Sorcerer's Moon

by Julian May

  Doors along the corridor were crashing open and the high-ranking occupants peered out, so befuddled with sleep and disbelief that at first they did little more than gawk and shout. A second guard came around the corner, brandishing a shortsword.

  Maude dropped her varg and scooped up the long-handled halberd. Screaming at the top of her lungs, she ran straight at the warrior, then skidded to her knees in the gore, angling the weapon to enter beneath his mail shirt, and let him impale himself upon the halberd’s pike as though he were a charging boar.

  ‘No, no! For the love of God! Stop!’

  She turned. It was Dyfrig’s voice. Standing paralyzed with horror a dozen ells away, he had recognized her. Another tall youth emerged from a door farther away, wearing only smallclothes. He began edging hesitantly toward her, followed by a second young man in the red robe of the Zeth Brethren. From around the corner, martial shouts announced the approach of more warriors. The sprawled body of the first guard partially blocked the king’s doorway, so he could not shut himself safely inside his chamber. In spite of his wound, Conrig was fumbling at the corpse, trying to drag it out of the way.

  I must finish him, Maude thought in desperation. She drew her dagger and reclaimed her varg blade, but suddenly her boot slipped in the widening pool of blood and she fell heavily to the stones, striking her head. A blaze of white pain blinded her for a moment; then she struggled up, having lost the dagger but not the sword. Moving forward on her knees, with trembling arms, she poised to swing the razor-sharp varg at the neck of the man who had been her husband.

  Conrig crouched behind the dead guardsman. He smiled at her, but his eyes were dark pits of hatred. ‘Can you kill me now, while I’m helpless?’ he taunted her in a low voice. ‘Would your son accept my Iron Crown from the hand of a murderess?’

  She hesitated, aware of someone moving behind her: a jangling of metal links, an intake of breath that was almost a sob.

  The king looked over her shoulder and his smile broadened.

  Prince Corodon ripped the leather sheath from the morningstar he had retrieved, clutched the handle with both hands, and swung the heavy oaken ball on its chain down onto the crown of Maudrayne’s head. Inch-long iron spikes penetrated the chain mail hood and the leather coif beneath, crushing the bones of her skull and the brain within. She was dead before her body struck the stones.

  The Prince Heritor gave a great howl, like an animal. He flung down the weapon, staggered away, and vomited against the opposite wall.

  Triumphant shouts came from the others; but before they could approach, Conrig stood up, taking hold of the morningstar. With his foot he turned over the corpse of his attacker, then struck the dead face again and again with the spiked ball until the features were obliterated. He would not stop until Earl Marshal Parlian and High Sealord Sernin Donorvale laid hold of him and wrenched the weapon away.

  ‘For the love of God, sire!’ the earl marshal cried. ‘Desist! The villain is dead.’

  ‘And now how shall we tell who he was?’ the Tarnian leader said. ‘Parli, he wears your household blazon.’

  ‘But he’s none of mine,’ the old general retorted. ‘I’d swear it. Only members of my staff are housed within the station tonight. All of my knights are outside, sleeping with the troops.’

  Conrig eyed Dyfrig, who stood whitefaced beside his adoptive father. ‘What about you, young Beorbrook?’ the king inquired in an peculiarly incisive tone. ‘Have you any notion who this vile assassin might be?’

  ‘My liege, I can only believe the wretch was some madman,’ the prince said. ‘Who else would dare to attack Your Sovereign Grace in such an abominable manner?’

  ‘Perhaps it was a deranged Didionite,’ Donorvale’s older son, Sealord Simok, suggested. ‘One of those fanatics seeking independence with no thought of the consequences. He might have pretended to be one of the station servants earlier, to gain access to this place, then assumed a knight’s disguise.’ There were grim exclamations of agreement from some of the others standing about.

  ‘But, sire! My lords!’ cried the Captain of the Guard, ‘I can swear on my life that no intruder passed by us and entered this corridor, which is a dead end.’

  The Tarnian Field Commander, Yons Stormchild, said, ‘Well, he got in somehow. What about that door down there?’ Clad only in a linen bedsheet, the hulking battle-leader strode toward the portal in question.

