Moon Dreams (The Jeremy Moon Trilogy Book 1)

by Brad Strickland

  One of the books recommended a levitation spell as a good test for a beginner. Jeremy, his eyes on another, larger book across the room on his desk, tried the three-stage process: formulation ("Rise, book!"), visualization (he imagined the book floating up to the ceiling and then back down), and realization (he held onto the picture while saying the phrase). He concentrated hard on the volume, a weighty compilation of transformation spells, bound in brown leather. Nothing happened, which didn't surprise him too much. Surely some exhausted student—or librarian!—had used the floating book spell long ago.

  Jeremy tried again, this time creating a rhyming formula. After a few moments of thought, he came up with:

  Heavy tome that daunts the eye,

  In the air, I command you, fly!

  Pretty lame stuff, he thought, but maybe it would do. He went to work again. This time he felt something, a kind of electric tingle, but the book didn't move.

  After ten minutes or so, Jeremy was sure nothing more would happen. He sighed, turned down the lamp, and went to bed. He tried to picture, once again, the book rising. The problem, he decided, was that he really didn't believe in magic. At least not in his own. Oh, he could see the results of Tremien's spells, or Barach's, or Walther's (these people had all the advantages, he thought, of personal cellular phones, and all the disadvantages as well), but Jeremy simply could not believe that he personally could travel to the ends of the earth in the twinkling of an eye, or speak to strangers miles away out of thin air, or make a book fly.

  As the lamp flame burned low, Jeremy lay with his hands behind his head, thinking, incongruously, of automobiles and magic. He didn't really understand what made a car go, but he could drive one—a hell of a lot better than Sebastian, he thought. Magic should be the same way: he should be able to turn on the ignition and go. Except, of course, magic was magic.

  He almost fell asleep, but something roused him. He lay wakeful, listening, straining his nerves to catch it: a sound? Yes, a whisper of a sound, a kind of—

  A flapping.

  A red rim of flame remained on the wick of the lamp.

  He turned the wick up carefully, and the flame grew long and yellow. He sat up in bed just in time for the book to catch him over the left temple. He saw stars and fell sideways—it was a big book. Half in and half out of bed, he found it easier and perhaps more prudent to slide down than to try to scramble back up. From the floor he looked up with considerable caution. The book, spine toward the ceiling, pages dangling, covers flapping, orbited the room like a gigantic frightened bat. “Whoa!” Jeremy cried, to absolutely no effect. The book, if anything, sped up.

  Jeremy stood and tried to catch it on its next circuit. Though the covers were at best inefficient wings, they flapped almost as rapidly as a hummingbird's, and the book was going fast now. It banged painfully off his hands, then careered off, its flight pattern becoming crazed: it crashed into the wall above his desk, swooped under the bed and past him at knee level, cracked a pane of the window, then found its bearings and whizzed around at what would have been about eye level, if he had dared to stand. Though it seemed to lack vertical stability, it gained velocity at every moment.

  The door opened, and the book splatted against it, pages flying loose. After sliding to the floor and leaping up with desperate heaves of its cover, the book took off again, swooping in a blurred series of sine waves. Barach, eyes wide, edged into the room and closed the door. “What have you—agh!”

  The book had caught him a good clip on the shoulder. He dropped to his hands and knees. “My heavens, boy, what did you say to it?”

  Jeremy was too busy trying to evade a kamikaze dive to answer. The book missed him, grazed the floor, and flapped up, shedding more leaves. They flew thick now, trying to achieve flight on their own, revolving around the room as if caught in a whirlwind, and the book seemed thinner by almost half.

  “I just told it to fly!” Jeremy said. “I didn't think that—umpf!” A leaf of the book had plastered itself against his mouth. He ripped it away.

  Barach edged to a window, threw it open. “Think about it flying away into the night,” he said.

  Jeremy tried. The book, which had resumed its whizzing circles, responded almost at once and did indeed go out the window.

