Sorcerer's Moon (78 page)

'We'll not be separated. Last night I had a dream. Whether or not it's a true portent or merely a fantasy remains to be seen. In the dream, my twin brother Corodon spoke to me.'

Her eyes widened. 'Do you mean,
he spoke on the wind?

‘I don't know. Perhaps I can ask Lord Rork's wizard to confirm the truth of it by bespeaking my older brother Bramlow in a relay through a Tarnian shaman.'

'What did King Corodon say in the dream?'

'He seemed to tell me that he'd rescind my banishment. Restore my rank.'

'Oh, if it could only be true!' she cried.

'There was more. He said he was too weak a man to rule the Sovereignty on his own. He's afraid he'll make a botch of it. He - he wants me to share the throne. He said he'd force the Lords Judicial to repeal the sword-arm law and accept me - else he'd abdicate and turn the Iron Crown over to Dyfrig Beorbrook.'

She was speechless for a long moment. 'What if it's true?'

'There's still the matter of our covert talent,' he admitted. 'Only you and a handful of others know of it - including Dyfrig himself and that strange fellow, the Royal Intelligencer. In the dream, Coro said that all have pledged to keep the secret.'

'Oh.'

He took her hand. 'So if, albeit improbably, this thing should come to pass, will you be my queen, Nyla Brackenfield?'

'I'll be whatever you want me to be, dear heart.' They kissed and she sank into his embrace, wondering why she suddenly felt an icy finger of fear touch her heart.

* * *

Ullanoth clung to Deveron's neck as they arrived at the summit of Demon Seat. From horizon to horizon the night Sky was clear of clouds, velvet blackness alive with angry whorls, slashing beams, and violent explosions of colored Light. Below, the mountain slopes lay deeply buried in snow.

Gale winds had blown the terrace formation clean, and the Seat itself had only a thin mantle of rime encrusting it.

Behind it, a climbing staff wedged among moonstone rocks still carried a tattered scrap of frost-stiffened red cloth that had once been the banner of the Sovereignty of Blenholme.

'You may put me down, Snudge,' she said. 'Then depart at once, for I think a human body can endure here only a few moments.'

'And this is truly where you want to be?' he asked her.

'Yes. But no more speaking. It hurts to breathe the cold air.' She smiled at him.

'Farewell, Conjure-Queen,' he said. His gloved hand still held the sigil as he gave the command that would take him from her.

When he was gone, she drew off the fur mitten that covered her own right hand, revealing a strangely twisted little ribbon of carved moonstone that had but a single surface and a single edge. It glowed steadily and scathelessly because it bonded to no one and belonged to everyone, to every thinking creature in the Ground Realm in danger of being drawn into a seductive and soul-destroying game of power.

Are you ready, Ullanoth?

'Tell me what to do.'

Touch the Potency to the Seat. The finality of it is easy and the peace is sweet.

* * *

Deveron had transported himself to a valley at the mountain's base where autumn still prevailed, rather than to the place where the Source had told him to go - a large pavilion pitched amongst many others on the verge of the Wold Road, where the Sovereign and Vra-Bramlow, Earl Marshal Parlian, Prince Dyfrig, Casya Pretender, and his wife Induna waited for him.

But they must wait. It was necessary for him to see what happened.

He scried the mountain and saw her, tranquil and unafraid.

Then his windsight unaccountably failed him and he was left only with the witness of his eyes.

The Moon Crag formation at the tip of the peak blossomed for an instant into a new blue star brighter than any he had ever seen.

The furious aurora vanished. In its place, enduring only for a heartbeat, were a myriad of ghostly faces. Some were smiling and some were outraged. All of them flowed together into a wide iridescent arc that spanned the Sky like an enormous moonbow.

'Are the evil Beaconfolk dead, then?' he asked.

Good and evil endure, but the Conflict is over. A minute portion of the Link has unfortunately survived. It is not easy of access, however, and power will flow between the Realms only with great difficulty now. There is no need to fear.

The Concealer sigil had faded to extinction even before he took Ullanoth to Demon Seat, but he still held his Great Stone tightly in his hand. He opened his fist and gasped. Subtle Gateway's Light was dead.

