Sorcerer's Moon

by Julian May

  ‘As does Dyfrig Beorbrook himself,’ Deveron said. ‘Nevertheless, he assured me he would never claim the throne if by doing so he would destabilize the Sovereignty. So take heed of Mistress Cray’s excellent advice, Your Grace: let the matter be. Accept the Iron Crown while acknowledging your youth and inexperience, and surround yourself with worthy counselors.’

  ‘Will you serve me, Sir Deveron?’ Corodon asked, not daring to meet the older man’s eyes.

  ‘Of course. And my first service will be to carry you and Brother Bramlow away from this melancholy place.’ He took the Gateway sigil from the owl-case, which now also held Concealer and the Moon Crag rocks, and refastened its chain about his neck. ‘Let us resaddle our horses and mount. I shall transport us with this stone’s magic.’

  As they set about the task, Deveron threw a questioning look at the little Green Woman. ‘Will simple commands given the sigil in our own language now suffice, Eldmama?’

  ‘Try it and find out, Grandson. But I think we can trust the Likeminded not to play ridiculous games as their evil relatives do.’

  A moment later, Cray and Thalassa stood alone.

  The sorceress sighed and retrieved the guttering oil lamp. ‘We should be on our way through the subtle corridor as well, dear. The Source is impatient to be free.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Thalassa Dru cocked her head and frowned. ‘He’ll return to the Sky Realm, of course, to lead the Likeminded in the Conflict that he himself started ages ago. As for those of us here on the Ground…who can say whether he’ll have time to bother with us? His own concerns are so much more important.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Ullanoth, who had once been Conjure-Queen of Moss, waited patiently in Thalassa Dru’s home, situated in the mountains high above Tarnholme. Her natural talent allowed her to scry most of the events unfolding in the world outside the eyrie, and she had shared some of her knowledge with her devoted companion Wix. But when the Salka finally mounted their second invasion, butchering the people of Terminal Bay and Dennech-Cuva, she held back the sad tidings out of compassion for the old man’s feelings.

  She had clearly overseen Conrig’s force as it crossed Frost Pass, only to turn back. His ghastly fate – deserved though it was – wrung her heart and so overwhelmed her with grief that she was forced to escape the sight of it. She had loved him so much, if so wrongly. She would have willingly sacrificed her own life to save him from the prideful trap he’d built, then fallen victim to.

  The choice had been his own, but she knew that she shared his guilt. The years of atonement had never given her the peace she yearned for…

  It was very late and the night sky was clear. She sat before a window in the cozy sitting room, looking out. The incredibly tumultuous auroral display continued overhead, making the snowy landscape almost as bright as day. The celestial clash between the Beaconfolk and the Likeminded had heightened, but she had no way of knowing who was winning or losing. The Source had told her nothing, even though she remembered the sea-hag Dobnelu saying that there was a vital role for her in the New Conflict’s resolution.

  ‘But how could that be?’ Ullanoth sent the question out on the wind with scant hope of receiving an answer. ‘I belong to the Ground and your battle rages in the Sky. I’ve lost most of my uncanny talents, save for windspeaking and scrying. What good can I possibly do you?’

  You would have sacrificed yourself to redeem your lover, Conrig. Is it possible, dear soul, you might also be willing to give up your mortal life to secure peace in the Sky? And for yourself as well?

  ‘Is it you?’ she whispered, lifting her head. Her sense of despondency gave way to faint hope. ‘But your windvoice is different. And…can it be coming from a different place?’

  I’m no longer imprisoned beneath the Ice. The last shackle is broken. I’ve cast off the blind black body they confined me in and returned to my own aspect and my own kind.

  ‘How marvelous!’ she cried. ‘You’re no longer denied the Sky!’

  True. Once again I am attempting with all my power to sever the perverted Linkage between our very different worlds. Long centuries earlier, when I first realized the great sin I had committed, I took upon myself a Salka body so I could create a special tool. Its purpose was to break the Link and close the channels of pain and power. But when I realized that wielding the tool might only worsen an already chaotic situation, I set it aside. The evil Beacons seized it during the Old Conflict. Not long afterward they captured me and chained me beneath the Ice. If I had not submitted willingly to their thrall, they would have extinguished the Light of my defeated colleagues.