  Unfortunately, it did not go through the window Barach had opened. The crash as it burst through the leaded panes was deafening. A flock of loose leaves followed it out in a swirling funnel of white. A couple of them even found their way to the open window. One went up the chimney. Barach shooed out the few that were left, except for one which had risen high up to the rafters and which fluttered back and forth with a rattling rustle. Finally Barach seized the poker from the hearth and managed to snag the leaf. He tossed it out the window, and it whirled away.

  The wizard blew out his breath, ruffling his moustaches. “What book was that?”

  “Hesselvin on Transmutation.”

  “Hmpf. Not a very rare book, fortunately for you. You'll have to replace it, you know.”

  Jeremy gave Barach a shamefaced grin. “I thought that—”

  “Hush.” Barach looked hard at him, whether in anger or estimation Jeremy could not tell. “Some weeks ago I asked you a question. Do you recall it? The one about the man in the dark room and the candle?”

  “I—yes, I remember.”

  “What is the answer?”

  In exasperation Jeremy said, “Oh, if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it, is there any sound?”

  Barach's eyes twinkled. “That,” he said, “is a fair answer. Tomorrow we begin real magic.”

  “We do?”

  “You should see your aura. It's changed tonight. I don't know if you're still immune to magic or not, but you've got a flame around you the size of a giant. No more practicing tonight! You'll get quite enough of that in the next weeks. I think I will enjoy watching you work. It should prove interesting.”

  Barach turned to go, and Jeremy said, “But I didn't really answer the question.”

  The wizard smiled from the doorway. “Like the man in the story, sometimes you have no way of knowing what is what. You simply must make up your mind and try to do something.”

  “That's no answer!”

  “So who said every question has to have an answer?”

  Jeremy turned down the lamp, lay back in bed, and fell asleep grinning.

  But he awoke with a start well before dawn. He got out of bed—the room was icy, what with the broken window, and the stone floor froze his feet—and dressed without bothering to light the lamp. He clattered down the circular stair and through the sleeping palace to Tremien's study.

  Tremien was there, slumped behind his desk. Barach was just turning from the hearth, where he had started a fire.

  “Did you call?” Jeremy asked.

  In a slow voice heavy with grief, Tremien said, “He is indeed becoming a magician. No, Jeremy, we did not call.”

  “But I thought—”

  Barach turned away from the crackling fire. “You felt a cry for help, Jeremy. A movement in the lines of magical power. Not many young magicians are so sensitive.”

  Jeremy looked from Barach to Tremien. Both men were grim and shocked. “What happened?”

  “The Hag,” Barach said. “She has Kelada.”

  “Nul is on his way to report now,” Tremien said. “He will be here any moment.”

  “Kelada—captured?”

  “And by a servant of our enemy,” Barach added. “It is a heavy loss.”

  “We've got to get her back!”

  Tremien glared at him. “Young fool, you do not know what you say! The Hidden Hag is a formidable foe, as steeped in lore as I am, and younger. We have no one to send!”

  “Send me,” Jeremy said.

  A weak voice came from behind him: “Mage, I think you must send him.”

  Jeremy turned. Nul stood there swaying, one orange eye swollen closed, a great gash in his shoulder trickling blood. Barach sta
rted forward, but Jeremy reached the pika first, caught him as he fell. “Nul—”

  A three-fingered hand waved him off. “Must report. Mage Tremien, it is worse than you feared. Shadow-men are strong, strong. Must rescue Kelada.”

  “You need a healer,” Barach said, kneeling beside Nul. “I'll send for Melodia.”

  “Yes,” the pika agreed. “Need her. Need Jeremy. Must face the Hag now—or we lose all.”

  “I'll go,” Jeremy said again.

  Tremien put his hands on his desk and pushed himself up as if he were raising the weight of the world. “I think you may have to. Apprentice—Jeremy—we'll do what we can.” The old wizard closed his eyes. “Dear God in heaven, boy, I am sorry for you.”

  Chapter 9

  Melodia came out of Nul's room exhausted. She embraced Jeremy, put her weight softly against him. “I have missed you.”

  “And I you. Nul—?”

