Conqueror’s Moon (55 page)

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They struck him down then with a crushing avalanche of pain, and he thought he was finished, damned to suffer forever.

Instead he woke at length to find himself lying on the bearskin hearth rug of his sitting room, nearly frozen to the bone and feeble as a nursling babe, but otherwise unharmed. Icy drafts rattled the windowpanes and fluttered the undrawn drapes. Outside, the Beacons rioted in the black evening sky, casting faint shadows on the walls of the room. Aside from that flickering cold brilliance, there was no other illumination save a few dying coals in the fireplace.

No reassuring emerald glow from the Fortress moonstones. The tall monstrance that had held both of them was empty.

Still sitting on the rug, he raised his right hand and discovered that Weathermaker was gone from his finger. The twin golden neckchains where Shapeshifter and Subtle Armor had hung now lay tangled uselessly against the skin of his breast.

“I have nothing left,” he whispered, knowing even as he voiced the self-pitying statement that it wasn’t true. He still possessed his considerable natural talent. The Lights had not deprived him of that. But it was insufficient to save him. When Ulla confronted him tomorrow, as she’d promised to do, she’d know instantly that his sigils were gone. That he was helpless to oppose her.

With great effort he rose to his feet, took blocks of peat from the basket beside the fireplace, and used tongs to set the fuel carefully among the embers. Flames blazed up almost at once, warming him and casting more light about the room. Something made of metal gleamed on the shadowed mantel: the handsome platinum case that had held the Seven Stones of Rothbannon. He gave a despondent laugh, reached for it, opened the catch, and cried out in astonishment.

All of the small velvet nests were empty except one. It held a peculiar amulet carved in the shape of a twisted ribbon with a single surface and a single edge, the only sigil of its kind ever fashioned. The Unknown Potency was still lifeless, but it reflected faint intriguing glints from the fire.

We will leave you with a single token of our mercy, which you are forbidden to use…

“But what good is it, then?” he groaned. “Where is the mercy?”

The answer stole into his mind.

Over and over again, from their earliest childhood, Beynor and his sister had been told the tale of how Rothbannon had received his wonder-working sigils from a certain Salka of the Dawntide Isles—a venerable, high-ranking shaman reviled by his fellows for having been too faint-hearted to activate the Unknown Potency himself, who had nevertheless, for some perverse reason of his own, given the enigmatic Great Stone and six others to a human sorcerer.

Would those monsters, driven from their original home by encroaching humans, welcome one who restored their lost treasure to them?

His friend Arowann, of the Darkling Tribe, might know!

He composed himself and sent out a call on the wind, but there was no reply, perhaps because the amphibious being and his kin were fast asleep in their subterranean lair among the frozen Forbidden Lakes.

I can’t wait until tomorrow to bespeak Arowann, he thought in a panic. Ulla will come for me! I don’t dare waste a single minute.

He’d have to try the others. It was a risk—the brutes could play him false, knowing he was helpless now—but he had no other choice.

He bespoke the Salka of the Dawntide Isles, begging the attention of the Master Shaman Kalawnn, who had dismissed his earlier plea for advice and heartlessly told him to grow up before attempting high sorcery.

Somewhat to his surprise, there was an answer.

Speak, boy.

Insolent as ever, the conceited troll! But at least the creature seemed willing to listen.

Kalawnn made no comment as Beynor poured out a frank description of his predicament, then offered to return the Unknown in exchange for sanctuary. As an additional incentive—and in hopes of preserving his life after handing over the sigil to the monsters—the boy-king spoke of his knowledge of Darasilo’s trove of ancient moonstones hidden somewhere in Cala and his opinion that the disgraced Cathran alchymist Vra-Kilian, now imprisoned in Zeth Abbey, possessed two books that might reveal hitherto unknown secrets of Coldlight sorcery.

“Kilian still has reason to be friendly toward me,” Beynor said eagerly. “If you grant me your protection, Master Kalawnn, I’ll not only give the Unknown Potency to you, but also do all in my power to persuade the alchymist to share his knowledge with us. He hates Conrig of Cathra from the depths of his soul. Who can say what fruit an alliance with Kilian might bear?”

Beynor had said all he could safely say. Now his fate rested with the Salka Master Shaman. He waited for a response, and the time seemed to stretch interminably.

