Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  Still, Ellynor didn’t believe she could actually write such a note. She had no proof that the Lestra—or Shavell or Darris— read their outgoing mail, but she had often suspected they did. Certainly letters that arrived for them had been opened. The Pale Lady sees all; there are no secrets from her, Shavell had told them all when Astira complained about this practice.

  Well, the Black Mother kept plenty of secrets. That was what she did best.

  There was a letter Ellynor could send that was guaranteed to bring both her father and her brother dashing across the border. My family: I have fallen in love with a man of Gillengaria. . . . That would drive them across the Lireth Mountains in record time. But that was the very last letter she would write.

  If she decided to leave the convent, she would have to do so on her own, in secrecy. But she would have to have a plan in place—somewhere to go, somewhere to take refuge if the guards came after her, as she thought they might. Neft would be the first place they looked. Could she make it all the way to Coravann on her own? Would marlord Heffel take her in? Would he help her get safely back to the sebahta?

  She was not worried about escaping the compound itself. She knew it could be done. Just a few days ago, hadn’t she aided in the escape of that poor, sad creature—marlord Halchon’s wife? There had been such an uproar when it was discovered she was missing, and Ellynor had felt a peculiar satisfaction in knowing she had been the one to send the whole convent into a frenzy. Not quite so helpless as she sometimes felt.

  She hadn’t thought it through, though, before she did it. It had been a cold, sunny afternoon, and the novices were spending the day in the forest “gathering.” That was what they always called it when they streamed out in large, untidy groups and went ranging through the forest for whatever they could find. Most of the younger girls just brought back armloads of wood for the fires. The country girls, the farmers’ daughters, hunted for mushrooms and nuts, knowing what was edible and what was not. The more frivolous ones brought back bouquets of wild flowers—useless but beautiful.

  And this went on all day. They poured through the open convent gates, fanned out through the woods, and returned, laughing and flushed with the exercise. Ellynor loved the “gathering” days—most of them did. They offered welcome breaks from the precise routines of everyday life.

  On her second or third trip through the gates, in company with Rosurie and Astira and a half dozen of her other friends, Ellynor had noticed the marlord’s wife standing to one side, watching them. She had been here for quite some time, this visit, she and her husband and a whole troop of men. The Gisseltess soldiers, of course, stayed mostly in the barracks, and the novices only got a glimpse or two of the Lestra’s fearsome brother. But the small, pale woman had drifted around the compound, clearly at loose ends, looking fragile and lost. On this particular afternoon, she stood near the gates as the novices flitted to and fro, a wistful expression on her face. As if she did not think she would be allowed to set foot outside. As if she had forgotten what freedom felt like.

  On her third trip back in through the gates, her baskets heavy with nuts, Ellynor had casually brushed past the marlady. “We’re going to make one last trip out into the forest,” she said, her voice so low almost no one would have been able to hear it. “Would you like to come with us?”

  The blond woman had looked both pleased and frightened. “Oh—I would—but I shouldn’t.” She glanced over her shoulder where two men in black-and-red livery stood talking with some of the convent soldiers. There to guard the marlady, no doubt.

  “Come with us as we drop all this inside,” Ellynor said. “No one is paying attention. Then just come back out with us as we leave again in a few minutes. It will do you good to get some air and exercise.”

  “Oh—” the marlady said again, still indecisive, but she followed Ellynor and Astira to the kitchen at the back of the convent. And she followed them to the front of the compound again and stood quietly listening while Astira and Lia giggled over something Semmie had said. Not sure such a trick would work in the daylight, Ellynor invoked a little of the Black Mother’s power—oh, very well, call it magic—to make the marlady virtually disappear. When Rosurie and two other girls finally joined them at the gate, Astira said, “Let’s go,” and they all stepped outside. The marlady was in their midst, and no one noticed her. Not the convent guards, not the Gisseltess soldiers, not even the other novices beside whom she paced in utter silence. Clearly, this magic was even more powerful than Ellynor had realized, if it could cloak a grown woman who stood in the direct sun.

  They spread out as they pushed deeper into the woods, the younger girls looking for kindling, Astira and Ellynor more focused on seeds and nuts. The marlady slowed down—fell behind—backed away. Ellynor tried not to watch her. When, twenty minutes later, Ellynor looked around, the marlady was nowhere in sight.

  No one knew when she had gone, or where. Soldiers were sent out that very afternoon, and the next day, and the next, but they never came back with the errant wife. Astira whispered that Lia had overheard a great shouting match between the Lestra and her brother. She had not been able to catch the words, but that he was furious at his wife’s escape there was no doubt.

  Ellynor was pleased rather than sorry. Hopeful that the poor, frightened, exhausted woman had found sanctuary.

  Wondering if she could find haven herself if she decided to run.

