Starstone

by Denise M. Main

  “Besides what I've just said – to see how you were – and get your account of what happened in that tavern, to ask for your help in quelling Rainard's aspirations to higher things.”

  “How can I help?”

  “By 'seeing’ what he plans to do next. I know that upsets you. I don't want a protracted forecast, just what he's going to do from day to day. If that's too much, though, I'll understand.”

  There was a long silence before Liath spoke. “I'll look one day ahead at a time for you. And only along Rainard's life-lines,” she said quietly.

  “Thank you, Lee. You may just have saved my land by doing that,” Morgan smiled.

  “Delgannan's too powerful, and you too experienced,” she muttered, repeating Conna's words.

  Chapter 16 – The Approaching Dark

  In the foothills behind Delgannan, a solitary figure sat in deep contemplation, blind to the glorious sunset that flowed across the sky and reflected in the peaceful waters of the sea. With eyes focused on scenes few others could see, she watched the futures unfold. Occasionally she muttered a mild curse, once she spoke words that caused lightning to flicker across the sky and thunder rumble over the mountains. Then as always, she reached the darkness.

  “Goddess, what the hell is that?” she asked, shivering. Then she sighed and rubbed her eyes. For the last two nights her sleep had been even more troubled than before. Something in the darkness had singled her out, was calling to her.

  Something that wanted her life.

  Unused to feeling lonely or afraid, the young seer wrapped herself in an illusion of the Seers' Sanctuary in Thesa, and prayed to the Goddess whom she had neglected of late. It was twilight by the time she had gained a measure of reassurance and calm from the communion, and she frowned in surprise at the gloom that surrounded her. She stood, wincing at stiff muscles, and whistled for her horse. A few moments later it appeared at her side like a shadow; she dodged the stallion's friendly love bite and tightened the girth, then mounted and called up a were-light to guide their way down the hillside.

  “I miss Thesa,” she told the animal as it snorted and tried to eat the small glowing sphere that bobbed close to its head. “I know you're enjoying yourself here; I've seen you with Morgan's mares. Just remember your prime function in life is not to screw yourself silly. I can't stay in Delgannan much longer, which means you've got a long walk ahead of you, so conserve your energy.”

  The black stallion's ears flicked back and forth as he listened to his mistress's voice, but otherwise gave no indication of having heard her warning.

  “Rainard's been here for five days, which, if everything goes to plan, is halfway through his stay. All I have to do is put up with Laelan and make sure I don't lose my temper with the bastard. Seric's not too bad…I don’t like Emmer and Rainard would be quite happy if I dropped down dead. But Laelan makes my skin crawl. Imagine being in bed with him – I think I'd throw up. Or maybe send him through to the wraith world. Now there's a thought..I wonder if I could do that?” she mused. “No, I guess I'd better not. They'll be gone in five days, provided Morgan keeps his pants fastened, although he doesn't seem to be doing much to discourage Emmer. He's spent more time with her than he has with me,” she muttered darkly. “Still, perhaps that's for the best or I'd end up telling him how I feel about him and that would cause all sorts of complications. Goddess, I hated seeing him make love to her! But it's not over yet – and there's something else. We've had the spring rites, yet the land's still...waiting, restless...are you listening to me?”

  The horse made no audible comment and Liath fell silent. When they reached the Great Hall, she left the stallion with a stable boy and entered the hall by way of the healer's entrance, quietly and virtually unnoticed. She helped herself to a cup of wine from a passing servant's tray, asked a couple of questions, then sat on one of the short padded settles in a far corner of the hall. She put the cup down on the small table and rested her head back against the settle's carved top.

  Conna had been out hunting all day with Seric and they were both down in the town drinking with the young lord's friends, the servant had said. Morgan was talking with Rainard and Emmer, and still seemed to be deliberately inviting the sort of response she'd warned him about in her vision. Balin sat close by them with his back to her re-working an old tune on his harp. Avane was with three other members of the council, and Laelan was at the opposite end of the hall with a couple of young men, drinking like there was no tomorrow. Ky was thankfully nowhere to be seen and the rest of the people held no interest for her at all.