Finally Kalawnn said: Do you still have the large ship gifted to you by the princes of Didion?

“Yes, for all the good it is to me. The barque’s name is Ambergris. She’s moored in the Darkling River estuary, but with only a few watchmen aboard to keep an eye on her throughout the winter. She cannot be used in high winds and freezing weather.”

Listen to me, boy. Dress in your warmest garments, go to the vessel, and get rid of any humans who are there. Is that dear? You must be alone on the ship.

“But Ambergris needs nearly two hundred men to crew her!”

The inhuman windvoice sneered at him. Do you wish to live? “Yes,” he replied humbly. “Yes, Master Kalawnn.” Then do as I say, and leave all the rest to me.

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From her hiding place in the topmost chamber of Holt Mallburn’s deserted Wizards’ Tower, where she rested invisible under Concealer’s spell, Ullanoth watched her brother through Subtle Loophole and smiled.

Let him go off in his empty ship propelled by monsters. Let him think himself safe from her, and let the Salka do as they pleased with him, poor gullible child! It was as good a solution as she could hope for now. In time, she’d find out what Beynor and Kilian Blackhorse had connived at together, discover the secret of Darasilo’s moonstone trove, and scry out whatever mischief the Dawntide Salka decided upon.

Meanwhile, she intended to conjure her own Weathermaker three times, in ways that she hoped would not offend the Lights: to send Conrig’s ship south, to dissolve the storm frustrating the Tarnian mercenary fleet, and to conjure a blizzard to trap the force of Prince Somarus in Boarsden Castle, so that he might not soon threaten the occupation of Holt Mallburn. None of those requests demanded weather that was inappropriate to this time of year. North winds, precisely directed, would take care of everything.

Her Weathermaker debt to the Lights was still a light one, and she’d pay it gladly. Perhaps it might incapacitate her for a day, even two—but she’d be safe here in the tower, thanks to Concealer. When she recovered, she would Send herself to Royal Fenguard dressed in regal garments. The Glaumerie Guild would by then be frantic at Beynor’s abrupt disappearance. Her own reasonable proposal should find a ready reception.

Why should Moss settle for an infant monarch and a regency when it could set the rightful royal heiress on its throne? An heiress, moreover, who commanded sigils more powerful than those of the departed usurper, who could guarantee Moss First Vassal status in Conrig Wincantor’s new Sovereignty of High Blenholme, and who would in good time bring a dowry of Cathran gold along with her!

Of course they’ll accept me, she told herself. And when my throne is secure, I’ll Send myself on to Cathra…

Outside the round Wizards’ Tower, the wind already blew gently out of the North. Ullanoth went to the window that overlooked Mallburn harbor, more than a league away, and lifted Loophole to her eye. The conquerors had restored the lights along the quayside, and torches illuminated the dock where the captured Stippenese merchant clipper Shearwater was tied up. The provisioning was now complete and the ship ready to sail.

The sigil gave Ullanoth a close view of Conrig, his Heart Companions, Vra-Stergos, and their armigers approaching the quay on horseback. The squire named Deveron Austrey rode unobtrusively among the other boys. She scrutinized his person with the greatest of care. There was nothing at all unusual about him—saving only his eyes, still dulled by enormous fatigue but betraying a wild talent so powerful that it even rendered him imperceptible to ordinary scrying, as though he were one of the great shamans of the Northland.

What else might Deveron’s talent be capable of?

When she had Sent herself to Conrig and Stergos and found the young armiger with them in their quarters, she had experienced an unsettling disturbance in her own arcane equilibrium. Some hours earlier, moving invisibly about Holt Mallburn and taking stock of the occupation, she had overheard rumors of how this same Deveron had played strangely crucial roles in the taking of Redfern Castle and Mallmouth Bridge.

Conrig was clearly using the boy’s talent for his personal advantage. It remained to be seen whether that talent posed a danger to her…

She lowered Loophole with a sigh of relief and tucked it into an inner pocket of her gown. The problem of Deveron Austrey could wait, but Weathermaker’s conjuring could not.