  ‘It’s barred and locked from the inside, my lord,’ the captain called. ‘We checked it out early, before any of you great folk moved in. Hasn’t been opened in donkey’s years.’

  But Stormchild hauled the door wide open. ‘Like hell! It’s been meddled with – and cleverly, too. Bring a torch, one of you.’ In moments, the guards were rushing into the disused wing on the Tarnian’s heels, shouting at what they found. Both of Donorvale’s sons hared off after them.

  Vra-Bramlow had been giving solace to his wretched brother Corodon while Dyfrig hovered near the body of his mother, as blank-faced and detached as a sleepwalker. Now the burly novice gave the Heritor into Dyfrig’s care. ‘Wash the puke and blood off him, Your Grace, dress him warmly, and give him a stiff drink.’ Then he spoke curt orders to two of the remaining guards. The surprised men saluted and began hauling the corpse of their defunct comrade away from the door to the king’s chamber.

  Bramlow then approached the Sovereign. Conrig sagged in the arms of Sealord Sernin and the earl marshal, teeth clenched against his pain and features gone ashen with blood-loss. ‘Sire, you’re in great need of a physician. I’ve presumed to bespeak Vra-Garason, the most discreet healer in your Corps of Alchymists, and the Tarnian Grand Shaman Zolanfel. They’ll be here to minister to your wound in a few minutes. That the bleeding is not more profuse bodes well. It’s probable that none of the large blood vessels were severed.’

  Awareness resurfaced in the king’s glazed eyes. ‘Bram. It’s important that this be hushed up. And…a certain person must not learn of the attempt at assassination.’

  Bramlow knew his father was speaking of Beynor. The novice feared that the Conjure-King had already scried the mêlée; in fact, he was probably windwatching them at this very moment. But Bram was more worried about a different source of potential mischief.

  The earl marshal had raised his eyebrows. ‘A certain person, my liege? Who might that be?’

  ‘The King’s Grace is concerned,’ Bramlow said swiftly, with a covert glance cautioning his father, ‘that if this dead whoreson should indeed be a man of Didion, our Cathran warriors might be incited beyond endurance if this terrible incident became commonly known. Just think what altercations might ensue when Crown Prince Valardus and his army join with that of the earl marshal, at Lake of Shadows.’

  Both Parlian and Sernin grimaced.

  ‘So we must keep this as quiet as possible,’ the novice said. ‘The Grand Shaman and the Brother Alchymist will let it be inferred that His Sovereign Grace took a tumble and wrenched his left shoulder severely. The High King can ride with Zolanfel in his carriage until he’s able to sit a horse.’

  ‘The bodies?’ Conrig said to his son.

  ‘I’ll send these guards for canvas and cord. They and the others can wrap the remains securely, weapons and all, and bury them deep in some remote corner of the station compound. The Captain of the Guard can give it out that the dead warriors were sent back to Boarsden on some mission. I’ll personally see to it that this gory mess is cleaned up. I’ll take care of everything, sire. Depend on me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Conrig said. ‘I will…Parli, Sernin, take me into my room now. God help me, I’ve pissed myself. Help me into some fresh drawers before the doctors come. ‘I won’t have them think me a craven.’

  ‘It’s naught but an inadvertent loss of control, sire, and nothing to do with bravery,’ Bramlow told his father cheerfully. ‘Our bodies sometimes betray us thus when we suffer sudden severe pain. This I learned studying medicine at the Abbey. No one would ever think you craven.’

 
Conrig managed a wry chuckle. ‘Thank you for the small comfort.’

  The tall High Sealord regarded the novice with a bemused eye. ‘What a pity you were born with talent, Prince Bramlow Wincantor. A great pity…’

  The two great lords turned the king about gingerly. But when they would have carried him, he said, ‘I can walk, damn you!’ And he did, with their support.

  Invisible, Deveron Austrey took a spade from the stable. Since both of the station’s gates were now locked, he had no choice but to use the Subtle Gateway sigil to transport himself over the compound wall. The Great Lights vouchsafed the minuscule bit of sorcery with supreme indifference and the penalty was equivalent to that of a stubbed toe.

