Sorcerer's Moon (50 page)

'I've received some appalling news. Earlier this morning, Beynor informed me that the Salka regular army of fifty thousand strong is being reinforced by a large number of reserve fighters sent from Fenguard.'

'Great Zeth! Our troops were already outnumbered. But now -'

'This second force is swimming around the south end of the island to join the others. I haven't yet told our people since the fact can't be confirmed - nor do I wish to cast a pall of hopelessness over our new campaign before we even march out of Boarsden.'

'How did the Conjure-King learn about the reinforcements?'

'He didn't say, but it doesn't matter. The bad tidings just serve to confirm a belief I'd entertained for some time: the only chance we have of defeating this horde of fiends is through sigil sorcery.'

Stergos took a. step toward the king, his eyes wide with horror. 'Brother, no!'

'Without Ullanoth's magic, I never would have been victorious in Holt Mallburn. You know that's true! And our navy would never have defeated the Didionites in the Battle of
Cala Bay without the uncanny winds summoned by her Weathermaker.'

'Ullanoth is dead. Con. Her sigils are lost and so are the ones comprising Darasilo's Trove. Even if we had any of the devilish things at our disposal, we lack the means to bring them to life.'

'Gossy, Beynor has three Great Stones from the trove. I saw them.'

'No! It's some trick of his!' The Doctor Arcanorum clasped his gammadion pendant and besought the wind: Tell me this isn't true.

It is true
, said the Source,
as it had to be
.

Conrig said, 'Beynor has had the things for years, apparently, and he knows how to activate them. I know the bastard can't use the sigils himself. But I can.'

The alchymist was silent, thinking about the wind-spoken affirmation for a moment before speaking in an incredulous whisper. 'Beynor has actually offered the stones to you?'

'Yes.' The king's gaze shifted. He still held the filled goblets close to his chest. ‘I had to tell you, Gossy. To learn your reaction. One of Beynor's conditions for handing the stones over was that you resign as my adviser, retire from my service and not interfere as he teaches me how to use the sigils against our foe.'

Stergos felt as though his soul had fled his body. He seemed to float near the ceiling, looking down upon the two of them, seeing the brilliant red wine inside the silver cups. One cup of wine seemed to shimmer . . .

He gripped the gammadion tighter and knew. He said: Source, I can't stop him. His decision is adamant. He's wanted this for too long. Even if I revealed his secret he would not be stopped. Is this also true?

It is true, as it had to be.

When Stergos was able to speak, his voice seemed to belong to someone else. 'What sigils does Beynor possess?'

'A Weathermaker, an Ice-Master that can freeze water -
including the fluids within living bodies - and a Destroyer.'

'A Destroyer.' Stergos was himself again, calm and unafraid. 'So you are determined to go ahead with this scheme, even though I beg you with all my heart to abandon it? And I do, Con, for the sake of your own soul's peace as well as the future of our beloved island.'

'Nothing you can say will dissuade me. Will you agree to go away - perhaps to Zeth Abbey - and do nothing to hinder me?'

'I cannot.' The reply was one of quiet resignation. 'It is my solemn duty to oppose you openly in this heinous thing.'

Conrig gave a small sigh. He was smiling gently. 'Well, I don't have the sigils yet, Gossy. And maybe that slippery viper never intended to give them up at all. This might only be a plot of his to drive us two apart, so that he can insinuate himself into my inner circle of advisers... At any rate, there's no need for us to discuss this matter further now.' He held out one of the goblets. 'Here. Drink with me. Then we'll mount up and ride out of this cursed Didionite castle. We've tarried here fretting and twiddling our thumbs far too long. I must take action. Brother! I must. Try to understand.'

The Royal Alchymist accepted the cup. 'Are you certain that this is what you really want?'

'Yes,' said the Sovereign. He added in a low voice, 'I'm sorry.'

Stergos said, 'As am I. Nevertheless, I give you my blessing, Con, hoping that you may yet realize what it is that you do.' Then he drank.

* * *

Thalassa Dru and Cray emerged from the interface of the subtle corridor into the reality of the castle solar and found
him seated in an armchair next to the large leaded window, seeming to look out at the grey and weeping landscape with a serene face. There was no one else in the room.

'Too late,' murmured the sorceress sadly.

