Sorcerer's Moon

by Julian May

  ‘Great Starry Dragon!’ muttered one of the village roughnecks.

  ‘As to why they’d invade at Terminal Bay rather than in Tarn,’ Orrion resumed, ‘it makes sense if you look at a chart. The bay is landlocked and full of shoals. Its human population is fairly small. If the single channel is blocked, the Sovereignty naval forces can’t enter…but the Salka have easy access. If they come ashore in a massive assault, they can go up the rivers and through the wold wetlands faster than any horse can gallop. Even if our army engages them, the amphibians have the advantage because of the poor roads in the region. The only fortress of any size is at Dennech, and it can easily be bypassed.’

  ‘That’s a crock o’ shite!’ someone yelled. ‘We only got this Cathran’s word. He’s tryin’ t’pull a fast one, lord duke!’

  ‘Where’s real proof t’Salka be here?’ Redbeard demanded. ‘Two sprogs what found t’castaways said their ship sank sundown yestereve. They said she were hit by lightnin’. If Salka did t’trick with sorcery, why ain’t we heard of ‘em attackin’ ships and towns in t’bay?’

  A chorus of assenting voices rose.

  Rork smacked his fist on the arm of his gilded chair. ‘Quiet, you poxy lubbers!…Paligus, go fetch the windspeaker. If he’s drunk, sober him up! We’ll find out the truth one way or another.’ One of the retainers dashed out of the room.

  The pirate-lord said to the three villagers, ‘You lot go with Captain Erkitt. He’ll give you your reward for bringing up these hostages. Then go back down to the port. Spread the word along the quay to keep an eye peeled for anything strange out on the water – but no boats are to leave the dock. Anybody sights a Salka or something looking like a giant seal, sound the tocsin bell –’

  Orrion interrupted. ‘And tell all the folk to hasten up here to the castle.’

  ‘Ye mean, run away?’ Redbeard was incredulous. ‘Not fight t’slimy boogers?’ There were scornful mutterings from some of the others.

  ‘Have you ever seen a Salka?’ Orrion asked quietly.

  Silence.

  ‘I have not seen one in the flesh myself,’ the former prince said, ‘but I’ve spoken to certain of our fleet captains who fought them in the Battle of the Dawntide Isles. They are at least twice the height of a man, but many times more bulky. In body form they are rather like seals, with broad flippers instead of legs and two thick tentacles tipped with clawed fingers. They can wriggle along rather quickly on land and they swim faster than any other creature. Their heads are large and set on their shoulders without necks. They have glowing red eyes like saucers and wide mouths that open something like those of frogs. But unlike frogs, they have teeth: crystalline teeth like daggers made of glass. Each tooth is longer than a man’s hand.’

  ‘Futter me blind!’ somebody said.

  Another guffawed. ‘He’s spinnin’ a yarn!’

  ‘Tryin’ t’scare us into lettin’ him go! T’creeturs be but animals!’

  ‘Salka look like beasts out of a nightmare,’ said Orrion. ‘But they are intelligent beings possessed of uncanny talent, like wizards. They can use windspeech and perform many kinds of magic. Even worse, some of them possess moonstone amulets capable of high sorcery. I believe that one of these amulets was used to destroy the Tarnian brig and block the channel leading into this bay.’

  ‘Be that as it may,’ Rork Karum said, ‘we have yet to prove that these monsters threaten us. My magicker will scry the bay. I’ll also have him bespeak the shamans at Tarnholme north of here to see if they’ve heard anything. The Tarnians don’t usually share news with the likes of us, but perhaps they’ll make an exception this time.’

  ‘I ask that you have him bespeak Duchess Margaleva’s wizard first,’ Orrion said. ‘She’ll relay your ransom demand, of course. But also beseech her to inform my royal father of my belief that the Salka are here.’

  ‘Oh, I think I’ll wait awhile before doing that.’ Rork’s face bore a sardonic look. ‘I’ve heard there’s some sort of Cathran army encamped up at Lake of Shadows. We wouldn’t want them nosing around here if your Salka invasion turns out to be Boreal Moonshine, would we?’

  Orrion said nothing.

  Countess Orvada took a step toward the dais, her plump face white with indignation. ‘Do you mean to say, sirrah, that you do not intend to warn the Sovereign that the monsters are here?’