  It was necessary for him to return to Maudrayne’s makeshift camp on the bank of Rocky Brook to retrieve her necklace and bury the saddlebags and other things she’d left behind. No trace of her presence must remain. Trudging through the starry night beyond the outer limits of the army camp, flushing out the occasional night-roaming wild creature, he bespoke Induna. She woke from sleep in the small chamber they had been allotted and mourned the bleak tidings.

  ‘Poor Dyfrig,’ she said. ‘To see his mother die so horribly before his very eyes and be helpless to save her. But at least he was able to enjoy a brief happy reunion beforehand. In time, it may give him some solace.’

  ‘I confess that I scried the two of them while they conversed, reading their lips. For their own safety, I had to know their plans. Princess Maudrayne told Dyfrig she’d take refuge with the Green Men as I’d proposed, and I was greatly relieved. But alas, she lied. When the prince left her I shifted my wind-scrutiny to the postern gate, thinking I’d have to take her out that way. I only learned what she secretly intended when I felt the death-pang of the first guard. By then it was too late to intervene. Men were swarming about the passages like enraged hornets. And – and I think I harbored a secret hope that Maudrayne might succeed.’

  ‘Oh, Deveron…’

  ‘I know not where my loyalties lie nowadays, Duna. For certain they are not with Conrig! I know why he disfigured Maude’s countenance: if her identity had been discovered, no one could have prevented the news from spreading. The scandal would be too blatant. But the king acted with such ferocity – as though taking vengeance on her beauty! Even Lord Parlian and the High Sealord were appalled. Wounded as Conrig was, those two strong men could hardly restrain him from battering her poor dead face.’

  ‘Do you believe that her identity can remain a secret?’

  ‘When I left the station, the disposal of the corpses was being supervised by the king’s son, Vra-Bramlow, who showed rather unexpected presence of mind at the conclusion of the slaughter. He’s an alchymist-in-training and a damned clever one. I wouldn’t put it past him to scry through the canvas shrouding the princess, seeking clues. He’ll doubtless ascertain her sex, at the least, and the distinctive color of her hair. My guess is that Brother Bramlow will eventually make the correct deduction. Whether he shares that knowledge with anyone else, or uses it against Dyfrig…’

  ‘The prince is your charge, Deveron. Conrig must know why Maude sought his life. What will you do to protect her son from the king’s wrath?’

  ‘I’ve not had time to think it through. But the fact that Dyfrig did nothing to prevent his mother’s death – and indeed cried out for her to cease her attack – may help stay the Sovereign’s hand. I know the temperament of the late Princess Dowager better than you. She was a woman of amazing courage, yet possessed of a fiery pride that could often obliterate common sense. Think how she tried to drown herself and kill her unborn child after signing the bill of divorcement! Conrig knows her impetuous nature. He may decide that Dyfrig deplored her attempt at regicide, rather than colluding in it.’

  ‘We must both watch over the prince with special care, all the same,’ Induna said. ‘It will help that he accompanies Earl Marshal Parlian and the Southern Wing of the army, rather than the king’s own force…Until you return to the station, I intend to oversee his security. My magic is not entirely non-aggressive. I can defend Dyfrig if need be.’

  ‘Peace, dear wife! Scry the prince by all means. And it would be good for us to know Lord Parlian’s reaction to tonight’s terrible events. But the young man can be in no special danger yet. By now, King Conrig will have been rendered senseless by the healers to relieve his pain. And he is the only one who can order the arrest of a prince.’

  Conjure-King Beynor had endured a tedious and uncomfortable ride that day, and when he and the other members of the Corps of Alchymists arrived at Rockyford, he took to his bed immediately after the unsatisfactory evening meal (overdone roast beef, mutton pie, underdone turnips in mushroom sauce, flabby salad, and cheat bread), served in the common room in the company of rowdy and half-drunken noble officers.

  The wind-borne death-cries woke him and a few of the other magickers. Astounded, Beynor lay still on his cot in the cubicle he shared with Garon Curtling – who snored on oblivious – and scried the situation.