'For him and for Conrig Ironcrown as well, I'm afraid.' The Green Woman stood on tiptoe and closed the eyes of Stergos Wincantor. She then opened the wallet at his belt, searched it, and shook her head. Unfastening the neck of his riding habit, she found the golden chain of his gammadion. A longer thong of leather inside his linen shirt held a small cloth bag. Cray opened it. 'Empty.'

'Stergos must have hidden the piece of raw moonstone elsewhere,' Thalassa said. 'We'll never find it.'

'We'd better get out of here,' Cray said. 'His gammadion will already have signaled his demise to the other Brethren.'

'The Source might know where the bit of Demon Seat mineral is. Are you sure you don't want to tell him about it - and about Prince Coro's piece as well?'

'More certain than ever. Let's go back to my house. I would like to ask our esteemed leader why he didn't warn us that our poor friend was in danger of being slain by his own brother!'

'Why bother?' Conjure-Princess Thalassa Dru inquired despondently. 'We already know what he'll say: Events are unfolding as they must.'

The two of them re-entered the invisible entrance to the subtle corridor and vanished from sight.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Duke Kefalus Vandragora had quietly given orders to Baron Ising and to the three men-at-arms escorting Casya Pretender to his north-country fortress: they were not to let his granddaughter out of their sight for a moment. She was a wilful and reckless creature, he said, capable of anything, with bigger bollocks than a man twice her age, an altogether worthy Queen Regnant of Didion - if she might only stay alive long enough to assume the throne.

There was no problem at the first night's stop, when they all bedded down in a cow byre in the open countryside. But on the second night, when the rain began, they stayed at a little inn on the shore of Firedrake Water where the hostess refused to compromise her notions of propriety. The girl would sleep on a pallet in a storage cubby next to the kitchen, not share a room with the men. A newly installed bolt inside her door would ensure that she slept safe and undisturbed. Since the innwife was a formidable dame with a moustache and muscular arms that could have snapped the spine of a hog, her will prevailed.

Casya went meekly to bed, but she did not sleep. Instead, when the establishment had settled down for the night, she
slipped the bolt, crept out through the scullery, and crossed the storm-swept yard to the side entrance of the stable. A dim lantern hung from a cross-beam. In an empty stall she found the simpleminded old man who served as the inn's ostler, asleep in a pile of hay.

After rousing him with a none-too-gentle nudge of her boot, she knelt, held up a silver quarter-mark coin in front of his face, and whispered, 'Would you like to have this, my man?'

His bloodshot eyes opened wide. The silver would probably equal his wage for a month. 'Oh, yes, mistress!'

She rose and stood over him. 'Then saddle up the sorrel with the white blaze and the big dapple grey. Strap a sack of goodly feed to each cantle, and have the beasts ready to leave here as quick as you can hop.'

'But why, mistress?' the ancient whined. 'The night ain't half gone and it's pissin' rain fit to drown frogs!'

'Do you want this money or don't you?' she snapped. 'My dear uncle and I were abducted by the three warriors we rode in with. Those scoundrels want me to marry their lecher of a father who's thirty years older than I. But I intend to escape their evil clutches.'

The ostler chortled. 'Good for ye, lass!' Then his face clouded. 'But what happens t'me in the morn? At best, I'll get a beatin' for not raisin' the alarm.'

'Before we go, my uncle and I will tie you up and gag you gently and leave you to snooze in your nest. When you're found, say you were overpowered. Tell the warriors that you heard us say we were heading south, toward Boarsden.'

'Well ... I could do that, I s'pose.'

'Do you have torch brands available?' she asked him.

'Aye, pineheart well plugged with resin. Won't be quenched easily in the wet. But -'

'I'll need four. Lash them to the grey's saddle with the feed. You'll get an extra two pennies for the lot and keep the change. I'll fetch my uncle now and be back directly.'

She left before he could object, re-entered the inn, and slunk up the stairs to the guest accommodation. Loud snoring covered the creak of hinges as she opened the door of the front room.

At the second tweak of his ear, Baron Ising came awake with a startled grunt. Before he could speak, a hand pressed firmly over his mouth.

'Not a word!' Casya whispered fiercely. 'Up with you. We're getting out of here. If you make a row and wake the others, I'll wring your scrawny old neck.'

