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already warns thatthe compact at Shadowfane seeks your whereabouts. You have
leaveto remain until the fall solstice. After that, I recommendyou apply to
the enclave of wizards at Mhored Kara, and begthem to offer you shelter."
Jaric accepted this banishment with startling poise. His dark eyes remained
steady, and the hand on his sword nolonger trembled. "Like you, the kingdom
conjurers can warn.They have little ability to guard. If demons overtake me,
andthe Mharg fly free, how long do you think your sanctuary towers will stay
standing?"
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The question was impertinent; the highest-ranking priest in Landfast answered
through white lips."Until eternity or man'ssalvation, by the grace of
Kordane's Fires."
"I hope so," whispered Jaric. And he spun with the reflex-ive grace of a
swordsman and departed.
All the way home, through streets bustling with Landfast'sfrenetic nightlife,
Jaric thrashed through the facts revealed by the Grand High Star. Jostled by
sailors on shore leave, andwhistled at by more than one aging prostitute, he
shut his eyes, sweating and cold and angry by turns. Who enacted thegreater
injustice against mankind, he wondered: the priestswith their fabrication of
illusions, or the Vaere-trained, whose perilous powers sometimes killed the
innocent? The questionnettled like a thorn,his own fear a litany beneath. The
only surety in Keithland was the tireless hatred of the demons.
"Anskiere forgive me," murmured the boy, surrounded by strangers; for like
the righteous, ignorant populace of Keith-land, he had condemned what he had
not understood. TierlEnneth's deaths might perhaps be justifiable; but in
terror Jaric knew he could not accept such responsibility for his own. The
Cycle of Fire was a curse he would escape if he could. And he would, he must,
though the demons crushed him to powder as he tried.
Ivainson Jaric never spoke with the Grand High Star ofKor's Brotherhood
again, but the next day after sword prac-tice, he called back at the shrine.
Now the acolyte at the entry greeted him with solicitous respect, and
conducted him to the librarian in the chamber of secular archives. There, by
the command of the Grand High Star, an impressive collection of documents and
books had been compiled. All were bound inblack leather, and not a few had
locks.
Though the chamber that housed them was vaulted withhigh, airy domes, large
enough to diminish the tallest of men,
Jaric felt confined. Here, for the first time he could remember,he found no
security in a place of knowledge and learning.The evil and the doom threatened
by Shadowfane's compactseemed to poison his heart against hope. Inexplicably
he thought of Taen, even as he perused the first titles. Hauntedby growing
doubts that his search would prove futile, he barely noticed the librarian
behind him raise crossed wrists inthe traditional sign against evil. Need to
escape the Cycle of Fireovershadowed any social stigma of Ivain's inheritance.
Jaric lifted the first book from the shelf and retired to an al- cove
overlooking the merchants' wharf. There he wedged hissword in a notch between
cushions and, with feet braced against a worn corner of wainscoting, began to
read.
Sundown came quickly. Beyond the window the citytowers streaked shadows
across the hump of Little DagleyIslet. Carts rumbled away from the dockside,
and as the har-bor beacons glimmered orange through twilight, the whistles and
shouted jokes of the longshoremen faded as they soughttheir wives, or
refreshment in the taverns. Jaric squinted in the failing light, and barely
glanced up as the librarian brought astand and two spare candles. He managed a
nod when the manretired for the evening, leaving instructions concerning the
visitor for the night watch.
Jaric read as if the treatises and the essays were not long-winded, or
repetitive, and tediously interrupted with religious overtones or outright
misconceptions. He dared do no less. A paragraph carelessly skimmed might
contain the one fact he needed. Some of the works on the hilltribes' rites
were avail-able nowhere else on Keithland; the wild clansmen who prac-ticed
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them were easily provoked to killing, and their wayswere little known to
outsiders. Evangelists of Kor's Brother-hood were among the few to venture
among their camps. Jaric studied until his eyes stung and the light wavered.
He finishedthe first book in time to light a fresh candle from the failingwick
of the last. He reached next for a collection of essays,absently kneading a
cramp in his thigh. The words were ar- chaic and stiff, difficult to follow.
Jaric persisted, while thesecond candle burned down to a dribbled stub. In
time, the third and last of his lights flickered out. The glow of a
risingquarter moon lit his way as he returned the books to the librar-ian's
desk.
Jaric pushed open the wide double door, and caught the watchman napping at
his post.
"It's after midnight, boy," groused the man as he shuffledyawning to his
feet. He fumbled at his belt ring and the rattleof his keys echoed down
deserted corridors as he unlocked to let Jaric out.
The streets outside were equally empty, except for sca-venging dogs and
disreputable sorts who rummaged in trash-bins for their livelihood. Ivainson
walked between shutteredhouses, past lamps with their wicks trimmed low. He
kept onehand on his sword to deter footpads, but his thoughts weredetached as
he contemplated the rites of the clansmen, whose chosen high priestesses were
ritually blinded as maidens. Thebarbarities described in the texts were
disparaged by thepriests; yet the visions experienced by the women after
theircruel initiation were indisputably true seeing. They possessedpower to
unmask demons, even shelter their folk from themalign influence of dream-image
that Kor's Accursed some-times employed to lure isolated humans to their
deaths.Whether the Presence behind the springs that were the centerof the clan
priestess's devotions truly held power to guide,advise, and protect was a
claim no devout missionary dared endorse without risking trial for heresy. The
point was moot, from Ivainson's standpoint. Valid as a religion or not, the
clantribes' beliefs were not adequate to safeguard the Keys toElrinfaer, or
stay frostwargs and win Anskiere's release.
Jane's curse of frustration rang in the emptiness ofweavers' alley. His quest
was a vain one, surely. If the clans-men, or any conjurer, priest, kingdom, or
alliance within Keithland held force or knowledge enough to suppress thedemon
compact,they would have done so. Unbidden, thethought followed, that Anskiere
and the Vaere-trained whopreceded him had courageouslyendeavored the same,
despite the mistakes at Elrinfaer and Tierl Enneth.
"No," said Jaric aloud. An alternate to the Cycle of Firemust exist.Yet the
suspicion his conviction was false drovehim into a run.
His baldric and weapons chinked faintly in the dark, andhis footsteps echoed
like whispers against the locked doors ofthe buildings. Rats dashed from their
scavenging, and theglassless lanterns of the poor quarter flickered to the
disturbedair of his passage. The boy pushed harder. Sweat stung hiseyes, and
the breath rasped his throat. The pouch on its knot-ted thong swung to his
stride, the Keys to Elrinfaer bangingpainfully into his breastbone. Jaric
closed his hand over sharp
cornersof basalt with a half sob of panic. Why should he bechosen to shoulder
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