  “Weak, but mending. Exhaustion is his main problem. He will rest a long time now. After that he should be better.” She pushed away from Jeremy, looked up at him with her sea-green eyes, her enchantress's eyes. “What happened?”

  “Tremien doesn't know—or won't tell me. Nul and Kelada were in the country of the Meres, and somehow they were found out. Kelada is prisoner there now.”

  “The Hidden Hag,” Melodia said. “I might have guessed.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Not here,” Melodia said. “Take me back to my room and I'll tell you.” He put his arm around her, and together they descended a stair and crossed into the wing of the palace they had first occupied when Tremien brought them here months ago. Melodia's room was cold, dark, and cheerless. “I guess I wasn't expected,” she said with a wan smile.

  “Let me see what I can do.” Jeremy considered for a while. Then he stared into the indeterminate distance and recited:

  Let this room grow warm,

  Let a good light show.

  From warmth shall come no harm,

  From light but gentle glow.

  Melodia gasped. The room had become lighter, with a soft yellow light, and the air was springlike. Jeremy exhaled. “Good. I had visions of setting the palace afire.”

  “You shouldn't use a spell for something as simple as light and warmth,” Melodia said. “Magic is limited, you know.”

  “That's why soldiers here battle with bows and swords,” Jeremy said. “Magic is too expensive to waste in warfare.”

  “Oh, it is used, when sorcerers are involved. But the spells normally are directed against other magicians. Of course, small magics are used, to direct the flight of an arrow, or to make a sword surer of striking its mark. But defensive ones are used, too, and unless one soldier is much more adept than the other, they cancel each other out.” Melodia had worn a traveling cloak. She removed it and hung it on a wall peg. Underneath she wore the belled green gown that she had worn at their first meeting. She sat with folded hands looking a Jeremy. “You are thinner.”

  “And healthier. But you were going to speak of the Hag.”

  “Yes. You must know about her.”

  Jeremy pulled up a chair. “She is a magician, I gather. How powerful is she?”

  Melodia toyed with a lock of her dark hair. “Very strong. If she were not a renegade, her power would be of mage level at least. But it has turned in dark ways, and her name is one of fear in the north countries. They say that many years ago she was only a country girl with much talent but no training. She grew to adulthood without realizing what lay within her. She was—is—ugly. As a girl she was badly treated because of that. A wizard recognized her potential and began to educate her in the use of magic; at first she cast about her the illusion of great beauty, they say. But a spell of illusion cannot fool its caster, and she saw a different face in the mirror from the one others saw. They say she became obsessed with a transformation spell, to reshape her flesh and make it what she wished to be, but such spells come hard. The changing of living beings is a very great magic, one that only the greatest wizards can use or control. Her failure maddened her. She struck out at the wizard who was her teacher and killed him. They speak of her returning to the farmland where she was born and taking her revenge there too, by disease and disaster. How much is true I don't know. Some must be.

  “At any rate, the farmers fled from the Hag. Wizards from the south, Tremien among them, banded together to drive her out—her power was already so great that they could not destroy her. She fled to the desolate country of the Meres, a broad, swampy valley of little notice or account to anyone else. There she built her palace, by magic they say, and there she broods. Her delight is only in another's woe, her only purpose revenge against all the world for what she is.”

  “And her magic?”

  “They say she raises the dead and makes them her slaves. That is why she spreads death: in doing so, she increases her domain.”

  Jeremy was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “The shadow-riders? Are they dead?”

  “No. They are creatures from the swamps and fens, hidden by her illusions from the eyes of men. But they are mortal. They can be killed.”

  “That's some hope, anyway. You are tired. Sleep now.”

  “Stay with me.”

  “I shouldn't.”

  “Not to—I know that you don't feel—will you sit with me?”

  “Yes,” Jeremy said. “I will do that.”

  He sat in a chair beside the bed as Melodia pulled a blanket over her. The room was not terribly bright, but when Jeremy sought to diminish the light spell he found it hard to do. The light did not obey his commands, and finally he had to use more magic to countermand the first spell altogether. The room grew dark, and Jeremy sat with his heart pounding, his breath shallow, as if from great physical exertion. For some time he sat holding Melodia's warm hand. The sound of her breathing grew regular and deep.

