The War of the Moonstone: an Epic Fantasy (17 page)

Niara tried not to smile when she
saw the amazement in Fria’s eyes. It was working! Fria was coming around to her
side.

“Yes,” she said. “Truly. They were
deeply in love, and even my father’s first wife grew to love Silese, my mother.
But mortal she was, and time was her enemy. My father used his arts to lengthen
her life and ward off some of the worst effects of age, but in time she slipped
away, like water in a river. My father and his first wife were deeply grieved,
and they built a great statue in her honor. It stands even now on the banks of
the Ninis, a stream she loved. My father told me that it was there that he and
she conceived me, to the sound of the flowing water and the singing of the
birds in the trees. He told me that having me consoled him in the days that
followed, and though he vowed never to love another mortal he broke his vow
with me.” She smiled sadly. Her words had ceased to be mere manipulation. She
remembered those early years well, remembered the beauty of Larenthi, with the
golden sun on the vibrant green hills and endless forest-gardens. She
remembered her father’s face, so stern yet warm.

“And so I grew up with the elf-ways
and lived as they did, and I knew love, and passion. And, yes, lust. Only later
did I decide to explore my human heritage and travel to mortal lands. And here
at last I came. But ways here are different, and people don’t tolerate physical
passion in their priestesses. Yet they need the ways of Illiana most direly.”
Fria looked at her in amazement. In the baroness’s wonder, she had come to sit
beside Niara once more and clasp her hand. “You gave up all that just to improve
our sorry lot?”

“It is not so sorry, my dear. You
are good people. The people of my mother. In days gone by, when Elves and Men
were closer, before the age of the Grothgars in Havensrike, Men used to travel
back and forth to Larenthi all the time—and the reverse. So it was with my
mother. She loved Fiarth dearly. It always pained her that my father refused to
leave Larenthi. She’d wanted to return here someday.” She smiled, and again it
was sad. “And so I’m here, and I have known love. So hear me when I tell you
that Raugst desires me, and not for simple lust, though there is that too.” In
her heart, she wondered if that were true.
Surely
he cannot love. He’s a thing of darkness.
She tried to keep these thoughts
from her face and voice.

Perhaps she was unsuccessful, for
Fria seemed to sense some duplicity in her, or perhaps the truth was more than
she could accept. Either way, suddenly the new-found warmth and sympathy in the
baroness’s face fled like sunshine on a stormy day. Scowling, she shot to her feet.

“You lie! You lie, you lie, you
lie
!” She actually stomped her foot.

Niara made placating gestures. “Mistress,
I assure you that I do not. Raugst told me he wants me.”

“He’s a good man!” The tears came,
finally, but with typical Wesrain pride she wiped them away with impatience. “If
he did say such a thing—if he did—then he was only being a man, and all men are
weak to such temptations. He may be a good man, but he is still a man.”

He
is no man at all!
Niara tried to counsel herself to be patient. She
realized she must lie further. Looking the baroness in the eye, hating herself
for doing it, she said, “He said . . . he said he loves
only
me.”

Fria stared at her in horror, a
wounded deer seeing her end draw nigh. At last she tore her gaze away and balled
and unballed her hands at her side. Then she raised her fists and stepped
toward Niara. Niara shrank away, honestly worried Fria might try some physical
assault, but the baroness reined herself in and turned aside, trembling.

“He has blasphemed and must be
locked away,” Niara said. “We must uphold the laws of your land.”

Fria did not seem to hear her. “Out,”
she said, not looking at Niara. “I want you out!” She stomped her foot again.

Niara rose and moved toward her,
imploring. “Fria, darling—”

“I said Out!”

“Listen, Fria—”

“OUT!”

A priestess poked her head into the
main room of the chapel, glanced from Niara to Fria, then, white-faced, ducked
back out of sight.

Swallowing, Niara said, “Really,
dear, that’s no way to behave.” She must be motherly now. Fria had never known
a mother, and Niara had always been there to act the part for her. Maybe she
would respond to that role now. “Sit down and listen like a proper young lady. I
am only trying to help.”
Fria lifted her head and roared—
roared
—“
You’re trying to tear me and Raugst apart!
You’re a monster!”

