Swordmistress of Chaos by Robert Holdstock, Angus Wells Page A

are you not a priest of another cult?’ Raven asked.
    ‘Which?’ Spellbinder answered, evasively.
    ‘Kharwhan,’ she said. ‘Are you not a sorcerer-priest?’
    ‘Wait,’ was all he answered, ‘wait, if you will. Take it for now that I hold your interest. No, more than that: you, over all else. That I hold closest to my heart. In time I shall explain everything, but there must be time. The world turns and events depend upon the hands of those who turn it. Bide patient, Raven, and we’ll do great things together. For now, though, wait if you will.’
    She nodded, wondering.
    Mistress Clara returned with platters of rich-odoured food and a large flask of decent wine. She served them herself, setting the victuals before Spellbinder as a worshipper sets an offering before the guardian of a god. Her treatment of Raven was respectful, but subtly less reverential—after all, an acolyte does not have the status of a full-blown priest.
    Spellbinder waited until she had finished her ministrations, then motioned for her to join them.
    ‘What’s afoot?’ he spoke through a mouthful of food, ‘Lyand boasts more soldiery on her walls than flies on a dungpile.’
    ‘You’ve not heard?’ Mistress Clara sounded surprised, as though the affairs of Lyland should be common knowledge.
    Spellbinder shook his head: ‘Tell me.’
    ‘Why, sir priest, the war horns trumpet again. These past months we’ve lost seven caravans to raiders, and four ships to sea-rievers. At first it was assumed they had fallen victim to common outlaws, but the word now is that Karhsaam ventures to extend her power. The Altan has been ever ambitious, and he feels his power threatened by the Three Cities. Urged on by his Stone-damned bride, he flexes his muscles, planning to move against us.’
    ‘Why Stone-damned?’ interrupted Spellbinder, adding by way of explanation for his ignorance ‘I have been long in the wilderness.’
    ‘His sister!’ Mistress Clara spat the words. ‘M’yrstal took to wife his own blood-kin, Krya, proclaiming that he returned to the old ways, that the blood of the M’yrstal altans was too pure to mingle with that of a lesser person. Fagh!’ She shaped a horn with her clenched fist, driving index and little finger at the table in the universal sign of disgust. ‘Pure as the warped mind of a sister-lover.’
    ‘How comes a tavern-mistress to hold such knowledge?’ Spellbinder asked. ‘Surely such matters are the province of the high powers?’
    Mistress Clara set a grubby finger to the side of her nose.
    ‘A tavern can be a sounding-box, sensitive as the fylar. One with ears to hear may listen to resonances of great interest. The soldiers favour this place—knowing it to be clean and honest—and from them I hear much. Why, only three days ago I learned that the Weaponmaster Donwayne quit the city to seek sword-service with the Altan.’
    Beneath the table, out of sight of prying eyes, Spellbinder’s hand clasped tight around Raven’s thigh. His fingers probed for the nerves that would paralyse her leg, stifling her hate-born movement before she could rise in blood-anger.
    ‘So he reneged his tenure here in favour of the larger game?’
    ‘Aye,’ nodded the tavern-mistress, ‘the eyes of that one were ever fixed on the greater game.’
    ‘So he quit Lyand when the gold glinted brighter to the north,’ prompted Spellbinder.
    Clara nodded. ‘Yes. While we prepare for war, he rides to the Altan, taking a full troop of Beastmen with him.’
    ‘So it goes,’ murmured Spellbinder.
    Beside him, Raven boiled with impatient fury. One reason for visiting Lyand again had been the opportunity of matching Karl ir Donwayne blade-to-blade. She lusted for the Weaponmaster’s death with a ferocity unknown until she realised that she could wield a sword near as well as he. As a runaway slave, she had entertained little hope of revenging herself upon him; as a weapon-trained outlaw, she felt capable of besting him in fair