  Jeremy sat in the darkness pondering the Hidden Hag of Illsmere, whose minions were monstrous creatures from the swamp, whose servants were the dead, and he wondered what lay in store for him. He recalled his nightmares of old, the sense of being pursued, the feeling that out there in the dark someone or something waited for him, thirsted for his blood, hungered for his flesh. In the quiet room he felt the old fears again.

  Only this time they were real.

  Barach wouldn't hear of Jeremy's leaving that day, and so he spent the time chafing and worrying. Nul grew stronger as he slept, as Melodia had said he would. Tremien spoke briefly with him toward evening, and told Jeremy that next morning they would learn exactly what had happened. That night Jeremy slept only a little, and he was up and impatient for the sun an ona before dawn.

  After breakfast they gathered in Tremien's study: Barach, Melodia, Jeremy, Tremien, and Nul himself, now looking much more fit. He even gave Jeremy a smile, and Jeremy saw that the tooth was more than halfway in now. “Sorry for bad news,” Nul croaked in a voice still not quite his own.

  “It couldn't be helped,” Tremien said from behind the desk. “Best now that we hear the whole story. Begin at the beginning, please.”

  “Yes, Mage. Kelada and I go to find out about Hidden Hag. We use spell to travel as far as end of Arkhedden Forest; that as close as we dare, lest her magic detect us.

  “There we ask foresters about magics. They say bad things coming out of the Meres; speak of night things that steal children, suck blood. Many moving south, even in winter; hard time they would have of it, but not want to stay.

  “We travel north and west, over hills. Land turn bad; trees all dead, black, no grass underfoot, only mud. No game. We run low on food, turn back to south again until we come to place where trees still grow. This, oh, week's march. Then we hunt, gather food until we have enough. This time go farther west, then north, into valley beside stream. At first stream clear; then water begin to grow cloudy. Finally it stink of dead things, run white like little milk poured in lots of water. We stop drinking.

  “On fifth day, one of shadow-things come
. Very dark day, many clouds. No shadow to see, but Kelada sense thing. It fight her, no see me. I scouting ahead, hear fight, come running, see Kelada fighting air. Kelada hurt a little, cuts on arms, but she use knife. Thing die, then it visible and we can see. It like a man, big, ugly, but not like man, too.” Nul spent some time trying to describe the creature. Listening to him, Jeremy finally decided that the shadow-rider had looked amphibian, with a warty, brownish-green skin, large eyes, no nose, and an enormous mouth; but the most disturbing feature to Tremien was Nul's mention of a third eye.

  “An amulet, you mean?” Tremien asked. “Something shaped like an eye?”

  “Nah, nah. In forehead. Here.” Nul touched his own brow above and between his orange eyes. “Glowed while thing dying. Then go dark. Little round eye, small like berry. Red first, then cloudy brown.”

  “That is not natural,” Tremien said. “I fear some deep magic.”

  Nul shrugged. “We take body, dump him in one of the lakes. Many of them now, ground all soft and marshy. We camp three, four days for Kelada's arm to heal. We have to retreat then. Food low.

  “Weather bad for week, two weeks. We hunt when we can. Finally we cross some mountains, come to wide deep water.”

  “That would be Lankas,” Barach said. “A bay of the sea.”

  “Yes, snowbay. Lots of ice in it, lots of snow then. We cold. We go north to place of men, fishers. Place in Langrola.”

  Barach nodded. “Yes, a fishing town at the northern point of the bay.”

  “We stay there long time. Rest, eat, grow stronger. Talk to people about Hag. They not care—mountains between them and Hag's valley. Only one, two people talk of her. Some have heard that ships come in once, twice a year, have things for her. Strange men come to carry things over mountain passes. They not talk, not eat. People afraid of them.”

  “I don't wonder,” Tremien said. “How long did you stay in Langrola?”