Sorcerer's Moon (7 page)

She was two-score-and-four years of age, tall but fine-boned, and of unusual strength thanks to her love of walking, riding, and bow-hunting. The skin of her face was still creamy, unlined save for a faint crease between her brows. This imperfection, together with her dark-circled green eyes, like forest pools forever shaded from sunlight, were permanent legacies of her suffering.

She unfastened her opal necklace and golden plait-clasps and put them on the dressing table, then doffed the myrtle-green wool surcoat and girdled gown of apricot silk, arranging them neatly upon wooden perches. After removing low-cut houseshoes and gartered stockings, she let slip to the floor her sleeveless linen underkirtle and drawers and stood naked before the mirror, unbraiding her abundant copper tresses. Her breasts were still high and firm and her belly was unmarked by the stress of childbearing. Her shield of womanhood was as blazing bright as the hair of her head.

'You are still comely, Maude,' she-whispered, gazing upon herself for a long moment before the reflection was blurred by an upwelling of tears as sharp as acid. 'Your besotted gaoler adores you and showers you with every gift save
liberty. So why does the memory of
him,
and him alone, still heat your blood, even though you try to crush and deny it? Is there no way your heart will ever escape his thrall?'

She went to the bed, drew up the covers, and pinched the lamp's wick with moistened fingers. In the darkness, warm beneath a swansdown comforter, she found no comfort.

She thought: The letter will bring an end to it. Surely it will! I'll be rid of this perfidious bond, this shameful yearning that should be revulsion, this love for him that should be hatred. It'll be over. Dear God, let me forget Conrig and be at peace . . . else I'll have to go to him.

And do what I must do.

CHAPTER
TWO

Ansel Pikan, Grand Shaman of Tarn, who lay dying from injuries suffered in the Battle of the Barren Lands, started up from his pillow with a loud groan. Sweat poured from his body and his heart thudded as though it would leap from his chest. 'Thalassa . . . Wix . . . Come to me!'

The door to his chamber flew open. A buxom woman of impressive mien, wearing threadbare robes that had once been rich and costly, swept inside. She was followed by a sturdy little old man with eyes like jet beads and bushy white hair. The pair hurried to the bedside and ministered to the stricken shaman, assisting him to swallow two kinds of physick and a beaker of water. Then, working deftly together, the two of them changed Ansel's damp nightgown and bed linen, and replaced his down comforter with another that hung warming at the hearth on a wooden rack. As they bent over him, checking the dressings on the terrible injuries to his hip and left side that would likely be the death of him, Ansel tried to relate what he'd dreamt. But his speech was nearly inaudible.

'The Source ... a dream of deep import. . . might endanger our great plan for Conrig.'

'Wait until the medicines ease your pain and we have made you comfortable again,' the sorceress Thalassa Dru urged him. 'Be still for a few minutes, and you'll make more sense.'

'A strange thing,' Ansel murmured, falling back onto the freshened pillow. 'So strange.'

'Your feet are like ice,' said the man called Wix. 'Let me put these wool booties on you. You should have a warming stone as well. I'll get one from the kitchen.'

'I'll need you to bring something else.' Thalassa fingered the pulse in Ansel's emaciated neck for a few moments. 'Fetch the phial of aqua mirabilis from my stillroom, along with a cup of warm milk.'

'Yes, my lady.' The old fellow trotted out, closing the door.

She found a chair, put it next to the bed, and took Ansel's skeletal hand in her own warm, plump one. The candlelight showed her how sadly the Grand Shaman had declined since she had visited him earlier that evening. He would not live much longer. God only knew how he'd reached the Tarnian mainland after traveling from the Barrens in his small boat, finally finding help at Cold Harbor. The local magickers bespoke Thalassa when Ansel cried out her name, and she had spirited him away through subtle magical corridors to her secluded retreat in the western foothills of the White Rime Mountains.

'Now, my old friend,' she said to him, 'save your breath. Use windspeech to tell me what the Source revealed in your dream.'

'He conferred with the Likeminded Remnant of Lights, who told of a unique thing that happened this very day. A portentous thing. An unprecedented thing. On Demon Seat Mountain, no less!'

'Well, well. How very curious. I've oft wondered about that place. Pray continue.'