  ‘When I know it for a fact, my lady, I’ll certainly do so. But not until.’ Rork Karum snapped his fingers and a retainer wearing a steward’s chain and keys stepped forward.

  ‘Yes, my lord duke?’

  ‘Andalus, have our guests escorted to comfortable chambers. Let them bathe and don fresh garments. Provide them with food and every comfort. And see that they are kept safe and secure. Very secure.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  Rork said to Orrion, ‘We’ll meet again anon, Your Grace. Do I have your word that you and the ladies won’t abuse my hospitality?’

  ‘You do, God help you – and help us all! For if I am not mistaken, we are all of us doomed by what you have here and now decided.’

  Prince Heritor Corodon was waiting in the keep vestibule of Castle Direwold with the pile of baggage belonging to the royal party when Bramlow returned from the the Sovereign’s rooms. The novice’s downcast manner told his brother all he needed to know.

  ‘Father didn’t believe you,’ Corodon stated, rather than asked.

  Bram shook his head with a dispirited sigh. ‘He insisted that I must have been dreaming about Orry. There’ve been numbers of other wind-reports of the monsters swimming up the Firth of Gayle, and he’s absolutely convinced that’s where the invasion is starting. He told me our navy is closing in, and the fleet admirals believe they can bottle the Salka up in the estuary before they reach the mouth of the Donor River and slaughter them with cannon-fire. The chain barriers are already going up to protect the Tarnian capital and the big naval base at Yelicum.’

  ‘Didn’t you get the shamans to windsearch Terminal Bay?’

  ‘They did it as soon as it was full light – and found nothing. The broken rock spire was there, but Zolanfel said the thing could have collapsed from natural causes.’

  Corodon’s face twisted in a grimace of frustration and he bunched his fists and knocked them against his skull. ‘Curse it – maybe I did imagine Orry’s call! But it seemed so real…His expression brightened. ‘The demons! Couldn’t you consult them again?’

  Bram glanced about in consternation and pulled his brother into an alcove. ‘Shhh!’ A few lords-in-waiting, household knights, and others belonging to the royal entourage were supervising removal of the bags to the stables, but no one seemed to have noticed Coro’s indiscreet words.

  The novice spoke in a whisper. ‘Father commanded me to do that very thing. I had to slip the rocks out of my shirt and pretend they’d been in their leaden casket all along. The moonstones were blinking in a strange manner! Zeth only knows what it means, but I don’t like it. If only Uncle Stergos were still alive –’

  ‘Well, he’s not.’ Corodon’s retort was brusque and more than a little fearful.

  ‘I don’t dare ask advice from any of the others in the Corps of Alchymists,’ Bramlow said. His normal confidence seemed to have evaporated.

  ‘So we’ll do nothing,’ the Prince Heritor decided, ‘at least for the time being.’ He paused. ‘Bram, It certainly looks like snow is on the way. It’s colder than hell outside and I heard some of the men talking about it. Do you know whether Father has used the Weathermaker sigil yet?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Perhaps he intends to wait until he has no other alternative. I know that’s what I’d do.’

  ‘I wonder how much it hurts?’ Coro said hesitantly, meeting his brother’s eyes. ‘You know – to use a Great Stone.’

  ‘Those damned sigils hurt people in more than one way,’ the novice muttered, ‘and bodily pain is probably the least thing Father has to worry about…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Well. They’ll be expecting us at the
High Table for breakfast. Let’s eat.’

  ‘Kalawnn? Can you hear me?’

  The Master Shaman stirred inside the submarine grotto where he had been resting and opened his eyes. Their gleam was feeble in comparison to the slowly pulsing luminescence of the Known Potency, which the Salka sorcerer had temporarily removed from his gizzard and placed on the organism-encrusted rock surface beside him. Destroyer and his minor sigil Scriber, which hung about his neck, blinked in synchrony.

  ‘What is it, Ugusawnn? Have the young reserves finally arrived?’

