A Rising Moon

A Rising Moon Page 32

by Stephen Leigh

  Savas guided Orla toward the Great-Voice with a hand on her arm. She could feel Sorcha immediately behind her, while Savas’ soldiers spread out in a careful arc in the rear. The Moonshadow’s anamacha remained close to her side, its voices clamoring inside her head.

 

  And another voice, the loudest:

  Orla could feel her stomach churning as they approached the dais. She pressed the key in her hand tightly.

  “So you’re the ceanndraoi now,” Utka began as they halted at the base of the dais. She could see his gaze moving from side to side around her, as if searching for the anamacha he’d undoubtedly been told would also be there. “You control this supposedly powerful Moonshadow that no one else can see. So Greum Red-Hand is dead?”

  “Greum Red-Hand was terribly injured in . . . an accident,” she told him, choosing the words carefully. “When we left Onglse he was still alive, though barely so. By now . . .” She shrugged, the chains linking her hands together clanking with the motion.

  “And you are Orla Paorach, daughter of Meir and Voada Paorach, once the Hand and Hand-wife of Pencraig. According to our records, your father at least was a loyal subject of the emperor and of the lamented Voice Kadir of Pencraig.”

  Orla managed an ironic laugh. “Your version of history is flawed, Great-Voice. You forget that I was there. Yes, I’m the daughter of Meir Paorach, Hand of Pencraig before he died. And I’m also Voada’s daughter, and my mam was brutalized and mistreated after my father’s death by Maki Kadir, former Voice of Pencraig whose death was entirely unlamented by my people. As ceanndraoi, Mam gave Voice Kadir and your predecessor Great-Voice Vadim the justice they both deserved before she fell. As to my family’s supposed loyalty to the emperor . . .” Orla pursed her lips and spat on the marble of the dais’ first step.

  The keep guards at the dais stiffened, fingers tightening around the shafts of their pikes. Utka snorted his derision, though he looked at Savas as if he expected the commander to strike Orla for her insolence. “Impudent child. At least we have Commander Savas to thank for killing the Mad Ceanndraoi Voada and capturing you before you could match your mother’s slaughter and destruction. Your short time as ceanndraoi is now over, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re wrong once more, Great-Voice. I permitted Commander Savas to bring me here so I could offer you an end to the hostilities between Cateni and Mundoa.”

  Utka slapped the arm of his throne with an open hand as he roared with laughter. “You permitted . . .” he sputtered. He grinned in Savas’ direction as if they were sharing a joke. From the corner of her vision, Orla saw Savas smile tight-lipped back at the man. “And what is it you feel you have to offer?”

  “It’s very simple, Great-Voice. We offer continued tribute to the emperor in return for allowing the clans to rule themselves, as we did before you Mundoa came. You and all the Voices will leave your cities and towns and return to Rumeli. In return, gold, silver, and goods will continue to flow across the Barrier Sea to the emperor: payment for our continued freedom.”

  “It’s that simple, is it?” Utka asked, still grinning. Then the grin fell from his face. “You’re wrong, however. Tribute will continue to flow across to Rumeli, because we’ll take whatever we need from the clans. And you, Ceanndraoi? You’ll be just a sad reminder of what happens to those who oppose Emperor Pashtuk and his Great-Voice in Albann: a rotting corpse impaled on the city gates for the ravens to pick clean—but only after we’ve made you scream in agony for every drop of Mundoan blood you’ve spilled. It’s a shame we never had the chance to do the same to your mam.”

  Utka gestured to the guards at the dais. “Take her below. I’ll be down later to deal with her personally.” He chuckled again, shaking his head, his chin waggling in amusement. “You permitted . . .”

  The two guards bowed toward the Great-Voice, then started down the steps toward Orla, who fumbled with the key Savas had given her. It fell, clattering on the tiles. The ringing of the key on the floor sounded impossibly loud in the hall, drawing everyone’s attention; Orla saw Utka’s eyes narrow in sudden suspicion.

  Orla felt more than saw Sorcha rush to her. At the same time she heard the sound of swords being drawn by the soldiers behind her. Someone screamed, and the sycophants near the dais suddenly scattered like roaches in sunlight. “Treachery! Guards!” Utka shouted, rising from his seat as Sorcha twisted her key in the lock of Orla’s chains. Orla let them drop to the ground, opening her arms to call her anamacha to her.

 

  She felt her mam sweeping toward her from the press of draoi in the anamacha, but a shadow fell over them all, hurling aside her mam and the other draoi ghosts. She heard her mother wail as she was tossed. Then Leagsaidh Moonshadow was there before her, a form of swirling storm clouds and lightning.

  Orla mind-shouted to the apparition.

  Leagsaidh Moonshadow gave a twinned laugh, low and high. it said.