  She gazed up at the ceiling and thought back over the futures she'd 'seen, picking out the details pertinent to Morgan's request for her aid.

  So deep in thought was the young priestess, that she failed to notice Laelan making his way up the hall. A moment later, he sat beside her on the settle, small alcoholic cloud drifting down with him. When he spoke, wine and ale had thickened his voice and accent to such a degree it took Liath a little time to adjust to it. Finally she realized what he was suggesting and the terms in which he was describing them. All the while, he edged closer until she was forced up against the settle's wooden arm.

  “Laelan,” she began, determined not to lose her temper, “perhaps you ought to go lay down...”

  “Aye – thas righ’ – an' s'you I wan lay down with,” he mumbled, putting his arm around her shoulders and one hand on her leg.

  “Go take a walk. The fresh – stop that, will you!” she snapped, pushing his hand away.

  A second person joined them, sitting in the deep carved chair at the other side of the table. Liath became acutely aware of him watching her, but the tall northlander's scrutiny was a secondary consideration. Ky suddenly straightened up from his sprawl in the comfortable chair and put one booted foot up on the struts beneath the table top, blue shirted arm across black clad knee. He leaned forward, a half-smile on his tanned face, dim lighting making his blue eyes glow.

  “Islander.”

  His deep soft voice cut through the man's alcoholic haze, and he turned a pair of reddened eyes on the blond.

  “You have all the subtlety and manners of a pig,” Ky stated, smiling coolly as he leaned back in his chair, taking a sip of ale.

  Laelan gazed in dumb surprise as his brain registered what the northlander had said. However, Ky hadn't finished there. “The seer does not want, or need, your uncouth advances, islander. So I suggest you go and find someone else who is willing to suffer them, before she, or I, become sufficiently annoyed to call attention to your ill-mannered behavior.”

  Liath too, stared at the blond, not quite sure she was hearing correctly, or if she was, what insult to herself this was going to end with. Her scan of the futures had not included this evening, an oversight she regretted now.

  Laelan's eyes narrowed, and his hand moved towards the short sword at his left side. “Tha' so, ca'amite...”

  “Try it,” Ky smiled, perfectly relaxed and in control of the situation.

  Liath glanced away for a moment, looking towards the other end of the hall where Rainard sat talking to Morgan. Balin stared back at her, standing now in front of the island lord, blocking this part of the hall from his view. For once, there was no smile on the harper’s lean face.

  She looked back at Laelan. The redhead growled a few choice curses at the arrogant blond, then lurched to his feet and glared hotly at the amazed priestess, then again at Ky. He spun on his heel and marched off with drunken dignity to the nearby side door of the hall.

  Liath looked across at Ky, who smiled coolly back at her. “Why did you do that?” she asked, curious that he'd come to her aid.

  “You seemed incapable of handling him, and someone had to save us all from embarrassment,” he replied. “Besides, I like that family even less than I like you.”

  “I didn't think there was anyone else in the entire world you could like less than me,” she stated, her tone of voice now matching his.

  “Just goes to show
how wrong you are, doesn't it?” he said, standing up, and strolling away from her.

  She watched him go, then drank the wine in one long swallow and took the quiet back stairs to her room, instead of waiting for Conna to return as she had originally planned. When a knock sounded quietly on her door almost half an hour later, she debated ignoring it, thinking the caller may be Laelan. However, curiosity got the better of her and she went to answer the door.

  Balin took time to admire the sight of the slender, long legged girl dressed only in a short night-shift. “May I come in?” he asked finally.

  “Why d'you think I'm holding the door open?” she replied.

  “It's a good job it's me and not Laelan; I don't think Ky would have come to your aid this time,” he commented, stepping inside the room.

  “He only did that to make me feel stupid,” Liath grumbled, closing the door.

  “Probably,” Balin agreed. “You look tired, Lee.”

  “Yeah, I'm not sleeping well. And...” She took a deep breath, which turned into a half-sob. “Oh, Goddess, Bal...I'm frightened. Something's...hunting me. I don't want to die!”