  Unlike the aroused Cathran and Tarnian adepts in the dormitorium, he made no effort to approach the scene of the carnage. He had observed that the Royal Guardsmen were fending off curious persons, even nobles and knights, admitting to the corridor only the two healers, who immediately erected a spell of couverture around the Sovereign’s bedroom. But Beynor had already seen Conrig’s wound, and the mutilated body of his would-be assassin. He knew the attacker was a woman but not her identity. While windwatching the ensuing cleanup and disposal of the bodies with fascination, he thought about how he might twist this strange affair to his advantage, but no useful idea came immediately to mind.

  Curiously enough, Prince Dyfrig Beorbrook sat slumped before the fire in the chamber he shared with his father, weeping as though the world had come to an end, while the earl marshal drank far more brandy than was good for a man of his age and cursed endlessly under his breath. Neither made any coherent remark, so their oddly over-wrought reaction to Conrig’s close brush with doom remained unfathomable.

  One other thing caught Beynor’s attention. The windthread of oversight focused on Prince Dyfrig was well-spun and all but imperceptible, but nevertheless the sorcerer perceived it and traced it to its origin: the Tarnian shaman apprentice who was newly attached to Beorbrook’s staff, whom he had seen at supper along with his nondescript master. Neither one of them had attracted his attention àt the time. Beynor undertook a windsearch for the shaman called Haydon, but he was not in any of the station buildings, nor anywhere outside within three leagues of the compound.

  Interesting – especially if the fellow should reappear in the morning! What had he been up to?

  Master Haydon and his assistant would bear close watching. They had been seconded to the earl marshal’s service for some good reason. Certain Tarnians possessed formidable talent, even more powerful than that of Moss’s extinct Glaumerie Guild. Might this Haydon be one of the highly adept? And if so, why was such a one so concerned with Prince Dyfrig?

  Relaxing again in his bed, Beynor returned to his oversight of the young apprentice, observing him for a long time while a feeling of unease grew ever stronger in his gut. In spite of his youth, the lad seemed to possess exceptional windwatching skill. The stronghouse was of massive construction, and to oversee Dyfrig, one had to penetrate several interior walls made of granite blocks –

  Icy Hell! The door to the Tarnian shaman’s room was opening, then closing by itself.

  Thunderstruck, Beynor watched the apprentice break off the surveillance and look up with an expectant smile. The lad rose from the stool where he had been seated. Speaking a single sentence, he extended his arms, embracing thin air, and lifted his pale, fine-featured face in what was obviously a kiss…

  But by then Beynor had lip-read the apprentice’s greeting: Oh, husband, thank God you returned safely, using that treacherous thing.

  Not a lad, but another woman in disguise!

  And one, by God’s Teeth, who
was married to an unscryable man. Beynor had encountered only one such person in all his life – the wild talent, that cursèd spoiler of well-laid schemes, who owned two active moonstone sigils.

  King Conrig’s renegade Royal Intelligencer, Deveron Austrey.

  ‘Coro, you must take this draught of herbs. It’ll calm you far better than ardent spirits and allow you restful sleep.’

  Vra-Bramlow held out the cup of potion he had prepared after returning to the room he shared with the Prince Heritor and finding him maudlin drunk and still guzzling Didionite brandy.

  ‘I see it still,’ his younger brother moaned. ‘Every time I close my eyes, I see and feel it: the awful spray of blood and brains, the sound of his skullbones shattering, that sound. God help me, Bram, I thought I had a warrior’s heart. I have prizes for my swordsmanship! I’ve slain boar and bear and bull-elk with the lance. I wielded the star and mace and war-flail with skill when we rode at quintain, smiting the twirling mannequin. Why, oh why, should I then have disgraced myself by spewing my supper after killing the assassin? I’ll never live this down. They’ll dub me a mollymawk!’

  Bram shook his head in reassurance. He pried the goblet half-filled with devilish plum lifewater from Coro’s fingers and substituted the potion. ‘Very few people will ever know what you did this night. For good reason, Father has commanded that the incident be kept strictly secret. Those whose opinion matters – and that includes His Sovereign Grace – will deem you a hero and attribute your distress to youthful sensitivity. Don’t be surprised if certain important personages approach you in days upcoming, offering to share similar experiences suffered during their first battle-kill. And you were in a battle, Coro. A fight for our father’s life.’