Read Online TWOLAS - 06 - Peril's Gate by Janny Wurts - Free Book Online
Authors: Janny Wurts
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changing dynamics of weather. Yet the tuned spirals of refined spellcraft offered more powerful fare, and inevitably lured them like magnets. Their voracious appetites were already piqued by the interference signature of the ward forces, wobbling on the brink of release. If the iyats reached the site of t he grimward ahead of Asandir, t hey would cluster and sate themselves on the emissions let off by the lane-damaged ward rings. Like a yanked loop of knit, their feeding frenzy would unravel firm barriers into a draining breach.
Sethvir measured the drumming pound of the black stallion's hooves. He found himself faced with immutable fact: his colleague's intervention from the field would not come in time to deflect the inbound swarm of fiends. Despite sharp awareness of his prostrate state, and the frail balance of overtaxed faculties, the Sorcerer saw no choice. No other could act. He was Althain's Warden, and bound by his office to serve the Fellowship's founding purpose.
He slipped into deep trance. Oblivious to Luhaine's cry of alarm, Sethvir drew core power that he could ill spare from his already beleaguered life force. He delved into the spinning fields that bound light into matter and rewove their delicate axis into drawn cords of intent. His construct took form outside time and space, an alignment braided from will and desperate awareness. With exacting care, he paired force with counterforce, framing an intricate baffle to match the high-frequency energies leaking from the distressed grimward. Mask the source of emission, and fall back on hope that the fiend swarm would lose impetus and dissipate.
Sethvir readied his stayspell, a starburst of light whose resonant frequencies precisely canceled the signature of the grimward's skewed seal. He tapped into his earth-sense, interlinked with its tapestry, then aligned his remedial ciphers overtop of the flaw in the ward ring. The Paravian prime rune closed the contact. The grand veil of the mysteries parted, and the wrought energies of Sethvir's spell assumed anchored form in the world of Athera.
Even in trance, Althain's Warden sensed the moment of impact. His flesh felt bathed in a fissure of lava. That raging, bright firestorm seared through muscle and bone, as though living tissue rejected its ties to firm substance. Each nerve lit and blazed to a white incandescence that promised to burn for eternity. His mind, in stark contrast, was locked in cold, a chill that stopped thought and half smothered him.
There he drifted. Time and identity hung in suspension. By the depth of his isolation, Sethvir understood: the grimward was weakened, gone dangerously volatile. Should the chaos inside break through the seals, the intimate contact of his remedial stayspell would bridge a link to the seat of his being. First the life force that sustained him, then the fabric of his spirit would become unraveled, devoured by powers without mercy.
Through the sleeting, bright rain of static came fragmented voices, the echoes of words cast like flotsam amid the seething rush of a storm t ide. Sethvir grasped no meaning could not access t he earth link. Effectively blinded, the Warden of Althain pitched himself to endure until the hour Asandir of the Fellowship could reach the site of the grimward, mend the stressed rings, and relieve him.
Winter Solstice Night 5670
Catalysts
At the focus circle under Methisle fortress, near the hour of solstice midnight, the discorporate Sorcerer Kharadmon stands with Verrain under shimmering nets of wards, poised to bind the last of seven critically damaged lane currents back to stability; and while the pair labor to restore the earth's balance, the star wards against Marak, left unwatched during crisis, flare a strident, red cry of warning . . .
Far southward, in the Salt Fens above Earle, the Sorcerer Asandir dismounts his blown horse by the outer ward ring that contains the endangering dreams of Eckracken's haunt; in
Sethvir measured the drumming pound of the black stallion's hooves. He found himself faced with immutable fact: his colleague's intervention from the field would not come in time to deflect the inbound swarm of fiends. Despite sharp awareness of his prostrate state, and the frail balance of overtaxed faculties, the Sorcerer saw no choice. No other could act. He was Althain's Warden, and bound by his office to serve the Fellowship's founding purpose.
He slipped into deep trance. Oblivious to Luhaine's cry of alarm, Sethvir drew core power that he could ill spare from his already beleaguered life force. He delved into the spinning fields that bound light into matter and rewove their delicate axis into drawn cords of intent. His construct took form outside time and space, an alignment braided from will and desperate awareness. With exacting care, he paired force with counterforce, framing an intricate baffle to match the high-frequency energies leaking from the distressed grimward. Mask the source of emission, and fall back on hope that the fiend swarm would lose impetus and dissipate.
Sethvir readied his stayspell, a starburst of light whose resonant frequencies precisely canceled the signature of the grimward's skewed seal. He tapped into his earth-sense, interlinked with its tapestry, then aligned his remedial ciphers overtop of the flaw in the ward ring. The Paravian prime rune closed the contact. The grand veil of the mysteries parted, and the wrought energies of Sethvir's spell assumed anchored form in the world of Athera.
Even in trance, Althain's Warden sensed the moment of impact. His flesh felt bathed in a fissure of lava. That raging, bright firestorm seared through muscle and bone, as though living tissue rejected its ties to firm substance. Each nerve lit and blazed to a white incandescence that promised to burn for eternity. His mind, in stark contrast, was locked in cold, a chill that stopped thought and half smothered him.
There he drifted. Time and identity hung in suspension. By the depth of his isolation, Sethvir understood: the grimward was weakened, gone dangerously volatile. Should the chaos inside break through the seals, the intimate contact of his remedial stayspell would bridge a link to the seat of his being. First the life force that sustained him, then the fabric of his spirit would become unraveled, devoured by powers without mercy.
Through the sleeting, bright rain of static came fragmented voices, the echoes of words cast like flotsam amid the seething rush of a storm t ide. Sethvir grasped no meaning could not access t he earth link. Effectively blinded, the Warden of Althain pitched himself to endure until the hour Asandir of the Fellowship could reach the site of the grimward, mend the stressed rings, and relieve him.
Winter Solstice Night 5670
Catalysts
At the focus circle under Methisle fortress, near the hour of solstice midnight, the discorporate Sorcerer Kharadmon stands with Verrain under shimmering nets of wards, poised to bind the last of seven critically damaged lane currents back to stability; and while the pair labor to restore the earth's balance, the star wards against Marak, left unwatched during crisis, flare a strident, red cry of warning . . .
Far southward, in the Salt Fens above Earle, the Sorcerer Asandir dismounts his blown horse by the outer ward ring that contains the endangering dreams of Eckracken's haunt; in
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