Sorcerer's Moon

by Julian May

  I am informed that you have achieved your twentieth year and a man’s estate, and have earned knighthood, and are esteemed by your adoptive parents and all who are close to you. It is time for you to know the truth about your heritage and decide how it may shape your destiny in years to come.

  You are indeed the legitimate first-born son of Conrig Wincantor, Sovereign of Blenholme, by virtue of Cathran law. I was ever faithful to my royal husband, even though he betrayed me with another woman and has encouraged rumors vilifying my honor. He did not know that I carried his child when he divorced me for expedient reasons of state. My heart was so wrung with anger and grief at his earlier betrayal of me with Conjure-Queen Ullanoth and his subsequent willingness to set me aside so he could marry the Didionite princess that I withheld information of my pregnancy from him. Sinfully, I attempted to end both my life and your own by casting myself into the sea.

  When my friend, the Grand Shaman Ansel Pikan, rescued me and took me away to Tarn, I was at first grateful. You were born in the isolated steading of a sea-hag called Dobnelu, whom you perhaps remember kindly. She and Ansel were both servants of a supernatural being called the Source of the Old Conflict or the One Denied the Sky. It was some years before I discovered that the loyalty of these so-called friends was first to this inhuman creature and only second to you and me.

  High King Conrig learned of my survival and of your own existence. He sought to kill us because of the threat we posed to his heirs by Risalla of Didion – and for another reason, which I shall disclose to you anon. But the assassin he sent, one Deveron Austrey, who was the Royal Intelligencer, proved too virtuous and compassionate a man to do the king’s bloody work. Instead he engineered what he thought would be a compromise that would save both our lives. I was to live quietly in Tarn, and you would be adopted by Earl Marshal Parlian Beorbrook as a putative royal bastard of mine. The king accepted, then broke this agreement, secretly sending Tinnis Catclaw, Constable of the Realm, to kill me with poison and feign my suicide.

  This Lord Tinnis, for a mercy, was one who had long loved me hopelessly from afar. After I pledged to keep silent and remain his secret captive and leman so long as I would live, he falsified my death. I was transported to a hunting lodge of his called Gentian Fell, situated high in the Dextral Mountains, some thirty leagues east of Beorbrook Hold. Here I have abided anonymously for sixteen years, together with my dear friend Rusgann Moorcock, who was once my personal maidservant. She will, I pray the God of the Heights and Depths, place this letter in your hand.

  Make no mistake: Tinnis has been as devoted and lavish a captor as any poor prisoner could hope for. My quarters are elegant and comfortable, for all that they are in a remote place. I have the best food and drink, books and music. During the calm moons of summer and autumn, before winter snows close the mountain tracks for weeks at a time, a few trusted female relatives of the Lord Constable visit me with their young children and vouchsafe the mysterious ‘Lady Mayda’ diversion and educated companionship. Under guard, I am allowed to walk the alpine meadows and even go a-hawking, a diversion close to my heart.

  I freely confess that four or five times a year, for short periods, Tinnis Catclaw himself is here in residence and shares my bed. He is a kindly man in his way, ever gentle with me, and I have a lonely woman’s needs which you, my dear son, will one day understand and forgive. I thus fulfill my part of the pact I made with Lord Tinnis in exchange for my life.

  The Salka invasion in Didion has made it impossible for him to make his customary visits this summer, since he must attend the ongoing Council of War at Boarsden. The consequent lapse of discipline among my guards here emboldened me to contrive a plan for Rusgann’s escape and, I pray, her transport of this letter to you. She will first seek you in Beorbrook Hold amongst your foster family, where I pray she may find you, since the journey is not long. If you are not there she will proceed to Boarsden Castle.

  Now I will attempt to explain the darker reasons for Conrig’s enmity towards you and me.

  Dyfrig, my son, we live in a world awash with sorcery. High Blenholme Island is no mundane human habitat as is the Southern Continent. Before Emperor Bazekoy dared to subdue it, this land was a domain of inhuman entities that fought viciously amongst themselves, using every manner of magic. The most abundant race, the Salka monsters, were linked in an unholy symbiosis with the Beaconfolk, those Great Lights of the Sky Realm, who channeled uncanny power to the ferocious amphibians through moonstone amulets.

