The Ships of Merior Read Online Free Page A

importuning the Mayor Elect of Korias?’
    ‘Read,’ growled Caolle.
    White in dismay, Maenalle scanned down the lines, growing tenser and angrier, until even Lord Tashan’s drywitted tolerance snapped. ‘What’s in that?’
    ‘A petition.’ Jieret all but spat on the beaten earth floor. ‘From a prince denied right of sovereigntydemanding title and grant to lands and city. By claim of birth, Lysaer s’Ilessid seeks leave to restore Tysan’s capitol at Avenor.’
    ‘He’ll never get it,’ Tashan said, halfway to his feet in indignation. ‘Never mind that the merchant guilds won’t stand a royal presence, the palace is in ruins, now. Not one stone stands upright on a foundation since the rebellion wrecked the old order. Past fears will prevail. Not a townborn mason would set foot there, haunted as they believe the site to be. And no clan in this kingdom can endorse a s’Ilessid claim without lawful sanction from the Fellowship.’
    ‘But that’s half the point,’ Jieret said, too emphatically calm for a man under twenty years of age. ‘The trade guilds in West End have nothing to lose. If the old land routes are rejoined with the Camris roads, they’ll gain profits. The Mayor Elect in Korias will draw up the documents just for the chance to slight royalty. He’s isolated enough not to know your deposed prince has the finesse to create the impossible. Daelion as my witness, in just five years Lysaer’s reconciled Etarra’s stew of rival factions. He’s got guild ministers and town councilmen kissing like brothers, and every independent city garrison in the Kingdom of Rathain conniving to exterminate my clansmen. If Lysaer can whip up armies to challenge a shadow master and a sorcerer, do you think he can’t get walls and barbicans built around the shades of a few thousand ghosts?’
    ‘Royal sanction or not, your prince won’t lack funds for his enterprise,’ broke in Caolle. ‘The towns are bothered to panic. To curry favour with the man whose gift of light offers protection against wild fears of Arithon’s shadows, every trade guild owing notes to Etarra has offered their gold to fund armies. What townsman would pause to sort the difference between Arithon’s feal liegemen and clanborn everywhere else?’ Caolle slammed opened hands on the table, causing thethick planks to jump. ‘Fiends! They’re not so damned stupid, citybred fools though they be. If his Grace of Rathain turned up in any clan haven asking guest right, what chieftain would refuse him hospitality?’
    ‘Havish’s, under High King Eldir, would be wise to.’ Maenalle shut her eyes, her fist with the letter bunched hard at her temple, and her free hand nerveless on the tabletop.
    Unless and until the Fellowship sorcerers unriddled a way to break the blood feud engendered by Desh-thiere’s revenge, the perils were too dire to deny.
    These men at her table had seen the forefront of the war unleashed between the cursed princes. Even heard at second hand, the ruthless scale of the conflict was enough to bring cold sweats. When Prince Lysaer had raised the Etarran garrison to cut down Rathain’s royal heir, one battle had seen two thirds of Deshir’s clansmen fight to the death, despite the unstinting protections of sorcery and shadows lent by the liege lord they defended. Losses to the attackers had been more devastating. Fears of further retaliation by magecraft had drawn Lysaer to stay on in Rathain to unite its merchant guilds and quarrelsome, independent city governments. Against the rifts of old politics, he had seen stunning success. Every summer, headhunters rode out in greater force to hunt down and slaughter clan fugitives in their search for the Master of Shadow.
    For centuries, townsmen had killed clansmen on sight; the stakes now were never more dangerous. The beguiling inspiration of the Prince of the West lent city mayors powerful impetus to pool resources and systematically exterminate enemies already driven deep