His eyes, rheumy with sleep, could barely identify her in the darkness of the room he shared with the three warriors. She grabbed the baron's boots, indicated his bags and cloak with a peremptory gesture, and swept her thumb eloquently toward the open door.

A moment later they were both creeping through the deserted taproom toward the kitchen. He muttered, 'What the bloody hell d'you think you're doing, you daft wench?'

'Keep a civil tongue in your head, my lord. I'm not sitting out the Salka war in Grandpa's castle.' Casya thrust his boots at him. 'Put these on while I get my things.'

When she returned with her own saddlebags, dressed in male riding gear, he scowled at her. 'Your Majesty, you promised Duke Kefalus -'

'And I intend to break that promise to accomplish a greater good,' she stated in a wintry voice. 'Come on.' She went out the back door with him trailing reluctantly after.

'What greater good?' he demanded peevishly, stumbling through the mud. The rain was no longer torrential, but it still fell steadily. One of the tall stable doors was open now and the lantern inside swung in the cold east wind blowing
off the big lake, casting moving shadows like spectres. Another lantern, giving much more light, hung at the entry to the inn courtyard just off the highroad. It was intended to guide benighted travelers to shelter, and one like it was required outside every public lodging by the law of the Sovereignty.

When Casya ignored his question, Baron Ising continued to chide her. 'No one's going to let you lead a troop of real soldiers into battle, you know! And by now, your gang of friendly brigands have scattered to the four winds. You aren't Casya the Wold Wraith anymore, luring Somarus's men on a merry chase through the bogs and moorlands. You're just a saucy chit waiting to be handed a crown on a platter.'

She gave him a haughty glare. 'I'm more than that, damn your eyes, and you know it! . . . So do the Green Men. And the Morass Worms.'

'Hmph. That was then,' he said obscurely. 'This is now.'

Inside the stable, The old ostler was tightening the knot on the final bundle of oats and torchwood. He knuckled his grimy forehead in salute. 'All ready, mistress. Quick enough for ye?'

She handed over the coins. 'Well done. Go lie down and I'll bind and muffle you.' She said to Ising, 'You strap on our bags and check the saddle girths.'

The baron was grumbling blasphemies under his breath when she returned. She said, 'The old fellow has promised to tell our guards that we went south. But I'm going west instead, to the track that follows the Upper Malle. Then I'll head north to Black Hare Lake. Where you go, old friend, is your decision. If you choose, you can even unsaddle your horse and crawl back to bed.'

Ising Bedotha hoisted his tangled brows. 'Black Hare Lake, you say? But you can't - not the Green Morass!'

‘I did it before. With Cray's help, to be sure, and by a
different route. But I'll find other Green Men to help me reestablish contact with the worms, or else hunt them down myself.'

'Oh, lass, lass!' the baron moaned. 'What can you possibly accomplish, even if the horrible things agree to confer with you? The focus of the Salka war is completely different now. The crucial battles will be fought in Tarn or on the far side of Didion where the-pirates dwell. Nowhere near the Green Morass.'

'You don't understand how the worms fight.’

‘And you do?' he jeered.

'I showed them how to use their uncanny powers to best advantage. How to feint and bluff and hippity-hop about and lure the foe into pincer-traps after the Salka sigil-bearers had wasted their magical energies. Human military tactics allowed the Morass Worms to halt the first Salka invasion, even though they were greatly outnumbered. I promised the creatures a territory of their own as a reward, and I intend to see that they get it. Once I explain this new situation, they'll listen and do as I say, just as they did before.'

'What if they don't? What then, eh?' Ising's face had gone crimson with frustration.

She mounted her spirited sorrel horse and looked down at him with a smile of supreme confidence. 'They will listen ... I dare not tarry here any longer arguing. Will you come with me, or not?'

He uttered a great groan. 'Great Starry Wain - what else can I do?'

'Good. I'm very grateful, dear Ising.'

With difficulty, he hoicked his left foot into the stirrup, then pulled himself up with painful- slowness by gripping the mane of the patient grey. When he finally settled into the saddle, gasping and cursing, he bestowed a baleful glower on her. 'It's the joint evil, Your Majesty. A bugger in the cold
and damp when you're a creaky old fart like me and there's no mounting-block.'