'The three young princes of Cathra ascended to the summit together. The Heritor, Orrion, begged a boon of the Sky Realm while touching the second Moon Crag formation, which lies on that very mountaintop. Who'd have thought it was there? And what a strange coincidence it was found by those lads, after our own fruitless windsearching.'

'Most peculiar, I must agree. What happened to Prince Orrion? Did the Lights strike him dead for insolence?'

'Nay. Fortunately, the Pain-Eaters completely ignored his irregular attempt at conjuring. And so the Likeminded ventured to answer the boy themselves, almost without volition. In some way, they channeled their power to the Ground Realm through the crag, and thence to Orrion. It was little more than an experimental exercise to the Likeminded, and they were much surprised that it succeeded.'

'God of the Heights and Depths,' Thalassa whispered. 'Then the Likeminded Remnant are no longer impotent! The scales of fate may be tipping in our direction at long last.'

Ansel Pikan's cracked lips widened in a smile. His wind-voice was as clear and incisive as ever, although it would not have reached beyond the bedchamber had he tried to project it.

'Our dear Source's chains of blue ice have weakened slowly over the years, as we gathered scattered sigils and brought them to him for destruction. And ill-fated though my own enterprise in the Barrens was, I did manage to deny the Salka most of the first Moon Crag. That has to count in our favor.,'

She pulled the comforter more snugly around him.
‘I
prayed it would, though the Source himself seemed uncertain . . . What did you mean when you spoke of our plan for King Conrig being endangered? Is it put at risk somehow by the Demon Seat episode?'

Ansel set forth the basic facts
of the arranged marriage
that had driven Prince Orrion to his unwitting conjuration of the Lights.

'The consequences of Orrion's loss will enfuriate and trouble the king, leaving him more vulnerable than he can possibly know. Long years of opposing the Salka, as well as contending against his human enemies, have turned him harsh and unyielding. Conrig sees his hope of extending his Sovereignty beyond this island fading away. He has always been a difficult New Conflict participant - all the more so because he doesn't know he's been enlisted! He'll be harder than ever to control once his scheme for his son Orrion lies in ruins.'

'Do you think the Source's plan for influencing the Sovereign through Deveron Austrey might now be impossible?'

'We must trust that the former spy can still find a way to regain his old master's friendship. Conrig cannot defeat the Salka invasion through human military efforts alone. Convincing him of that will not be easy.'

'Perhaps Cray will think of something,' Thalassa said, 'as she did so fortuitously in the matter of the worms!' She considered for a moment.
‘I
shall have to go to her at once. We two must soul-travel beneath the Ice and consult the Source together on these matters.'

The dying shaman gave a prolonged sigh. He spoke aloud in a voice as faint as rustling leaves. 'How I wish I were able to go with you! At least tell the Source that I beg forgiveness for having defied him. I had no choice but to go to the Barren Lands and destroy the first Moon Crag.'

'Of course I'll tell him, even though I'm certain he already knows and agrees you did the proper thing. He tried to dissuade you because of a premonition that you would not survive the mission and an understandable desire not to lose you. As a Sky Being, albeit one trapped in a body of flesh,
he sometimes fails to understand our stubborn groundling self-righteousness. To say nothing of our foolish courage and need for direct action.'

Ansel Pikan began to laugh, but broke off in a fit of painful coughing. Thalassa Dru held his head against her ample breast until Wix came with the new medicament. Two drops of the elixer in milk were sufficient to bring relief to the shaman, after which she placed the heated, flannel-wrapped rock at his feet.

'And now I must go through subtle corridors to the Green Folk. I'm loath to abandon you, my dear, but I have no choice. I leave you in good hands. Wix will stay at your side this night, and his mistress is as good a physician as I am.' Thalassa kissed Ansel's brow.

He spoke to her voicelessly on the wind.
‘I
know my life is nearly over. I'm content with what I have accomplished. Don't fret about me. Save your energies for the Conflict. We'll win out. I'm certain of it.'

'And so am I,' the sorceress said with as much confidence as she could summon, even though a lump of cold doubt weighted her heart. She stayed at his side for a few minutes more, until his eyes closed in sleep. Then she snuffed all of the candles save one and rose from the bedside stool.

'Wix, build up a fire in here and see to the shutters. The wind is rising outside the lodge and there will be sleet very soon. I must set out on my journey without delay, and I've no time to give you detailed instructions. You must care for our dear friend as best you can.'