  ‘Princess Thalassa told me about this. The tool –’ You knew it as the Unknown Potency when it was one of the Seven Stones of Rothbannon. Now the Salka Master Shaman, Kalawnn, who was the friend of your poor father Linndal, has it. Kalawnn is a most interesting person. Of all the current Salka leaders, he is the only one who has dared to question the morality of the Great Lights’ game. Kalawnn brought the Potency to life but has no notion of its true purpose.

  ‘And what is that?’

  He told her, then asked if she would be willing to carry the Stone of Stones to the appropriate place and conjure it there. This could only be done by a being of the Ground Realm. Even then, there was a small risk that the Link would not be completely severed.

  And you would lose your mortal life, for both the wielding and its venue are deadly to fragile human persons.

  ‘Ah,’ said Ullanoth.

  Do not feel compelled to agree, dear soul. There are others I could call upon: Cray or Thalassa or Deveron Austrey, for instance. But the Green Woman is greatly needed by her own people, and the Conjure-Princess has been chosen to revive the lost kingdom of Moss. As for the wild talent, Snudge –

  ‘I’ll do it. Of course I will! Don’t even think of offering the task to another.’ She spoke resolutely, as though no other course were conceivable.

  Thank you, dear soul.

  ‘There are some difficulties to be overcome. Here I am, snowbound in Tarn, while the Potency is in the possession of a Salka Eminence surrounded by tens of thousands of his fellow-monsters. Even if I can get hold of the stone, how can I take it to its proper place? We can’t endanger Cray or Thalassa by asking them to carry me through subtle corridors, nor can you teach me this form of travel yourself. I was told by them that the learning process takes years of practice.’

  The problems are solvable. Will you wait until I bespeak you again? You have my permission to share what I’ve told you about the Potency with Deveron Austrey. But no one else must know until the time of consummation is at hand.

  ‘Of course.’ She settled back in her chair, and soon realized that the Source had returned to the Conflict. For a while she watched the shifting colors in the Sky. Then Wix poked his head around the doorframe of the sitting room and asked whether she would like her usual solace – a nice cup of tea.

  ‘What a grand idea! And bring one for yourself, my friend. There’s important news, and I’m able to tell you about some of it, at least.’

  Old Baron Ising Bedotha buckled his pack and surveyed the interior of the trading post for the last time through tear-blurred eyes. There was no helping it. He’d already waited for her a whole extra day. The Morass Worms must have taken her. (Any other thought was intolerable!) If she lived, the frightful creatures would bring Casya back, perhaps through the mysterious corridors. But he had to leave this place. His duty was to return to his longtime friendly enemy, Kefalus Vandragora, and report what had happened to his courageous and headstrong granddaughter.

  Ising hoisted the pack and bedroll onto his back. His crossbow was lashed on with special knots that could be undone in a trice. He took up his walking staff, checked that his sword was loose in the scabbard and ready to be drawn swiftly, and left the log cabin. The ground was crunchy with frost beneath his boots as he started down the exiguous trail that eventually led to Black Hare Lake. If the ponds and bogs froze solid
, the return trip would be easier. It was bound to snow before long, but he’d used the extra day of waiting to fashion ‘bear-paw’ snowshoes from strips of reindeer hide and flexible withes. He’d make it out of the Green Morass if his heart didn’t wrack up.

  But Casya…

  ‘Curse it! If that silly chit has got herself killed and eaten by wild beasts I’ll never forgive her. Dragging me away from my nice warm castle! Lying to her honest grandsire. Thinking she could charm Morass Worms into fighting her battles. Queen Casabarela? My arse! She’s just a pigheaded little girl, and I’m a romantic old fool.’

  He trudged on for hours, frightening himself with thoughts of the war that might even now be raging between humanity and the Salka, somewhere down south. Talking out loud to the unheeding spruces and dwarf williows, he wondered what he’d do if his own dilapidated stronghold was attacked by enormous slimy brutes with long tentacles and glass tusks and moonstone amulets that smote you with black magic.