  ‘Soon, soon, my friend!’ the Supreme Warrior said. ‘They spent last night amongst some lonely islands off a tiny human settlement called Puffin Bay, feeding and recuperating from their last sprint. Their vanguard should be here tomorrow around noontide. I’m debating whether to attack at that time or wait an additional day. I hesitate to say it – but the decision rests with you. Would you feel able to wield Destroyer tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, I believe so. Removing the Potency has hastened my recovery, I think. While I carried it within me, I had a strange feeling that it was exerting a negative influence on me. Never before have I experienced such a sensation.’

  Ugusawnn proffered two enormous golden salmon, freshly killed. ‘Here’s food. This region has an amazing abundance of sea-life.’ He hesitated. ‘Have the Beaconfolk bespoken you concerning this?’

  ‘No, nor have I had the heart to query them. I’ll try tomorrow when I feel better.’ He eyed the small Potency with apprehension. ‘This stone is still an unknown factor, Ugusawnn. There’s so much about it that I don’t understand – its paradoxical abolition of the pain-price was hardly advantageous, since sigils thus treated were then good for only a single use afterwards. Neither our archives nor Rothbannon’s writings mentioned this undesirable effect. And yet the human Beynor seemed to believe that the Potency would be of great benefit to us!’

  ‘Beynor was a liar,’ the Supreme Warrior growled. ‘Untrustworthy. Accurst! But the Lights themselves commanded him to bring the Potency to us, so we dare not dispose of it.’

  The shaman toyed with one of the fish. ‘True. Yet I have decided no longer to carry it within my body. Instead, we’ll encase it safely in gold and chain it to my tentacle wrist.’

  Ugusawnn nodded in approval. ‘An excellent idea. Now eat, my friend. Build up your strength for our great triumph tomorrow.’

  Beynor was more taciturn than usual as he and Garon Curtling shared their morning meal with an assortment of other magickers in a corner of the great hall of Castle Direwold. The Conjure-King had had only two hours of sleep following his failed attempt to lure Deveron Austrey into a conspiracy. He was absorbed in considering his next course of action, and at first he ignored the urgent whispering of the man seated beside him.

  ‘Master? I know I’m not imagining things. Those guards – the ones loitering near the main door of the hall – are keeping us under close surveillance.’

  ‘What?’ When Garon repeated himself, the sorcerer pretended indifference, reaching for another bread-roll and dipping it into his bowl of cheese-and-onion soup.

  But he discovered that the other wizard was quite correct. Six members of the Royal Guard armed with pikes and swords had their eyes locked on the table full of junior alchymists and lower-echelon shamans at which the two of them had been seated by a shifty-eyed servitor. Garon had not seemed to notice his master’s abrupt plunge in status, but Beynor’s stomach had clenched in fury when he was told that a chair at the High Table was unavailable and he would have to eat with the man he regarded as his servant.

  And now Conrig was taking steps to see that the two of them were escorted off the premises and sent packing as soon as they’d broken their fast!

  Beynor swallowed his resentment. It was only to be expected. Deveron Austrey had probably wasted no time passing on a warning, and someone in authority had taken it seriously. The warriors had doubtless been told to be circumspect and not make a scene.

  ‘What do you make of it?’ Garon was still only mildly concerned.

  ‘I think perhaps those warriors are standing by to ensure our safety,’ Beynor prevaricated.

  ‘But who would wish to do us harm, master?’

  As yet, Garon knew nothing of Beynor’s abrupt dismissal. The sorcerer was leery of how his new associate might react to the devastating news and had considered unceremoniously abandoning him. The renegade Brother’s loyalty was by no means wholehearted, and Beynor firmly believed that he who travels alone travels fastest. Still, he’d decided to keep Garon with him for a little while longer. The burly wizard did have his uses.

  If that usefulness ended, it would be easy enough to dispose of him. And only prudent to prepare for the contingency…

  ‘Some persons strongly disapprove of my having given King Conrig the moonstone sigils,’ Beynor explained glibly. ‘To disarm their hostility, His Grace and I have agreed on a temporary change of plans. You and I are riding south this morning, rather than north into Tarn with the Sovereign and his army. I’ve been given a special mission.’

