‘What are you doing?’ Finubar demanded, moving towards the door. Malekith’s apparition stalked after him, whispering an enchantment. With his words the floating incantation formed a circle that started to revolve around the scrying pool.
‘Dangerous things, windows,’ said Malekith, coming between the Seafarer and the door. He pointed back to the pool whose waters were colouring with blood. ‘The sisters of Ghrond have learned such lessons in very hard circumstances. Sometimes other things look back through the windows. Also, some windows can be opened, you see.’
‘What have you done?’ Finubar’s voice was choked as he dashed to the side of the raised pool and stared into the depths of his scrying-water.
‘Just a little portal,’ said Malekith. ‘It won’t last long enough to threaten Lothern.’
‘A portal to where?’
‘See for yourself.’
Finubar leaned over the edge of the pool. A hand with red skin and black claws shot out of the blood-coloured water and seized the Phoenix King by the throat. The waters boiled and a horned head emerged slowly, white-eyed, fanged mouth open in an ecstatic grin.
‘I cannot, as you said, transubstantiate my body within these walls, but daemons rarely have such problems.’
‘They’ll never accept you!’ Finubar pulled himself free from the grasp of the emerging daemon, tearing bloody welts from across his throat. ‘Ulthuan will drown in blood before you are hailed as the Phoenix King!’
Malekith said nothing as the bloodletter of Khorne leapt from the waters, hands seizing hold of Finubar while a forked tongue ran across its razor-sharp teeth. The daemon turned a hungry look on Malekith and the Witch King wondered if it would be able to follow him through the breach Teclis had made in the wards.
It was probably better to be safer than sorry, and Malekith ended the spell, pulling his spirit back to the Black Tower in Naggarond.
Malekith did not step through the broken door, but remained there in thought. After a while he turned and beckoned to one of the guards close at hand. The elf was Eataine-born, and approached with caution, her shield and spear trembling. Malekith thought it fear and then remembered Teclis’s glamour. It was not dread that unsettled the guard, it was awe.
It felt good, and was proof that Finubar would be wrong.
‘Send word to my seneschal, Kouran. This door is to be barred again. Understood?’
‘Yes.’ The elf nodded and then remembered whom she addressed. ‘Your majesty.’
With a flick of the hand the Phoenix King dismissed her from his presence and thoughts equally, and turned his mind to more difficult matters. Recalling the conversation with Finubar had reminded him of another thorny obstacle to be overcome if he was to legitimately become Phoenix King – marriage to the Everqueen. While Alarielle was not his half-sister, there could still be other objections, not least by the Everqueen herself.
Thirty-Two
The Everqueen
It transpired that Tyrion had encountered similar issues in securing the Everqueen’s endorsement. News from the north was of a great battle under the eaves of the Avelorn Forest, and it seemed that Prince Tyrion desired to take by war that which had once freely been given by the Everqueen. Details were sparse, for not only Morathi’s conjurations prevented scrying, but Alarielle’s presence also confounded attempts at magical observation.
As had become his habit, Teclis arrived at nightfall following word of Tyrion’s attack reaching Malekith’s ears. The mage travelled far and fast upon his shadow steed, but the magic was costly. The Phoenix King had noticed the disturbances in the winds of magic growing greater, filling the vortex of Ulthuan with unprecedented power but making spells of any subtlety and nuance all but impossible.
‘The King in the Woods fights alongside Alarielle,’ said the breathless mage as he was admitted to Malekith’s great hall. Imrik, Caradryan and Kouran were hard on Teclis’s heels, having been alerted to the mage’s imminent arrival by the many spies, both physical and not, surveying the Sapphire Palace and city of Lothern. ‘Your majesty, the host of Athel Loren has come to the Everqueen’s aid.’
‘How is that possible?’ asked Caradryan. ‘An ocean and continent separate the two.’
‘The more pertinent question would be why,’ said Malekith. ‘Our forest-bound cousins have never seemed interested in our continuing struggle for the isle of their ancestors. What brings Orion and Ariel to these shores now?’
‘Something of that might be answered by knowing that it is Orion alone that has come, your majesty,’ said Teclis. ‘Of the avatar of Isha, nothing has been seen. Avelorn and Athel Loren, though divided, have always been bound together in ways that we cannot fathom. The spirits of the Everqueen and immortal Ariel connect in a fashion, both stemming from the power of Isha. With the gods returning to the world, that ancient conjunction is perhaps showing itself in new ways.’
‘What if Tyrion wins, my king?’ Kouran asked, always of a practical mind. ‘If the pretender seizes control of Avelorn, his coup is all but complete. None know what happened in the Shrine of Asuryan and with the Island of Flames swallowed by the sea it is your word alone that claims Asuryan’s blessing.’
‘And my presence,’ snapped Malekith. ‘Does not the fire of the All-king run through me? Does not his blessing emanate from my being?’
‘No disrespect was intended, my king, but trickery has been used before and your opponents will dismiss such things as an artifice of the Sapherian.’
‘Should we send our forces to aid Alarielle?’ said Imrik. ‘It will take some time to arrange passage on ships but the dragons could be there in a matter of days.’
‘Just in time to see the forests burning and hear Morathi’s laughs of triumph,’ said Malekith. ‘She has always hated the Everqueen, and will stop at nothing to see her dispossessed, the power of Avelorn broken.’
‘Chosen by whom?’ asked Morathi contemptuously.
‘By the princes and the Everqueen,’ Bel Shanaar replied, standing to one side of the holy tree of Isha.
‘Astarielle was slain,’ Morathi said. ‘The reign of the Everqueen is no more.’
‘She lives on,’ said a ghostly, feminine voice that drifted around the glade.
‘Astarielle was slain by the daemons,’ Morathi insisted, casting her gaze about to spy from whence the voice had come, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
The leaves on all of the trees began to quiver, filling the glade with a gentle susurrus as if a wind whispered through the treetops, though the air was still. The long grass of the glade began to sway in the same invisible breeze, bending towards the Aein Yshain at its centre. The glow of the sacred tree grew stronger, bathing the council in a golden light dappled with sky blues and verdant greens.
In the shimmering brightness, a silhouette of greater light appeared upon the knotted trunk, resolving itself into the form of a young elf maiden. Morathi gasped, for at first it seemed as if Astarielle indeed still lived.
The maiden’s golden hair hung to her waist in long plaited tresses woven with flowers of every colour, and she wore the green robes of the Everqueen. Her face was delicate, even by elven standards, and her eyes the startling blue of the clearest summer skies. As the light dimmed, the elf’s features became clearer and Morathi saw that this newcomer was not Astarielle. There was a likeness, of that Morathi was aware, but she relaxed as she scrutinised the girl.