  “What?” he frowned, shocked at the sudden look of fear and panic on Liath's face.

  “Something in that darkness wants to kill me,” she said, eyes filling with tears.

  Balin moved close to her, and wrapped his arms around her trembling body. “Tell me about it, love,” he murmured.

  Liath took another deep breath and blinked back her tears, feeling the warmth and calmness from the harper seep into her. She rested her hand on his chest, fingertips lightly touching the smooth taut skin below his throat where the edges of a tattoo peeped out.

  “Morgan asked me for daily reports on Rainard's plan to overthrow him – where his men would be, what they were going to do, how successful Morgan's counter attack would be. But every time I look the darkness seems to be nearer, and today I felt this...I don't know, presence, sentience...whatever it was...and it was aware of me. As though I'd been singled out, and it intends to kill me. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I know it'll be there, waiting, the next time I see, until its close enough to reach out and touch me!”

  She raised wide, panic-filled eyes to the harper’s, and in the deepening shadows around the room, half-formed shapes of her fear shifted and leaned closer. The fire in the hearth burned low and a dank chill crept into Balin's mind. He did the only thing he could think of at the moment. He kissed her, fighting back the dread she was infusing in him, dredging up his own magic to combat it. Still with his lips on hers, he picked her up, strode swiftly to the far end of the L-shaped room, behind the lattice screen where her bed was.

  Chapter 17 – Midnight Chat

  While the others slept around the banked campfire, Mesar slid from his bedroll, and made his way silently from the camp. It had been getting harder and harder to sleep, the closer they got to Thesa; the opposite of what he had imagined it would be, nearing the protection of the temple city. When he did sleep, Mesar’s dreams were enough to make him wish he’d stayed awake. The blackness ruling his subconscious was alive, peopled with creatures he’d never seen or heard of before – like demons of myth and legend, and other worlds. And the power some of these – beings – had, that was what concerned him.

  But the land knew, too. That was the only one reassuring thing – the power of a whole world had to outweigh that of a handful of creatures no matter how...demonic. Although how that vast power was to be unlocked and utilized, he had no idea at all.

  Halting at the top of the small hills encircling their camp, he gazed out across the moonlit scrubland they’d traversed the last few days. All that moved in the monochrome landscape were night creatures, the only ones supposed to be up and awake at this hour. At least nothing was following them. Not on foot, not natural creatures, anyway.

  He sighed deeply, rested on his staff, and felt almost as old as he looked in illusion. He began to doubt he would ever reach that apparent age himself.

  “You feel them, too?” he asked, a faint breeze teasing the ends of his long silver hair – bringing the scent of cooling earth, grass and wood to his nose – so different to those of his beloved desert.

  There was a quiet rasp of flint-light, the sweet odor of pipe smoke added to the breeze, and a sigh as deep as his own.

  “What is it, Mesar?” Cinbar asked around the narrow pipestem secured between his teeth.

  “The reason we’re travelling north,” the mage replied, saying nothing new.

  “You think the Temple-folk know what it is?” the shape-shifter asked, head wreathed by a thin sinuous spiral of smoke.

  “There’ll be a big problem if they don’t,” Mesar half-joked.

  Cinbar raised his eyebrows in surprise at his old friend’s attitude. The magus only ever joked when the situation was particularly serious. “Is there anything specific you haven’t told us?” the lame man persisted – the feeling of unease within him was like...like...someone poised to step on his tail. Unable to stop himself, the shifter gave a low growl.

  In response, a hush fell over the area closest to them, no almost-heard scuffling in the scrub, no nearly-silent flap of wings, no subliminal scurrying. Mesar cocked a silver eyebrow, straightened his posture and held out his cupped hand. A shimmer hung over it – it showed Anraun’s greatest continent, the one on which they both stood, as small as a child’s fist. And around it was blackness, unrelieved.

  “Does that help?” Mesar enquired, as dryly as the sands of the Singing Plains where he dearly wished he’d remained.