  Garon’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement as he considered what his master had just said. ‘But surely the Sovereign will need you near him now that the sigils are empowered. You said you were indispensable – that he couldn’t wield the stones properly without your help.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Beynor said. ‘But we won’t be gone long. I’ve already instructed His Grace in how to use Weathermaker to fend off snow or other dangerous conditions when he leads the army through Frost Pass. He won’t need the other sigils for days yet.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’ the wizard persisted. ‘What if he tries to experiment with the stones and harms himself? He’s only an untrained amateur, after all.’

  Beynor glowered at him. ‘Are you questioning the Sovereign’s good judgment?’ he hissed. ‘Or mine?’

  ‘No, master.’

  Garon subsided with apparent meekness, asking no more questions, but his aura betrayed his continuing unease as they finished their meal, took their bags to the stable, and finally mounted and left the castle. The squad of Royal Guardsmen watched their departure stolidly, but made no move to follow them across the moat’s drawbridge.

  The Wold Road outside Direwold Village was thronged with riders and pack-trains heading north toward the mountains. Without a word to Garon, Beynor turned his mount in the opposite direction and spurred it to a canter. Having no choice, Garon followed suit. After less than a quarter of an hour, they had the highway all to themselves. Beynor let his horse slow to a walk and beckoned for Garon to ride beside him.

  This part of the Great Wold was a desolate plateau with sparse vegetation, its monotony broken only by the occasional quaking bog or copse of twisted small trees. Overhead, the clouds were low and threatening. Even if Conrig did manage to fend off snow in the mountains with his sigil, it seemed all too likely that the wold country was in for an early taste of winter weather.

  ‘I’m expecting important messages on the wind,’ Beynor said. ‘They will come from a considerable distance, and I must listen for them intently as well as think over my future plans. Please take my lead rein while I cover my head with my hood and concentrate. If anything unexpected happens, break my trance at once.’

  ‘Yes, master.’ The wizard accepted the long strap and urged his horse ahead.

  Garon Curtling brooded over the situation as several hours dragged by. He was not a quick-witted man, but his long years as a subordinate of Chancellor Kilian Blackhorse and his two villainous cronies had honed in Garon a keen instinct for self-preservation. He was now almost certain that the Conjure-King had lied about the purpose of this journey. If all was well between him and the Sovereign, Beynor would be ebullient and charged with his usual boldness; instead, he seemed withdrawn and apprehensive. Furthermore, those guardsmen in the castle hall had not acted like protectors. Their attention had remained totally focused upon him and his master rather than being alert to any external threat –
almost as though the two of them constituted a danger.

  Had something gone terribly wrong with the sigil empowerment ritual last night? Had the Beaconfolk refused after all to bond the moonstones to the Sovereign, just as they had earlier refused to reactivate Kilian’s five minor stones whose power had been drained by the Potency?

  If that’s what happened, Garon thought, then Beynor’s hopes of manipulating Conrig and gaining a position of political power were as dead as those useless sigils. And if the Conjure-King was now an outcast from the Sovereign’s court, he’d already be thinking of how he might cushion his fall from grace. The money and jewels Beynor carried in his saddlebags would help; but the cushion would be even plumper if it were augmented by Garon’s own share of Kilian’s treasure…

  Oh, no you don’t! he said to himself.

  It wouldn’t be done easily, or even safely. But Garon Curtling had long since hatched a plan to save his own skin from the likes of the Conjure-King of Moss. And it was time to put that plan into operation.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Head bowed and hooded, Beynor swayed listlessly in his saddle.

  Good enough. Garon reached down and unstrapped one of his own bags, rummaging deep within it for something he’d kept safe since disposing of Niavar and Cleaton. Yes – it was there, wrapped in a rag inside his wash-kit, the stopper resealed with wax. Garon extracted it and tucked it into an inner pocket of his heavy tunic, then studied the landscape ahead with his windsight. The road was ascending a broad hill, on top of which was a grove of pines and junipers that would provide shelter from the cold.

  A good place to pull off the road and rest, he thought. And brew a nice pot of bearberry tea while he waited for his master to emerge from his trance.

  When he was unable to bespeak Master Shaman Kalawnn at Fenguard Castle, Beynor scried the much-changed old royal seat of Moss as meticulously as he could, hoping to ascertain whether his former Salka mentor was in residence. It was hard work, penetrating stone walls at such a distance, but he persisted with a strength born of desperation. The amiable monster who carried the Known Potency within his craw was his last hope.