  ‘What would I do?’ he yelled at the louring sky. He was negotiating a frozen bog, very tricky, but he was in no mood to abandon his self-pitying soliloquy. ‘I’d hide under my damned bed like a cowardly old fart, that’s what! And pray for that tyrant Conrig Wincantor to come to the rescue.’

  What a very curious notion. And futile as well, for that Sovereign is dead.

  ‘Eeeah!’ Ising spun about in terror as the unexpected voice spoke behind him. He lost his footing on an icy puddle, his feet went out from under him, and he fell onto his backside.

  The baron saw Queen Casabarela Mallburn standing there, doubled over with mirth. The Morass Worm named Vaelrath, who had only emerged partially from a subtle corridor, gave an impatient hiss.

  ‘You’re back, sweeting!’ he mumbled in happy disbelief. ‘You’re safe.’

  ‘And I’ve brought the dragons,’ Casya said. She took hold of his arm and hauled him upright. She was stronger than she looked.

  Ising’s eyes darted about in bewilderment. ‘Where are they? I only see one. It won’t be much help fighting the ravening Salka horde.’

  The rest of us are waiting, elderly human. No more dithering. Come.

  The Morass Worm never touched him, but Ising Bedotha felt himself flying forward into spinning blackness shot through with crimson sparks. He gave a screech and crashed to the ground again, temporarily stunned. When he came to himself, Casya was kneeling beside him and they were somewhere else.

  He heard her chiding the worm. ‘You didn’t have to be so rough with him.’

  It was vexing, having to hunt him down. He should have stayed at the trading post. At any rate, he’s quite unharmed.

  Ising found himself on an open hillside with the queen and Vaelrath, in a desolate scrubby moorland that looked for all the world like the Great Wold Heath. All around them, as far as his bleary eyes could see, were thousands upon thousands of Morass Worms, their sinuous bodies coiled in a compact manner but with their astonishing great heads held upright and their beautiful emerald eyes lucent in the twilight.

  Casya helped Ising to get up. ‘It’s time for us to meet with the Sovereign of Blenholme and his battle-leaders. Do I look all right?’

  Broken! the Conservator of Wisdom said sadly. The sheer banality of the catastrophe is perhaps enough to break one’s heart as well.

  ‘Not so!’ the Supreme Warrior said with stubborn vehemence. He and Kalawnn were resting in a backwater of the Dennech, conferring on the wind with their Eminent colleagues back in Moss. Two days after the razing of the Didionite citadel, the army was forging eagerly ahead in the river’s mainstream. A gentle rain fell, not too cold. It was perfect weather for Salka.

  Explain yourself Ugusawnn, the First Judge demanded. How can you believe that the loss of Destroyer is anything short of a calamity?

  ‘Allow me to point out that the Great Stone accomplished several crucial military objectives before its demise. Thanks to its sorcery, our army has successfully gained a secure hold on human territory. The channel into Terminal Bay is blocked, so that warships of the Sovereign Navy may not enter and threaten our rear guard. The single important human stronghold that might have served as a center of resistance behind our lines is gone.’

  You have not yet entered a pitched battle with the humans, in which Destroyer could have been the deciding factor, the Conservator said.

  ‘It’s by no means certain how effective the sigil would have been in actual combat conditions. Humans seem to fight in separate groups, Wise One, not in a massive concentration which Destroyer might have targeted. Think how numerous squadrons of warships pounded our home in the Dawntide Isles, beetling about in all directions. It would have required dozens of strikes by the Great Stone to defeat them…True, it’s theoretically possible to reactivate a sigil again and again if its previous owners perish or become too weak from pain-debt. But using the spells in Kalawnn’s book is not a speedy process.’

  There is that, the Judge said. A Destroyer sigil is most effective in limited catastrophic strikes. It’s not a glorified cannon.

  Ugusawnn sensed he had won a convert. ‘Exactly! Now, our valiant warriors are advancing deep into Didion on a two-pronged offensive. The force led by me and Kalawnn is well on its way up the Dennech River. No threat requiring the might of Destroyer stands in our way. Commander Rikalawnn’s army will reach Lake of Shadows tomorrow, at about the same time that our host attains the critical river bend. Patch your broken heart, Wise One! We have a tough fight ahead of us, but victory will be ours. May I remind all Eminences that we were willing to invade the Green Morass without a Destroyer? Our courage, sagacity, and overwhelming numbers will win the day. There’s no reason to be concerned.’