'Don't worry, my lady. I'll see to everything. Shall I wake my mistress and tell her you've departed?'

'She needs her rest. I believe Ansel will sleep quietly for some hours. But don't hesitate to fetch her if there should be a need.'

'Yes, my lady. May your magical journey be swift and safe.'

Thalassa Dru sha Lisfallon, elder sister of the late Conjure-King Linndal of Moss and the aunt of Ullanoth and Beynor, smiled at the little old man. 'I only hope the weather is better at Castle Morass.'

* * *

It was Master Shaman Kalawnn, second of the Eminent Four of the Salka monsters and guardian of the Known Potency, who first found out what the Likeminded Lights had done on Demon Seat.

He was deep within the bowels of Fenguard Castle in Moss, the new center of the Salka Authority now that the Dawntide Citadel had been destroyed by the vile humans, supervising the lapidary workers. They were preparing to cleave yet another fragile piece of mineral gleaned from the debris of the shattered Barren Lands Moon Crag. All previous attempts had ended in failure as the flawed moonstone disintegrated.

Suddenly Kalawnn felt a warning tingle from the minor sigil named Scriber that hung around his neck. This was followed by a severe pain deep within his brain.

'Ahroo!'

The shaman clasped his neck with both tentacles and flopped away from the cutting bench as the vision crashed into his mind like a storm-surge. For a moment, he was blind to all else. A second low-pitched howl escaped his maw. He subsided onto the floor of the cavern, an enormous amphibian creature nearly twice the height of a man and more than four times as bulky, helpless as a beached whale.

'Eminent One - what's wrong?' Several artisans crowded about him, head-crests erect and great red eyes goggling with dismay.

'Wait. . . wait,' he managed to say. 'A windsensed revelation! I must comprehend it fully'

Nonplussed, the other Salka stood away from his quivering body. Those who wore strength-giving sigils conjured
supportive power and channeled it to the Master Shaman. The others could only focus their healing talent and murmur prayers.

'Look at his neck!' a gem-carver exclaimed. 'The skin covering his gizzard glows crimson. The Potency within is active! Perhaps it disapproves of what we were about to do. Perhaps it's angry with us for trying to work poor-quality material into new sigils.'

The others picked up the portentous word and repeated it anxiously. 'The Potency! The Potency -'

'Silence!' Kalawnn bellowed. The eldritch seizure that had so abruptly afflicted him was over. He rose to his full majestic height, eyes wide open and agleam like balls of fire. 'There is no need to be anxious. The Potency is not angry. It had nothing to do with my vision.'

'But, master!' one of the lapidaries protested. 'We saw the glow within your crop, where the Stone of Stones is hidden

‘I
have just received a most surprising piece of information from the Great Lights,' Kalawnn said. 'I must leave you now and share this news with the other three Eminences. I command you to carry on cleaving the piece of raw moonstone. Bespeak me at once with the results of the operation.'

He slithered out of the workroom with surprising rapidity and made his way to the castle's Chamber of Audience -formerly the Conjure-Queen's throne room - where his colleagues were in conference. Almost all traces of human occupation had been eradicated from the Mossland fortress of Fenguard by its new inhabitants. The doors were now enlarged to allow ready access to huge bodies and the windows were smaller to conserve the delightful boggy ambiance favored by Salka sensibilities. A coating of black mold softened the harsh stonework of the stairways and passages; rusting iron wall-sconces that once supported
torches or oil lamps now held amber globes full of luminous marine organisms; the floors of the public areas were carpeted with decaying reeds and sedges from the fens, while the private rooms and the Chamber of Audience had more desirable floor coverings of fragrant kelp and other algae.

The erstwhile royal dais, lit by pendant bowls of glowworms, had been enlarged to contain the seaweed-heaped golden couches of the Eminent Ones. These were pushed to the very edge of the platform so that the reclining Salka leaders could study a large map laid out on a low table crafted of whalebone. The map, a three-dimensional work of art depicting High Blenholme Island in relief, was an ingenious mosaic of sea-unicorn ivory, pearl-shell, and many-colored amber. Its rivers and bodies of water were indicated by shining bits of turquoise or lapis, and the salient features were labeled with small gold plaques. Golden figurines of miniature warriors - some Salka, some human, and some mysteriously shaped - were scattered about the map surface. Model ships, as intricate as fine jewelry, clustered in separate flotillas on the lapis sea.