  Orla’s world merged with that of Magh da Chèo. She could hear the metallic clash of sword against sword around her, but the sounds were simply distractions to which she could pay no attention. The Moonshadow surged toward her like a vast inchoate wave, laughing and hurling energy toward her almost faster than she could contain it. The power threatened to overcome her, to send her spinning away to be lost forever. Her spell cage was alive with fury, with unfocused and unspecific energy she could take and shape in whatever way she wanted.

  But she knew what the Moonshadow wished her to do. She could feel its yearning and its desires, could hear its double voice whispering in her head, crooning to her. The Moonshadow, its voice twinned with Leagsaidh’s, was as seductive as a lover’s.

  But Orla was shaking her head. That felt wrong. she asked. She pushed the Moonshadow away, though it was like trying to contain a flood with her hands. Instead, she remembered the temple that she’d erected on Onglse with Iomhar’s aid, though she couldn’t call Iomhar to her now with the Moonshadow’s energy burning in her hands. Instead she imagined a smaller but more ornate edifice, with barred windows and no door at all perched on the dais and surrounding Utka: a glorious prison.

  Utka screamed as the wall of white stone appeared around him, and Orla also heard the derision of the Moonshadow.

  she told them, but they only laughed.

  But the Moonshadow receded slightly. Utka was still screaming invectives, and Orla heard the battle around her pause at the same time. She concentrated on taking the energy the Moonshadow was still feeding her, completing the structure around Utka until it was solid, so tall that it nearly reached the vaulted ceiling of the throne chamber and large enough that it dominated the center of the room, minareted as if in mockery of the Mundoan architecture outside. She could see Great-Voice Utka’s face at the nearest window, his ringed fingers wrapped around the cold stone bars as he shook them futilely.

  The effort of creating the edifice and fending off the Moonshadow had cost Orla; it was far more tiring than simply gathering power and releasing it in much the same form, like most war draoi would do. She wanted nothing more than to let her hands drop to her sides, to stop the Moonshadow from tearing power from the Otherworld and forcing it on her.

  But she couldn’t rest yet. She turn
ed back to the room and the struggle between the soldiers and the keep’s guards. There was blood staining the floor tiles and splashed over the armor of the soldiers, and she wanted no more of it. Orla reshaped the energy that the Moonshadow continued to rip from Magh da Chèo, concentrating as she released it as separate, sharply focused bursts of wind that sent the quartet of Utka’s guards and the sycophants who hadn’t left the room tumbling over the tiles to the walls. Savas’ soldiers quickly relieved them of weapons. Orla thought to Leagsaidh Moonshadow.

  They laughed at her, the barrage of sound nearly knocking her over.

  she answered.

 

  The younger soldier Savas had spoken to earlier removed his helm, revealing Eideard’s face staring at her in concern as he stood over the Mundoan guards. “Ceanndraoi?” he asked.

  Bind their hands and feet for now, she wanted to tell him. They’re not to be harmed. But the words couldn’t come. She couldn’t make herself speak. Her mouth opened and shut again. Savas was staring at her, and she wondered at the odd look on his face.

  “Savas!” Great-Voice Utka roared from his new prison, his shrill voice sounding as if it came from some impossible distance, no more important that the shrilling of a mosquito. “You’re a dead man. You hear me? A dead man. You’re all dead!”

  Orla shuddered as frigid darkness enveloped her, the real world dimming so that only Magh da Chèo seemed solid and genuine. The Moonshadow blanketed her, and its voice roared in her head, though Leagsaidh’s voice was now strangely absent. There was only the low, dark rumble of the Moonshadow itself.

  With that the Moonshadow began to tear at Magh da Chèo again, ripping energy from that world and sending it flaring toward her. Orla found her hands, unbidden, creating a new spell cage, moving in a complex pattern she didn’t know and had never been taught. She could sense that Eideard and Savas were calling out to her, but their faces were faint and nearly lost behind the mist of Magh da Chèo, their voices inaudible over the roaring of the Otherworld’s storms. Between her hands there was only blinding, snarling light, so bright that it burned red through her closed eyelids.

  Orla found her own mouth opening, her voice speaking the Moonshadow’s words; it was the voice of a god, so loud that she imagined everyone in Savur clapping hands over ears.

  Part of her rejoiced in the feeling of power that spilled over her. That part of her wanted this as much as the Moonshadow did. She could feel the intense desire, a heat inside her. Still, another part of her protested——and with the denial she felt the presence of her mother rushing forward toward the Moonshadow, like an angry dog attacking a bear threatening her pup. Voada interposed herself between Orla and the Moonshadow, and the two of them roared at the Moonshadow as one:

  The Moonshadow spat defiance, but Orla shouted back at it, her own voice united with her mother’s.