  Kalawnn spoke for the first time. ‘If that’s true, why are the Great Lights still silent? And why is our oversight unable to locate Conrig Wincantor? Furthermore, this morning I detected an anomaly in the fabric of our dissimulation spell. Human adepts may be meddling with it.’

  ‘What does it matter if they can oversee us?’ the Supreme Warrior scoffed. ‘Our advance is now no great secret. Before long, the foe will view us with their own puny eyeballs! Be confident, colleagues. Anticipate triumph. This island will once again belong to us.’

  Caped and hooded against the early morning rain in white leather emblazoned with his nation’s heraldic black bear, Crown Prince Valardus Mallburn reviewed the ranks of his hastily reorganized army. He went afoot, unarmored, striding through the muddy pools of water dotting the rough parade ground, trailed by his senior generals and exuding invincible confidence, as a proper warlord of Didion should. He lavished honest praise upon the battleworthy and skewered sullen or slovenly troops with a blistering glare as his aides made note of offenders. These were not so numerous as they had been a few days earlier.

  Nearly a thousand yeoman infantry of the prince’s force had faded surreptitiously into the dense forest south of Lake of Shadows when word reached camp that the Salka had invaded at Terminal Bay and were charging inland. The much-hailed demobilization had been abruptly cancelled. Not long afterward, a short, testy directive from King Somarus bade Valardus henceforth to follow the leadership of Earl Marshal Parlian Beorbrook without question. This prompted a second wave of midnight flits – mostly amongst horse-soldiers and knights from the lesser baronies, who hated the Sovereignty even more than the Salka.

  Livid with mortification, the Crown Prince had the absconders hunted down by Holt Mallburn’s much-feared Palace Guard. A dozen of the most flagrant miscreants were hanged, cut down alive, and drawn and quartered. Others were dealt a few lashes, deprived of their war-horses, fined two silver marks, and returned to the ranks. But large numbers of men had escaped without a trace, and the Army of Didion had been reduced by another twelve hundred fighters.

  Earl Marshal Parlian Beorbrook reacted to the news with a message of withering contempt.

  So Crown Prince Valardus decided to show the Cathran whoreson a thing or two about Didionite bravery…

  ‘The men
look fit enough, considering,’ he remarked, as he and the generals completed their review and dismissed the parade so the men could eat a quick breakfast. ‘With the warped spears repaired and blades honed to a fresh edge, they’re as ready as they’ll ever be.’

  ‘Some certainly are,’ Duke Kefalus Vandragora said. ‘I’m confident that the commands of timberlords such as myself and the forces of Boarsden, Riptides, and Mallthorpe are ready to meet the foe and acquit themselves with valor. Others are more problematical. I urge you, Highness, to reconsider your decision.’

  The prince beckoned the noble officers to follow him into his tent, where he set about to serve them mulled mead with his own hands. ‘No, Lord Kefalus. My mind is made up. A host of devilish monsters is coming straight at us up the Shadow River. Beorbrook himself admitted they may arrive before his army can reinforce us.’

  ‘A strategic retreat back to the Wold Road makes sense,’ said Fano Boarsden.

  Duke Azarick Dennech-Cuva, even his armor blackened in mourning for his murdered son and mother, disagreed. ‘Should the Salka take control of the lake, they’ll turn it into an underwater stronghold. If we keep them away from the shore until reinforcements arrive, we’ll improve the odds for ultimate victory.’

  ‘Beorbrook all but called us cowards,’ Crown Prince Valardus said in a low, fierce voice. ‘He impugned my own leadership ability. He has spit in Didion’s face, demanding that we fall back rather than mount a holding action against the Salka. Even more damning, his strategy is wrong.’

  ‘Yes!’ said most of the others.

  The prince drained his cup. ‘We march in one hour.’

  The vast encampment surrounding Castle Direwold was in a ferment on the morning after the great meeting. Already shaken by the death of Conrig, many of the Cathran generals had cavilled at the proposal of the tall, imperious girl known as Casya Pretender, believing an alliance with Morass Worms too outrageous to be tenable. Large numbers of the rank and file were even more dubious.