  THE night before the dark of the moon, Ellynor was one of the handful of novices chosen to sing the Pale Mother’s praises. They formed the merest sliver of white as they stood in the courtyard and lifted their faces, lifted their voices, mimicking the thin curve of a fading moon. It was cold out, and Lia was shivering, but Ellynor felt the chill night air wrap her in calm and stillness. Almost, her mind was clear. Almost, her heart was serene. The Black Mother seemed much closer than the Silver Lady.

  As midnight struck and the girls turned toward the convent, Shavell stopped Ellynor with a touch. “Stay a minute,” the older woman said, and Ellynor obediently paused and waited until all the other novices were inside.

  “Tomorrow night the Lestra must ride to make an appointment,” Shavell said in an unfriendly voice. “She wishes you to travel with her and guide her on the path. She says you are Dark Moon Daughter and that you will not lose the way.”

  Ah, the hostility came because Shavell was jealous. She hated to see anyone, even Darris, receive a mark of the Lestra’s favor. “Certainly, I am available to serve the Lestra if she needs me,” Ellynor said. “When shall I meet her? And where?”

  “In the courtyard. Shortly after the sun goes down. It is a trip best undertaken at night.”

  Any trip made under cover of darkness was bound to be illicit to some degree, Ellynor thought with some disquiet. In the Lirrens, men rode to war at night, or carried out raids against a hated sebahta. Rarely did someone ride at night to bring happy news.

  “I’ll be here.”

  “You may be excused from your afternoon duties,” Shavell said grudgingly. “You will be riding long hours. Sleep in the afternoon while you can.”

  “I will.”

  Accordingly, the following night, Ellynor arrived in the courtyard rested, fed, and dressed for travel. In the last instance, that meant wearing a long, dark cloak over her white novice robes. If they were traveling at night, surely the Lestra would not particularly want them to be seen.

  There were already a dozen soldiers milling around just inside the gate, mounted on dark horses. A young recruit was holding the bridles of three additional animals. One was the Lestra’s own stallion, a large, nervous beast, coal-black and magnificent. The others were just horses from the stables, but also sporting dark coats and accoutrements that were innocent of bright ornamentation. This was a party designed to move through the night without drawing any undue attention.

  A minute later, the Lestra and Shavell joined them, and the soldiers scrambled to help the three women into their saddles. No one had said anything to El
lynor, and no one said much now. “Ride out,” the lead guard called in a quiet voice, and the gates were swung open. The party trotted out into the forest, into the night.

  For the first hour of the journey, Ellynor was wholly ignored, riding somewhere in the center of the group. Shavell and the Lestra were in the lead, preceded only by two guards who seemed to be guiding them out of the forest. They took a path Ellynor did not know, for it didn’t lead west toward Neft or east toward Coravann, the way she and Rosurie had come. Winding their way north, they eventually broke free of the overgrown trees. They intersected some road that looked like a major thoroughfare, but only stayed on it for a mile or two, before turning off on a twisty, poorly marked path that would be hard to find if you didn’t know what you were looking for.

  After an hour of cautious travel down this road, the whole party came to a stop. Ellynor watched a brief consultation between the Lestra and the lead soldier and was not surprised when Shavell suddenly turned and called her name. She nudged her horse forward to join the knot of people at the head of the group.

  “Now is when we need your help, Dark Moon Daughter,” the Lestra said in an encouraging voice. “The way is obscured, but the prize at the end is very great. Can you show us how to go? Can you follow the path even though the Silver Lady shuts her eyes?”

  Ellynor’s heart was pounding so hard it was difficult to speak. What lay at the end of this road? “I can,” she said. “The Great Mother guides me.”

  The lead soldier pointed somewhere toward the northeast. “There’s a path here, but I can’t find it. We need to follow that another five miles.”

  Ellynor cast her eyes in the direction he indicated. Yes, she could see what he was seeking, a rough track that looped through a rocky valley and then lost itself in a stand of starved trees. “I see it,” she said, her voice so quiet it was possible none of them heard her. “Follow me.”

  She turned her horse down the rocky path and slowly led them forward.

  It took them nearly two hours to make their way across the valley, into the thin woods and along the unmarked trail toward their destination, whatever it was. Ellynor had no problem seeing the route they were supposed to take, but it was heavily overgrown, not often traveled, and littered with hazards. Dread also weighted her limbs. She could not come up with any good reason the Lestra needed to make this pilgrimage in the middle of the night under a blank new moon. It occurred to her, once or twice, to pull on the reins and shake her head, claim that she could not follow the track any farther, say that her vision failed. But then she would give herself a little scold. Don’t be ridiculous! The Lestra is meeting some friend or counselor, someone you do not know who is much wiser than you. The Lestra lives by nighttime, as do you, as does your goddess. There is nothing to fear. Keep going forward.