  The Moonshadow growled again, but the creature at the center of the anamacha was no longer taking power from the Otherworld and forcing it onto Orla. The spell cage burned and sizzled, too full already, and Orla knew she couldn’t hold it much longer. Then the presence snarled like a wounded animal as the Moonshadow slid wordlessly back into Magh da Chèo’s eternal night, leaving them alone for the moment.

  The spell cage throbbed between Orla’s hands; the energy trapped inside was blinding. She could sense the power’s desire to be released even as she panted from the exertion of holding it, not knowing the release word. She imagined the spell cage breaking apart, the raw fury of Magh da Chèo rushing over her, reducing her already blistered body to ash and dust. She could feel hands from the outside world grasping at her arms, closing around her waist. Orla gave them only the barest of thoughts, and she felt the hands all release her, flung away from her with faint screams. Her mam spoke again, a single word, and Orla echoed it with the voice of the Otherworld.

  “Pléasc!” Shatter!

  The spell cage burst apart, and the light arrowed out from Orla toward the side wall of the chamber. She was barely able to direct it. She felt the building shudder under the massive impact. Tile and masonry fell in a glassy shower as the energy ripped through the keep, room after room, expanding as it went. When the spell reached the outside wall, it brought down nearly half the keep, tumbling massive marble blocks into the courtyard; men and horses screamed as they were crushed. The spell continued on, sending the stones of the keep’s wall hurtling outward into the Avenue of the Emperor as passersby on foot or in carriages shouted in alarm. Orla felt the spell moving like a tidal force toward the harbor, still expanding and growing, starting to weaken but still tearing down buildings and houses on either side of the wide avenue, the awful roar of it growing fainter with distance.

  And there was more: Orla could feel the lives caught up in the fiery maelstrom she had created. She heard men, women, and children crying out in agony and terror. She felt the cracking of bones and the snapping of spines as their bodies were battered and broken.

  Worst of all, she felt them die: candle flames blown out by a careless, uncaring wind, a wind of her making, though not of her choice. She wanted to collapse, to fall to the tiles in exhaustion, but the residue of the Moonshadow’s presence held her up, every muscle in her body trembling with effort.

  How many? How many more have I killed? She could hear the faint laughter of the Moonshadow as well as the ghosts of the draoi inside crying out.

  Her mam’s voice called to her in fear and sorrow. There was no comfort in her words.

  Orla knew that voice, too: Leagsaidh, now sundered from the Moonshadow.

  said Iomhar, marveling.

  And hand upon hand of others called to her as well: mocking, laughing, praising, chastising, awed, and aghast all at once.

  She could feel the Moonshadow in the darkness, gathering itself again, angry as it pulled at her and tried to insinuate its will into her own once more. Orla could feel the Moonshadow plucking at her hands, readying them to begin weaving a new spell cage, and she fought to remain still.

  she shouted into the Otherworld.

  The Moonshadow’s laughter boomed, a thunder against the Otherworld’s storms.

  Orla screamed again, but she felt her hands start to move, and she couldn’t see her mother at all, lost in the chaos around them. Storm clouds lowered around her; lightning arced. Orla could see the real world fading as she fought against the Moonshadow’s control, forcing herself to hold out trembling arms toward Savas, toward Eideard, toward Sorcha. “Use your weapons,” she pleaded. “Cut off my hands. You have to stop this. You have to stop me. Do it!”

  She wasn’t sure they understood, wasn’t even certain they could still hear her. The world where her friends stood seemed slowed and distant, disconnected. Sorcha shook her head; Eideard only stared, his eyes wide. But finally she
saw Savas nod. He started to move toward her as if through thick water.

  The voice wasn’t hers or the Moonshadow’s. It was . . . Orla wasn’t certain. A woman’s voice . . . no, the voices of two women and a man. And more . . . they said.

 

  Her mam’s voice. In her vision, she could see her mother’s shade standing before her once more, her arms out as if to embrace Orla, and Orla opened her arms in response. Her mother’s taibhse slipped into her, the shock of the connection like that of falling through the ice on a winter pond. She felt the others slipping into her behind Voada: Iomhar, Leagsaidh, all of the other dead draoi inside the anamacha. Her mind was filled with them, and she looked at the Moonshadow and saw it as she’d never seen it before. It was no longer ominous, no longer towering over her in Magh da Chèo like a massive storm front. It was merely another lost taibhse—stronger than any single one of them, yes, but it was only one. Alone.

  Orla spoke the words, and it seemed that the Otherworld shivered with them, all of the voices of the dead draoi within her echoing the thought. The Moonshadow tried to draw itself up, to tear at the storms of Magh da Chèo and hurl the power at her blindly, but Orla raised her hand and slapped the Moonshadow away.

  The Moonshadow cried its denial, but its voice was no louder and no more powerful than any of theirs.

 

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