought the
stormfalcon's pattern and set the geas of summoning upon him. Before
apprehension could defeat him, Jaric gathered courage and spoke. "I have come
in accordance with your bidding. Dare I ask what purpose brought me here?"
"You are the Firelord's heir," the wind replied.
Exposed on his shelf of rock, Jaric could not know that deep within the
fortress of ice Anskiere of Elrinfaer roused from the deep sleep of stasis.
Guided by the stormfalcon's feather, his mind ranged to a ledge beyond his
confinement, where a young man with earnest brown eyes awaited his fate.
Jaric shivered as the Stormwarden's presence encompassed him. Aware his
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person was being assessed, he knew a moment of cynical amusement; the
Stormwarden of Elrinfaer would find nothing but a starved, sunburned youth
with tangled hair, slight stature and a talent for fine penmanship; small
reward for such stupendous expenditure of effort. Bitterness deepened the
lines of hardship around Jaric's mouth. No doubt Anskiere would conclude he
had been mistaken to summon him at all.
But the wind swirled, sharply snapping his cloak hem. The break in the clouds
widened. Slanting sunlight touched the ice across the fissure, firing the
crystals like prisms. As a prison, the structure was awesomely beautiful; also
more permanently secure than any dungeon created by man. Struck by sudden
poignant sorrow, Jaric realized the Stormwarden of Elrinfaer was no longer
master of his fate. He depended on outside help for his rescue.
The fact sparked a painful reminder of Jaric's earlier in-adequacy. Trapped
by despair, the boy struggled to define what surely was evident. "I am useless
to you, sorcerer. I have no power to assist your deliverance. My father
resented your hold upon him. He died swearing his debt would stand unpaid. I
survived through another man's sacrifice, and I remain ignorant of any
heritage of Ivain's. Let me go. I possess no means to help."
The wind whispered mournfully across the rocks. "Power is your rightful
inheritance. The heir has potential enough to surpass his sire. But this you
must discover for yourself. I did not call you here to force that choice."
"Then why?" Jaric's shout echoed in wild anguish off the face of the cliffs.
"Why summon me at all? Why not leave me at Morbrith or Seitforest and let my [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]