Stormwarden by Janny Wurts

peak, or estimate the high tide mark. The waves were still building. Foam smothered another almost under his boot, and spindrift stung his eyes. The ledge was certainly unsafe.
    Ivain had designed the frostwargs' prison above reefs which slashed the tides into boiling currents of whitewater; waves threatened to dash Anskiere like flotsam from the path. Forced to give ground time after time, still, when the water receded, the Stormwarden always pressed on. He had no choice but to cross at once, before the storm rendered the ledge impassable.
    But progress was painfully slow. Morning was nearly spent when Anskiere began the final approach to the cave. Tormented by the conviction that his enemy had used the delay to his disadvantage, the Stormwarden began the ascent of the final precipice. There, with the cave entrance an arm's reach overhead, he heard the sea rise at his back.
    Anskiere leaped, grabbed a handhold. The foaming maw of the breaker thundered into his shoulders, slammed him against rock. Water pummeled the breath from his lungs, dragged cruelly at his limbs. Grimly he clung. His palms tore on the stones. His body slipped slowly seaward. The surf would kill him, bash him over and over against the coral until his flesh was a mangled rag. Tathagres would laugh, and Taen...
    Anskiere grimaced, consumed by the need to survive. He gathered himself, driven by the roar of another larger wave. With a heave that taxed every sinew in his frame, Anskiere clawed his way through the tumble of receding water. He rolled, gasping and disheveled, into the shaft.
    Pebbles scored his skin. The staff clanged against close stone walls and wedged in a fissure. Caught by the sling, Anskiere tumbled onto a mild incline. He lay prone, blinking salt from his eyes, content at first to be still. But the chill soon made him shiver. Bruised, abraded, and wrenched in every joint, the Stormwarden rose to his feet. Outside the gale battered the cliff face, blocking his retreat; and below, if his assessment was correct, an enemy awaited with plans to ruin him.
    Anskiere shook the water from his hair, spat out the taste of salt. He reached for his staff. Sodden knots loosened reluctantly under his fingers as he freed the wood from the sling. The sea had inflamed the marks on his wrists, but their sting was overlaid by the sharper memory of Taen's fists clamped in his shirt. Distressed, he started down the shaft, scattering droplets from his robe. Now he was glad the dead sorcerer's aggression had kindled the wards in his staff, for their bright radiance lit his way like a beacon.
    The path was smooth at first. Deeper, Anskiere recalled, tunnels twisted with angles and buttresses of slagged stone. Below, the prison fashioned for the frostwargs was as black and tangled as the character of its creator.
    Ivain had originally melted the rock with wizardry of fire, but the acrid smell Anskiere remembered from the shaft's forming had faded long since, replaced by musty odors of roots, earth, and moist granite. Except for the echo of his own steps the cave was silent. Bats sought other roosts than the arched ceilings overhead, and wildlife avoided the place, instinctively shunning the evil which hibernated below. The Stormwarden rounded a bend, and the terrain under his boots roughened. Beneath stretched a series of terraces hedged with crystals like swords. Here amid the dazzle of refracted light a misstep could cripple the unwary trespasser. Anskiere trod carefully, unsurprised to discover human bones tumbled among the cave's bewitching beauty. The Ivain he knew had always been careless, even disdainful of life. Uneasy, the Stormwarden proceeded with every sense alert for danger. The din of the storm receded above, dampened by baffles of stone; far ahead, a polished vein of agate threw back a reflection the color of blood.
    The Stormwarden noted, and froze. Cloaked in the frosty gleam of his staff, he looked closer, and saw the crimson flicker brighten