Free Grand Conspiracy by Janny Wurts

sand could lay waste to the entire planet; therefore, he would not disturb the spin of any one fragment of matter. A single deep breath, a precisely aimed thought, he engaged the quickened awareness of his spirit and plucked, like a harp string, the subliminal current of light and sound which gave substance its material polarity.
    Power answered through the greatest recognition of them all, the chime of affirmation that defined his own Name on the loom of unified existence.
    â€˜ An ,’ whispered Asandir, the Paravian rune one that marked all beginnings since song first gave rise to Ath’s creation.
    A ray of touched force flicked the air like a moth’s wing and deflected a kink in the clasp of gravity that linked Athera in her partnered dance with the moon. At Asandir’s directive, the twist became a spiral that touched water and air as a tuned breath might test the highest note on a flute.
    Then change threaded through the coils of his conjury. The barest, soft shudder brushed the planks of the sloop as the bay arose in a swell of gleaming phosphorescence and nudged her. Changed breeze kissed her sails to a sullen flap of canvas, and the Torwent fisherman shot straight.
    â€˜Ath’s deathless mercy!’ he gasped, shaken white as the helm went slack in his startled grasp.
    Eyes still closed, his face wholly serene, Asandir smiled. ‘Not so far from plain truth,’ he said gently.
    The wave at the sloop’s stern continued to build, rolling smooth and green, but not menacing. The small craft sheered ahead like a bead spilled down glass, her course west-northwest, though the tide roiled southward, its flow unimpeded by the loop newly wrought through its ebb. Then that first shifted breeze built into a gust that backwinded the headsail and clapped the main into banging frenzy.
    â€˜Slacken the sheets!’ cried the captain to the terrified boy. ‘Move smart, don’t you see? This unnatural wind’s going to swing dead astern.’
    â€˜Twenty points to starboard, in actual fact,’ said Asandir in mild correction. He opened his eyes, which shone silver-gray as a rain pool touched by the moon. ‘I thought you’d want steerage, since the standing wave we’re riding will bear us on at eight knots. You’ll get just enough breeze to keep headway.’
    â€˜Aren’t like to toss supper, then.’ The fisherman rubbed his rope bracelets, his unsettled nerves transformed to trembling awe. ‘Who could’ve guessed? You’ve made us a passage so smooth a babe wouldn’t roll off the foredeck.’
    â€˜We’ll make landfall by daybreak,’ the Sorcerer affirmed. His seamless act of grand conjury was dismissed as nothing outside of the ordinary. ‘Bucking the tide to windward, my spare clothes would get soaked. No one could have snatched an hour of sleep, besides.’ He folded lean arms, chin tipped to his chest, evidently prepared to take his own counsel in earnest.
    The boy hauling lines stood stunned and mute; the seasoned clan scout gripped the rail in queer exultation. His forestborn sensibilities could scarcely encompass the rolling mound of water that propelled the sloop steadily toward Taerlin.
    An hour slipped by. The moon rose in the east like yellowed parchment. Asandir dozed, while tide and wind danced, flawless, to the unseen tapestry of his will. The fisherman manned a helm that answered his touch like poured silk, and for him, the resentment cut sharply as grit ground into a wound.
    â€˜How can you sit like a beggar and accept this?’ he charged the clan elder, crouched at the thwart with his hands lightly clasped to his weapon hilts.
    The younger scout spun from his contemplation of spelled water with a fierce, quelling motion for silence. ‘Mind your talk, man! Dreaming or not, yon Sorcerer hears what concerns him.’
    â€˜So he does. Should that matter?’ The fisherman jabbed argumentative