  It was somewhere around midnight when the trail ended abruptly in front of a tiny cottage in a shallow valley stubbled with small, bare bushes. The cottage was dark; no scent of burning wood escaped from the shuttered windows or thatched roof. No one home, Ellynor thought with relief.

  Nonetheless, she expected the Lestra to ride up to the door and pound on it, demanding admittance. She did not. Instead, she nodded at the soldiers and reined her horse aside as if to get out of the way. Shavell followed her. Ellynor, not knowing what else to do, pulled her mount up beside theirs.

  There was a flash of fire, brilliant in the utter blackness, and then a moment of waiting. Then the fire grew, passed from hand to hand, and Ellynor saw that the men of their party were ringing the cottage, and each of them held a torch. “Now!” the lead guard called, and, as one, the men spurred their horses closer to the cottage and touched their brands to the outer walls. In a few places, the wood was wet or stubborn and did not catch, but within minutes, small blazes had taken hold in a dozen or so spots along the bare wood.

  “No!” Ellynor cried, and felt her fingers tighten on her reins as if she would ride forward and blow out the fire with her own breath.

  Shavell stopped her with a hand on her arm. “No one is home,” the older Daughter said in a chilly voice. “Don’t be alarmed.”

  “But—but—this is someone’s house! Why should it be burned? Shavell, why are we here?”

  “Calm yourself,” Shavell said icily, glancing over at the Lestra. The other woman appeared not to be aware of their voices at all. She was gazing fixedly at the leaping flames, her expression engrossed but wholly at peace. “It is the will of the goddess.”

  Ellynor swallowed and tried to compose herself, but she felt her hands shaking. Why travel through the night to destroy someone’s home? What was the point? Who was supposed to receive what message from such a vengeful act?

  And then the night was rent with an awful scream of terror, rage, and pain. Ellynor felt her whole body slivered with horror. Someone was inside! Someone was burning to death inside the cottage! She clutched Shavell’s arm so hard the older Daughter hissed in pain.

  “Shavell! Someone’s in the house! It sounds like a woman! Look, I see a face at the window—Shavell! They must save her! She will die!”

  Shavell shook her hand free and slapped Ellynor hard across the cheek. Her low voice was cold with fury as she replied, “The house burns as it was meant to burn.”

  Ellynor stared at her, and she thought her own body would go up in flames. Again, a shriek from the cottage—another one. The soldiers had pulled their horses back far enough to keep themselves from being singed, but they were close enough to stop anyone who tried to run from the blazing building.

  “You said there was no one inside,” Ellynor whispered.

  Shavell shrugged. “No one inside but mystics.”

  THERE were times Ellynor truly did not think she would survive the night. Shavell’s words had almost caused her to faint out of the saddle, and black spots peppered her vision, making it impossible to see. The acrid smell of smoke, the continuing shrieks of terror—the sudden cessation of screaming as a roof beam crashed into the burning house—all this combined to make Ellynor so sick she leaned over and vomited past her shoe. Twice. A third time. Nothing more came up but she stayed bent over the pommel for another ten minutes, unable to move.

  In a way, it was worse when the screaming stopped; in a way, it was a relief. Dead now, or senseless, the woman inside the cottage. Gathered up in the Black Mother’s gentle embrace. Still, the soldiers kept their vigilant circle around the house, waiting to see if this was perhaps a trick, if the woman was even now gathering her strength for a quick dash toward freedom.

  It took forever for the house to burn low enough that the guards could bank the fire and be reasonably sure it wouldn’t spread to the shrubbery in the field. A few of them were even digging a shallow firebreak to keep the blaze contained. No one seemed impatient to go. The men were all either working or watching. Shavell and the Lestra gazed at the dying flames with a sort of absorbed rapture, as if they represented a mysterious beauty of rare and divine splendor.

  Ellynor sat the whole time curled in the saddle, turned into a single compact lump of pain. When the Lestra finally sighed and clucked to her horse, Ellynor was not sure she’d be able to straighten up and resume riding. The fidgety stallion had tossed his head and danced around a little while they waited, but all in all he had behaved remarkably well for such a high-spirited beast.

  He must be used to nights such as this, Ellynor thought.

  “We should be getting back,” the Lestra said, and though her voice was quiet, all the soldiers heard her. They tugged on their own reins and fell into formation behind the women, and then, for a moment, no one moved.

  Ellynor gradually became aware that everyone was looking in her direction. “Dark Moon Daughter?” the Lestra asked in a kind voice. “Are you up to directing us back to the main road? This has been a long night for you, I know, and you are not comfortable with the Silver Lady’s swift justice. But you must harden your heart. You must remember that those who practice magic have put themselves outside the
Pale Mother’s grace. You must understand that mystics are abominations. They must be destroyed wherever they are found.”