'Source!' he cried indignantly. 'After all this, must I walk back to my poor wife?'

An inadvertent oversight. Forgive me, Snudge. All sigils empowered by the Lights have been abolished with the end of the game. But of course I'm prepared to do a special favor for a friend.

Gateway's blue-white internal radiance rekindled.

'Take me to Induna,' Deveron said.

EPILOGUE

The Royal Intelligencer

There is more to the story, of course, but I may not be able to finish it after all. I've grown so very tired, and there are no genuine happy endings. Not in a place as paradoxical as High Blenholme Island, with its races of human and inhuman souls, and not elsewhere either, unless I miss my guess.

It is sufficient, I think, to relate a few outcomes.

The Salka offensive collapsed after both Kalawnn and Ugusawnn were found alive and taken prisoner by the Sovereign Army. They joined the other Eminences in calling for an end to hostilities and an armistice was declared. The great amphibians eschewed their dream of reconquest and did indeed withdraw to the Great Fen of Moss. However, the Eminent Four could never convince their people to enter into civilized relations with humanity, and the Salka were finally content to be left alone.

After King Somarus suffered a fatal stroke of apoplexy when informed of his niece's heroic role in the war with the Salka, Duke Kefalus Vandragora led an uprising that saw Casabarela Mallburn installed as the true Queen Regnant of Didion. She did give the Morass worms their homeland.

Orrion Wincantor married Nyla Brackenfield, and after a
brief interval of legal wrangling became co-Sovereign of Blenholme with his twin brother. Corodon Wincantor married Hyndry Mallburn in spite of strong advice to the contrary. Their disastrous union, fortunately childless, contributed to the destabilization and ultimate collapse of the Sovereignty. Tarn, Didion, and the renascent Conjure-Kingdom of Moss, ruled by Thalassa Dru until she died at the age of ninety-nine, declared their independence.

Cathra endured a brief but messy civil war instigated by Duke Feribor Blackhorse, who murdered Corodon and Hyndry, drove Orrion and Nyla to exile in Didion, and seized the Iron Crown. His coup was frustrated on the same day that it was accomplished when he died in agony of a surfeit of peaches and newly fermented cider at a celebratory banquet.

At the urging of the demoralized Cathran peerage and the Zeth Brethren, the Royal Alchymist Vra-Bramlow Wincantor assumed the throne as interim ruler. In a series of brilliant and ingenious compromises he restored calm and prosperity to Cathra and mended relations with the former vassal states. He abdicated by his own choice and his younger sister Wylgana was acclaimed High Queen after the archaic law barring the female sex from the succession was repealed. Her first official action was to have the Iron Crown melted in the forge of the royal blacksmith. The resulting lump of metal was cast ceremoniously into Cala Bay, along with a wreath commemorating her revered grandfather, King Olmigon.

At his own request, Dyfrig Beorbrook was relieved of his office of Earl Marshal of the Realm by Queen Wylgana. He married Queen Casabarela of Didion. The couple had three children and ruled the northern kingdom together - although this fact was never officially acknowledged - until their deaths at a ripe old age.

I myself served each succeeding Cathran ruler in turn as
Royal Intelligencer, to the best of my wily ability in trying times. When High Queen Wylgana decided to revise the history of the kingdom to show her father Conrig, her pathetic brother Corodon, her great-uncle Feribor, and the late Sovereignty of Blenholme in a more favorable light, I protested the futile deception too loudly. The queen dismissed me for my pains, commanded me to leave the island, and provided me with a pension dependent on my good behavior. I lived quietly for many years on the Continent until, as is only too apparent, my instinct for troublemaking got the better of me.

Beynor of Moss was never heard from again; but three decades ago I received an engraved invitation to attend the coronation of the new self-styled Emperor of Stippen. A handwritten postscript said:
This time, it'll be better.
I sent regrets.

The Lights still shine. Some of them may be contemplating mischief. I'm too old to care. As for my dearest Induna . . . My memories of her are none of your business.