Niara winced at the pain in Fria’s
voice. Fria had, after all, been all but a daughter to her, just as she had
been a mother to the girl. She hated to manipulate her, and hated for it to
have gone so horribly wrong. She realized she could no longer go on with her
pretense. Fria wasn’t having it anyway.

“Raugst is the monster,” she said,
looking with her soul bared into Fria’s eyes. “He is a demon sent by the devil
Vrulug to destroy us. I don’t know how, but I know that when those Borchstogs
get here tonight, he’ll help them somehow, and that will be the end of
Thiersgald.”

Fria stared at her, shocked by this
abrupt change in topic and by the frank manner in which Niara accomplished it.

But it was too late. Her face red,
tears coursing down her cheeks, her one lazy eye rolling like a mad thing, she
glared at Niara and said, “Just when I thought you had sunk to your lowest
point, you bitch,
this
.” Her voice
wasn’t angry anymore; she had moved past that. She spoke in icily calm tones
now. “I don’t know what to do with you. My High Priestess, a liar, a traitor,
trying to break up the royal family on the eve of battle. Yes,” she added,
apparently pleased with her logic. “A traitor. A foul-mouthed Oslogon
sympathizer. A
spy
.”

“No! Fria, I would never—”

“Guards!”

At all times, Fria was accompanied
by at least a pair of soldiers. They were waiting outside the chapel even then.
At her summons, they burst into the holy place, hands at the hilts of their
swords, though obviously reluctant to draw them here. They stared from Fria to
Niara, confused.

“Arrest her!” the baroness said,
stabbing a finger at Niara. “Arrest her for high treason. The High Priestess is
a spy!”

“This is madness!” Niara said. She
looked desperately at the guards. “Don’t do this thing.” She was aware that she
could slay them both if she had to, but if she did there would be no going
back. The whole kingdom would turn on the priesthood.

The guards hesitated another
moment. Finally, with great reluctance, they stepped forward and took Niara
delicately by the upper arms.

“Take her to the dungeon,” Fria
said. As the soldiers started to bear Niara away, the baroness added, “On the
morrow she will be executed.”

“Fool,” said Niara. “There will
be
no tomorrow.”

With few exceptions, the dungeons below the castle had been
out of use for some time and were dank and decrepit. The soldiers showed Niara to
a cell dripping with moisture and overgrown with slime mold, its walls composed
of large stone blocks and its bars black iron encrusted with age. The guards
abandoned her there, leaving only a torch on the wall so that she wasn’t
plunged into absolute blackness, and a bucket for her to void her bladder and
bowels into when the time came. The senior guard apologized before he left.

When they were gone, Niara slumped
against the cold wet wall, feeling the moisture seep into her dress, and tried
not to weep.
Think of Yfrin
, she
thought.
He’s been down here for weeks.
Where was the old duke? She had not seen him on the way in. He must be on
another level.

The moist chill bit at her and she
shivered. This turned into an uncontrollable shudder, and for a long while she
was held in thrall to the fear and hopelessness which gripped her.

She told herself she could escape
if she had to, though she was unsure. The truth was that she was not
particularly powerful, or did not think she was. She’d undergone some training
when she was young, but her human heritage complicated things and frustrated
her teachers. She could not draw on the light as easily and in quite the same
manner as her elvish friends, so she had been forced to create her own system,
her own tools.

Could she bend iron bars and escape
through a heavily-guarded castle? And if so, where could she go for safe
harbor? The only place she could think of was the Temple, but Fria would surely seek her there,
and if the priestesses hid her away, which they would, the barony would turn on
them, and that’s exactly what Niara needed to prevent. Indeed, as High
Priestess of Fiarth, it was her sworn duty to promote the ways of Illiana, not
bring ruin to Her agents.

Trying not to weep, Niara sank down
the wall and stared into the dimness of the chamber. Somewhere rats squealed
and fought. A drop of water fell from the ceiling. The torchlight ebbed. Soon
it would go out altogether, hurling Niara into blackness.