  After Bazekoy’s conquest and banishment of the Salka, which I have been told was accomplished while the Beaconfolk were distracted by quarreling amongst themselves, certain human settlers dared to mate with the Green Men of Blenholme, a race of very small nonhuman people, secretive and dangerous, who have large emerald eyes but otherwise resemble us closely. Like the other prehistoric island dwellers, the Green Ones possess inborn magical abilities. These they pass on to their parthuman descendants, even through many generations.

  I do not have to explain to you the longstanding Cathran mistrust of magical ‘talent’. It dates to Bazekoy’s day and reflects his justified fear and antipathy toward the Beaconfolk sorcery used by the Salka as a weapon. The Didionites share a similar ambivalent attitude toward magickers, but the other two human nations of Blenholme are more broad-minded. In Tarn, the talented shaman-healers opted to focus their uncanny powers on activities that were mostly worthy and helpful. The land of Moss was a more sinister kettle of fish – a hotbed of malicious wizards who oppressed their untalented human fellows mercilessly until the celebrated Rothbannon whipped them into line and established the Conjure-Kingdom.

  Moss retained a sizable population of Salka who largely shunned mankind. Rothbannon chose to live peaceably with the monsters rather than oppress them. He even became friendly with the Salka of the Dawntide Isles. After a time, the creatures so trusted this stern but scrupulously fair human ruler that they unwisely handed over to him their most cherished relics – a set of inactive moonstone amulets or sigils that became known as the Seven Stones of Rothbannon. These things were nothing less than physical channels of Beaconfolk sorcery. They gave tremendous power to the human user at the price of pain – and sometimes his very soul.

  I do not have to reiterate the depressing history of Rothbannon’s descendants. They lacked his prudence and wielded the sigils in ways that often called down the wrath of the Lights. Your natural father’s paramour, Conjure-Queen Ullanoth, used moonstones to aid the establishment of the Sovereignty and further her own lust. The accusations made by Didion and by Cathra’s Lords of the South against Conrig and Ullanoth are shamefully true: the union of High Blenholme was built upon a foundation of unholy magic and adultery.

  This was made possible by the fact that Conrig himself has inherited a small and nearly indetectable portion of magical talent, which gave him a fatal affinity with the beautiful Mossland witch. Even more dire, Conrig holds his Iron Crown under false pretenses: by law, no talented man may be Cathra’s king.

  You, my dearest son, have no stain of talent whatsoever. I was assured of this by both Ansel Pikan and the sea-hag Dobnelu. Thus you are the rightful Sovereign of Blenholme, and no one – human or inhuman – may deny you’ your heritage…if you should choose to take it up.

  There is one credible witness who may attest to your freedom from talent and to Conrig’s attainting. He is the same Deveron Austrey who resigned from his post as Royal Intelligencer after his conscience was sickened by Conrig’s treatment of me. I am told that he was convicted of treason but escaped to the Continent, where he has lived in obscurity for long years. Whether you seek him out and use his testimony to your advantage is up to you.

  My beloved child, your future is in your own hands. If some day you ascend to the throne of Cathra and I still live, I hope we may be united on this earth. If this is not to be, I look forward to our eventual reunion in paradise and assure you of my prayers.

  I am your mother,

  MAUDRAYNE
, Princess Dowager of Cathra

  She sanded the parchment, took scissors and trimmed the sheet to its smallest possible compass, folded it, and sealed it with three tiny drops of unstamped wax. It was now a thing scarcely an inch square.

  From her jewel case, filled with valuable baubles bestowed upon her by Tinnis Catclaw, she took a flat golden locket just large enough to contain the letter. Her desk yielded a small tin of cement, a sticky substance that dried hard and waterproof, used by the lodge’s guards to refasten loose fletching on their arrows. She had begged it from one of the kinder men, saying she wished to use it in binding a book. But instead, she carefully daubed a thin line of the black stuff around the edge of the locket, sealing it shut. No harm would come to the letter now, no matter how wet its messenger became.

  Rusgann would decide where to hide the locket on her person when they met at breakfast and completed plans for the escape.

  Maudrayne snuffed the candle on the desk and slowly rose. The only light now came from a low-burning oil lamp on a night-table beside her tester bed. Outside, the wind moaned and sleet rattled faintly against the heavily shuttered windows.

  She began to disrobe for bed, standing before a long pier glass. The doughty noblewomen of Tarn scorned the hovering bodyservants of more effete southern ladies, and she was accustomed to deal with her own garments and hairdressing except when some special occasion necessitated elaborate attire.

  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.

  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 windvoice 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 e
nemies, 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.