  “No,” Cinbar replied flatly, blowing a mouthful of sweet smoke to obscure Mesar’s illusion. The mage closed his fingers into a fist, ridding his hand of both smoke and the vision. “So it’s a darkness on the edge of – what – all Anraun – or just the bit we happen to be on?” the lame bard continued his questioning. There had to be some reason, no matter how tenuous, for making everyone feel like this, and he for one, wanted a clearer view of it.

  “It’s a darkness on the edge of everything, as far as I can ascertain. I’m no seer, but you know that most of us ‘Temple-folk’ have a little of the sight, and what I have shows that,” he nodded at his empty hand, “everywhere. But nothing else, damn it!”

  Cinbar leaned back from the sudden anger. Mesar did not get angry – ever. Or so the bard had thought. This now, just confirmed his thoughts that perhaps he should have visited his home world a couple of months ago – and stayed there. Even though he couldn’t walk from world to world himself, there were plenty on Anraun who could, and who would, but usually for a price. Which he still didn’t have. Though he still had both legs – even if one was stiff and scarred – and that was due to Mesar.

  “What’s causing it?” the shifter enquired, not really expecting an answer. Mesar just shook his head. “D’you think the High Lord knows?” he persisted. Mesar cocked his head to one side, not having considered any other viewpoint than that of the Temple heads.

  “I’d not given that young man a thought,” he admitted. “I can’t think why he’d be caught up in this. It’s more of a matter for Thesa than Delgannan – at least till we know what is it.”

  “And might that not be a bit too late?” Cinbar muttered, just as the same thing occurred to Mesar.

  Chapter 18 – Nomad Visit

  The following evening, Morgan sat in a deep chair at the foot of the low dais. In front of him was a table with a dish of nuts and dried fruit, and a jug of fine wine. Beside him was Rainard's attractive blue-eyed daughter. Half his attention was on the young woman's pleasant voice as she commented on the skills and knowledge required in statecraft. The other half was on her brother, and his own, facing each other across a game board partway down the hall. There was almost palpable tension between the two, with the cause of it sitting, oddly subdued, on a stool at the same table.

  Morgan knew he shouldn't blame the young seer, but he couldn't help thinking that she had done very little to discourage Laelan, or re
assure Conna that his friendship was not being rejected. He glanced to his right. Balin was sprawled across the three wide steps that led to the carved chair, talking to Ky, who sat on the top one. The harper caught Morgan's glance and raised one silver eyebrow in question.

  “Ask Liath to join us, would you, Bal?”

  While Ky groaned softly at the thought of having to suffer her presence, the harper smiled, then put a thumb and finger at the corners of his mouth and gave an earsplitting whistle. “Lee,” he called into the sudden silence, “our mighty lord and master would like a word with you.”

  “Thank you, slave,” Morgan murmured dryly, then stood and turned to Emmer, “Would you excuse me a moment, lady? Harper,” he called over his shoulder, “play something as beautiful and charming as the Lady Emmer.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” Balin smiled wryly, bowing his head.

  As he began to play, Morgan stepped away to meet Liath, took hold of her arm and steered her to the archway in the corner of the hall. He stopped a little way along the dim corridor that led to the council chamber and leaned his shoulder against the pale stone wall.

  “Can't you keep those two apart?” he asked. “And while you're at it, try to stay away from Laelan, I don't want you getting hurt in any way.”

  “You're the lord of this place, you keep them apart,” she replied, walking a few steps further along to a narrow window.

  “You prefer Laelan's company to Conna's? After what he's done?” Morgan enquired lightly, following her and glancing quickly out of the small window between himself and Liath.

  She turned from the window. “Would you?” she responded.

  “No.”

  “Conn and I know what we're doing,” she shrugged and looked away, seeming unusually distant.

  “What's wrong, Liath?”

  There was a long pause before she answered; when finally she did, her voice was so quiet he had to strain to hear it. “This is your land, Morgan, your line has ruled for hundreds of years. Can't you feel its restlessness?” She half-turned and opened one hand towards him, as though he should place his answer in it for her to hold. He rested his head against the wall and watched her in puzzled silence.