How could this have happened? How
could she have done this to herself? And that Fria had been the one to put her
here! Niara shook her head, horrified and yet grimly amused that Raugst could
twist people so well. Oh, yes, her enemy was a worthy one. But even he must
have his weakness. He was out on the edge, past the edge, a pretender in the
land of his foes. Surely he couldn’t keep the pretense up forever. Even he must
slip eventually.

By then it would be too late,
though. Fiarth would have already fallen.

For the thousandth time, Niara wished
that Giorn was here, that he could wrap her in his arms and tell her everything
would be all right. Even if he lied, it would have meant a lot to her.

Suddenly the screeching of the
fighting rats cut off. The torchlight had burned down to an ember, and from its
vague light she saw a tall shadow with flaming eyes approach the bars.

“Raugst.” She nodded her head to
the shadow, not quite a bow, but acknowledging his victory.

“Darling.” There was irony in his
voice, but also honesty. It was a disturbing combination.

“It must please you to see me like
this.”

“Perhaps. A little.”

“Just go away. Leave me.”

“You’re to be executed on the
morrow, my good wife tells me.”

“Did she tell you why?
To save your honor
.” Niara laughed
sourly.

Oddly, his voice held a note of
sadness. “She told me. Apparently you were spreading lies about me.”

“Yes, that’s right. I’d forgotten. Lies.”

He paused. Then quietly, he said,
“You know, all this could’ve been avoided if you had only said yes to me that
night. If you could have only yielded to what you and I both know you desire.”

“Never!” Niara felt her cheeks grow
hot.

He gripped the bars with his large
hands. “You know it’s true. Why deny your heart?”

“My heart? My
heart
?” She glared at the dark shape that was Raugst. “If I felt
anything for you, you monster, it wouldn’t come from my heart.”

“Then you
do
feel something.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Leave me
alone. I prefer the company of the rats.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

“At least they’re honest about what
they are.”

“I’m honest.”

“How can you say that?”

The dark shape that was Raugst
leaned against the bars, as though straining to be closer to her. She could
feel his heat from where she squatted along the wall.

“I am honest with
you
,” he said. “In fact, I do not recall
ever lying to you. Not once.”

That was possibly true, she
thought, strangely disturbed by the idea. “I hope you don’t think that
impresses me.”

He leaned back. “You are a hard
one.”

“I am. I really am. I hope when
your friends are overrunning Thiersgald, when they’re raping and torturing and
burning the city to its foundations, and you’re likely joining them, that you
remember how hard I was, that you remember that I didn’t yield, and that it
brings you some twinge of pain, some minor pang of dissatisfaction. I hope it
tarnishes your victory, just a bit. Maybe then my life will have counted for
something.” She closed her eyes and prayed that he would leave.

His voice was cold now, but not
cruel. Had she wounded him? “Very well, then,” he said. She could feel him,
could smell him, drawing back from the bars. “But that time may be sooner than
you think.”

She opened her eyes. The torch took
just that moment to go out, and she strained her gaze into the darkness. A few
embers still burned, but all that she could see of him was a red-gilded
silhouette. She could still feel him, though, like a burning hole in the
blackness.

“What do you mean?” she asked. But
she already knew.

“Vrulug has arrived.”
A heavy weight descended on her. “Dear Illiana . . .”

“If you must. But he is here. Even
now my old friend launches his first wave against the city.”

“Then I must get out of here!” She
stood and pushed herself away from the wall. She would use her powers if she
must. She had to free herself, however she could.

“That’s why I have come,” he said. “I
hoped you would join me. Together we can watch the sacking of Thiersgald. It
shall be a glorious night.”

“But . . . how can you release me? I’ll
only
fight
you.”

There was no victory in his voice. “There
is nothing you or your priestesses can do, Niara. You are now . . .
irrelevant.”

“What do you mean? How?”

He did not answer. Instead, he held
up something in his right hand. In the fading light of the torch’s embers, the
key shone the color of blood.