Traitor's Knot by Janny Wurts Read Free Book Online Page B

unsealed his sight.
    The town-gate loomed ahead, alight in the glow of the watch lamps. To his right, a narrow, nondescript archway opened into rank darkness. Sulfin Evendresisted the urge to use more than peripheral vision. If he tried, the uncanny portal would vanish, not to reappear without use of initiate knowledge. He sucked a deep breath. Braced by a courage as dauntless as any demanded of him on a battle-field, he turned away from the main thoroughfare and plunged through the queer, lightless entry.
    Darkness and cold ran through him like water, then as suddenly fell away. He found himself in a squalid back alley, little more than an uneven footpath overhung by ramshackle eaves and sagged stairways. The prankish gusts jangled the tin talismans of
iyat
banes, a dissonance that seemed to frame uncanny speech as he picked his uncertain way forward. The ground-level tenements were shuttered, but not locked. Here, the prospective thief was a fool, who ventured without invitation. Sulfin Evend picked his way forward, the chink of fallen slates underfoot driving vermin into the crannies. The stairway he sought had carved gryphon posts, a detail he was forced to determine by touch, since no lamps burned in this quarter. No wine-shop opened its door to the night, and no lit window offered him guidance.
    By starlight, Sulfin Evend mounted the stair. The creaking, slat risers bore his weight sullenly, no doubt inlaid with spells to warn away the unwary. Against quailing nerves, he reached the top landing, just as the door swung open to meet him.
    â€˜You’ve come to the right place,’ said a paper-dry voice. Backlit by a glimmer of candle-flame, a wizened old woman in rags beckoned her visitor inward.
    Heart pounding, skin turned clammy, Sulfin Evend understood there would be a price. Nonetheless, he crossed over her threshold.
    â€˜You’ve been expected,’ the crone stated as she fastened the latches behind him.
    Sulfin Evend believed his surprise was contained, until her crowed laughter said otherwise. Hunchbacked and ancient, she spun to confront him. Eyes blinded with cataracts picked at his thoughts as thoroughly as any dissection. No coward, he resisted his urge to step back as her seeress’s talent unmasked him.
    â€˜What did you expect?’ she admonished, not smiling. ‘You come to consult, have you not? Would you rather have met with a charlatan?’
    He bowed to her, managed not to sound shaken as he named her with careful respect. ‘Enithen Tuer. Rightly or not, I have come to the only place where I might seek help within Erdane.’
    â€˜I know why you’ve come,’ said the crone, fingers tucked in her mismatched layers of fringed shawls. ‘Years, I have known. So many long years, that I am left weary with waiting.’
    Her clipped gesture offered a rough, wooden chair.
    Released all at once from her piercing regard, Sulfin Evend sat down as she bade him. Her attic was tiny, shelves and table-tops jammed with balled twine and strange leather sacks, filmed with the dust of years. Wrapped in the fragrance of drying herbals, smoke, and stale grease, the Alliance man-at-armshuddled under his cloak, afraid to disturb the unnerving items clutched in his awkward grasp. ‘What do you require to lend me your services?’
    â€˜No coin.’ Enithen Tuer shuffled to the hob. Her stumpy feet were bound in frayed flannel, and her fingers, chapped rough as a ragman’s. She snapped a flint striker to give him more light. ‘There is peril in this. Are you prepared? Can’t be turning back once you’ve chosen.’ Eerie, milk eyes surveyed him, unblinking, while the tallow-dips hissed on the mantel. ‘Be aware, warrior. The cost will test and try you. If you are weak, you’ll be broken.’
    â€˜What cost, old woman?’ Struck cold, Sulfin Evend suppressed his impatience. ‘I don’t care for riddles or the drama of veiled threats.