She had brought food with her to the tower, and the wizards’ refectory cupboard was well supplied with all manner of drink. She supped on cold roast capon, a pear tart with cinnamon, and mead mulled with a hot poker. The simple pallets in the wizards’ cells were unappealing places of repose, so she gathered numbers of feather ticks and pillows into the archwizard’s cozy study, where there was a padded long chair, and made up a bed near the ceramic stove. It seemed a peculiar heating device, fueled by charcoal and pellets of resinous heartwood; but she soon discovered that it was a very efficient generator of heat.

She made everything ready for the inevitable ordeal, slipped Weathermaker on her finger, then looked out the tower window one final time. The ghostly gleam of the aurora was just beginning to rise above the horizon to the north, and frost whitened the palace’s roofs and parapets.

Perhaps I won’t need to create a magical snowstorm to maroon Somarus after all, she thought. Nature may just do the job without Weathermaker’s help!

But Conrig still needed his strong north wind, and so did the beleagured Tarnian mercenaries. She returned to her bed and conjured the Great Stone.

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Dancing in the sky above the frigid wastes of the Barren Lands, the Beaconfolk responded amiably to the appeals of the sorceress.

Then they added a few meteorological embellishments of their own.

thirty-two

Against the urgent advice of his worried alchymists and physicians, King Olmigon personally presided over a meeting of his Privy Council with the great peers who by tradition shared the defense of Cathra’s south coast. The two council members who were at Sea—Prince Heritor Conrig and the newly promoted Lord Admiral, Zednor Woodvale—participated through windvoices.

It was the king’s hope to persuade the nobles to send armed merchantmen and small fighting craft from their private fleets to reinforce the decimated Cathran navy. But in spite of his best efforts, the conference degenerated quickly into a bootless wrangle when it became plain that most of the Lords of the Southern Shore thought such an action would be unwise.

“Is it not true,” asked Count Chakto Cranmere, whose commercial fleet was the largest in the kingdom, “that the Tarnian mercenaries have finally broken free of the storm that delayed them?”

Olmigon said, “This is what the windvoice traveling with them has told Vra-Sulkorig. Their ships are now flying down the Westley coast, driven by a strong north wind. However, it’s uncertain what conditions they’ll meet once they round Flaming Head and enter Dolphin Channel—and this is why I’ve decided to seek additional reinforcements of you, my lords.”

Count Brinmar Woodvale, brother to the admiral, spoke to the king. “With respect, sire, more ships are surely not needed. Even with headwinds, the Wave-Harriers are bound to arrive in time to save the day. Tarnians are the finest sailors in the world and the best marine warriors as well. Let them earn the reward we’ve already paid them.”

“The Crown paid,” Chancellor Falmire reminded the count, “not you Lords of the Shore.”

“As was only proper,” Duke Nettos Intrepid snapped, “since it was the Crown’s negligence that let the Royal Navy fall below strength in the first place.”

“You refused to tax yourselves for new capital ships!” the king retorted. “And all of you denied there was any danger from the sea, even when the Prince Heritor warned you of Didion’s secret alliance with the Continentals. And now half our war-fleet is destroyed and Cala City itself stands in danger.”

“If Your Grace had not dismissed me from my post,” Lord Dundry said, forgetting that he had been one of the loudest to dispute the threat from the sea, “I might have led our navy to victory in the Vigilant Isles. Young Elo Copperstrand displayed a fatal lack of experience. It was ridiculous to divide the fleet—”

“My late son acted as he thought best!” shouted Duke Bandon. “Damn your self-serving hindsight, Tothor Dundry!”

Insults flew until Vra-Sulkorig broke in with a windspoken observation from Lord Admiral Zednor Woodvale.

My lords, leave off quarreling and listen to me! We face sure defeat if the Tarnian frigates are delayed. I must have some sort of reinforcements at once. No other considerations are important.

“He’s right,” said Count Haydon Defiant, who had thus far made no comment. He was a few years older than King Olmigon, whom he had known since childhood. Short-clipped snowy hair and long white moustaches gave his broad face the look of an intelligent walrus. In contrast to most of the other nobles attending, he was a firm supporter of the Sovereignty. “I for one intend to send the Lord Admiral every small fighting vessel at my disposal—sloops armed with springals and cutters carrying tarnblaze bombards.”

“Your merchantmen mount more effective mortars and culverins,” the king pointed out to his old friend. “What about them?”

“Well, most are already laid up for the winter and the crews dispersed landside.” The count refused to meet the gaze of the monarch. “The small boats will serve better, sire.”