Voyage of the Shadowmoon

by Sean McMullen

  Worthy Deremi and Worthy Trolandic

  Feran studied the figures and dates for the five detonations of Warsovran’s weapon over the past one hundred twenty days. He was intrigued by the fact the fish in the pond had remained uncharred. Appended in more elegant handwriting was the name of a dockside tavern, “Stormhaven,” and the word “dusk.”

  He gazed through the cabin window’s fretwork at the port. Were the fire-circle weapon to be used on Zantrias, the Arrowflight could be sunk with its crew, and with the air in the gigboat they could last as long as six hours. The only drawback was that the schooner needed several minutes to sink, while the weapon could raze the port in mere seconds.

  “On the other hand …” Feran said to himself, then went out onto the deck.

  “Norrieav, I want the, ah, Arrowflight taken through a practice dive drill tomorrow morning,” he announced to the deckswain.

  “Here, sir? In the harbor?”

  “Just the drill, not a full dive. At dawn tomorrow, have the men secure and seal all goods that might spoil, and at, say, the seventh hour, have us standing over deep water with the masts down.”

  “There is a deep spot about a hundred yards straight out from the side of the pier. The big ships use it as a turning basin.”

  “That will do nicely. There we shall hold ready until I order a return to the pier. Nobody will know our secret unless we actually open the underwater sink hatches, and, of course, we shall not do that.”

  “Very good, sir. The worst time to practice is in a real emergency.”

  “Too true, Norrieav, too true.”

  Chapter Two

  VOYAGE TO HELION

  At noon that day Velander was presented with a summons to the outer sanctum, where she was to begin five days of fasting, and then endure the vigil that would see her emerge as a priestess. Although what lay ahead was sure to be taxing, she was comforted by the fact that at least it did not involve men—specifically, sailors, and more specifically, Feran.

  “The Arrowflight will be gone by the time you are ordained,” said Terikel as she brushed and braided Velander’s hair.

  “Good,” Velander said tersely, resenting even the mention of the schooner.

  “I do not understand why you are so hostile toward Feran.”

  “He is a man,” Velander replied flatly. “Every suffering, every torment, every loss in my life, has been caused by men.”

  “Not all men do such deeds.”

  “But all such deeds are done by men!” retorted Velander, annoyed that Terikel was even being sympathetic to Feran’s gender.

  She was her soulmate, after all. Velander had tried to be a sister to Terikel after Elasse had been lost at sea. Now she was on the brink of an ordeal, however, and in need of Terikel’s unreserved support.

  Just before noon Laron was in one of the taverns not far from the temple grounds. This was the more salubrious part of Zantrias, high on the central hill, and with good views and cooling breezes. The vampyre pretended to sip from a pewter goblet, but he was doing no more than wetting his lips. Presently one of the temple guards entered and walked over to his table.

  “May I sit?” asked the guard.

  “No,” Laron replied, glancing up and showing just a hint of fangs.

  The man skipped back a pace, then seemed to gather back his composure. “Er, then, in the name of Druskarl, may I sit?”

  “Garric, is it?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then sit.”

  The guard dragged over a stool and called for ale. When they were alone again Laron jingled a purse that was hidden within his robes.

  “Fifty circars,” said Garric.

  “Forty,” Laron said firmly. “Druskarl has already given you ten.”

  “Fifty or nothing.”

  “Then nothing.”

  “I could denounce you,” the guard warned confidently.

  “Try,” Laron responded smoothly.

  “You’re just a boy.”

  “I am a boy to whom a lot of very important people defer. I am also a boy in search of a somewhat less greedy associate.” Laron stood up. “Now, you must excuse me—”

  “Wait!” said the guard, standing also. “Look, I must be off Torea when Warsovran conquers this place.”

  “I know. This is not the first time you have betrayed a position of trust. That is why you were recommended, and that is why we approached you.”

  “Forty circars will barely cover the voyage to Acrema.”

  “Where you can get work in a mercenary army and start life anew with ten gold circars in your purse. The White Wave sails tonight, just after your shift ends. The shipmaster knows to expect you, and you can be gone before the outcry from my visit begins.”

  Garric’s head sagged, and he put a hand to his face. “Very well, forty circars.”

  Five days of drinking water and eating nothing had left Velander unsteady and weak but feeling strangely self-controlled. At noon she was led into the inner sanctum of the temple by the Examiner, and they meditated together for two hours. The Councilium then entered and subjected her to an intense, aggressive barrage of questions about knowledge theory, verification, and her own personal loyalties. She was run ragged, but did not break. Presently she was left alone to meditate again while the Councilium discussed her candidature.

  Velander could hear the bell at the end of the stone breakwater in the distant harbor, as it rang the change of tide. This was followed by coded rings for shipping movements. Steady Prosper, White Wave, and Bright Leaper had arrived, but there were no departures. Arrowflight was cleared to sail the following afternoon. So, Feran was still there. After the emotional flaying she had received from the Elder, even the Arrowflight’s boatmaster was beginning to seem like good company. Perhaps Terikel and she could go down to the docks and wave him off as priestess and priestess after one last hour of Diomedan language practice. She felt so weak, though, and three miles was a long, long way to walk. On the other hand, Terikel got along well with the young boatmaster, and Terikel was her soulmate. Grudgingly Velander decided she would go to the docks for the sake of Terikel.

  Late in the afternoon Velander was led out to the plaza before the temple, where brushwood had been piled up in a open blackstone hearth shaped like a huge clawed hand. All priestesses and students in the complex had been assembled on the stone steps to watch Velander’s last test begin. Everyone except Terikel, of course, who was in the little Chapel of Vigils farther down the hill. As the sun touched the horizon, trumpets sounded from the steps of the temple’s outer sanctum. Velander lit a torch from the temple’s eternal flame and plunged it into the brushwood. The blaze symbolized the light of knowledge being ignited against the onset of darkness. The brushwood fuel was a reminder that knowledge must be tended closely or it will quickly burn out. If she could endure through the night to stoke the flames until dawn, she would automatically become “Worthy Velander” when the sun cleared the horizon. The watchers filed down from the steps, leaving her alone to her task.

  As the afternoon began to fade into evening, Garric signed Laron in at the temple gate, then led him to the chapel in the Gardens of Contemplation.

  “Careful, there’s a priestess in there,” hissed the guard. “She’s keeping soulmate vigil.”

  Terikel, thought Laron without having to see her face. They kept to the back of the chapel, and the bowed head of the figure at the front did not turn.

  “You know what to do now?” Laron whispered.

  “Sign you out, then declare the grounds clear of visitors for the evening closure.”

  “Good. And after that?”

  “Go to the White Wave just before midnight.”

  “They are expecting you, and they are also expecting forty circars. Now, farewell, and never mention this again.”

  “Look, about the Elder … I—I mean, you’re not going to murder the old bat, are you?”

  “I follow the path of chivalry,” declared Laron.

  “Er,
what does that mean?” asked the guard, scratching nervously at his neck.

  “It means that if all goes well, nobody will be hurt. Now, leave.”

  Once Laron was alone he checked that Terikel’s back was still turned, then began climbing the stone wall of the chapel. Within moments he was amid the roof beams. A gong boomed in the distance. Laron cut the bindings on slats that prevented pigeons from entering, then squeezed through a ventilation gap and out into the lead guttering beyond. In daylight he could have been seen from the ground, but the deep shadows of evening covered his way. He climbed another sheer wall, his fingers clinging where mortals could get no grip.

  The window to the Elder’s chambers was protected by a guard auton, but it was just a primitive casting, designed only to stop any living intruder. Not being alive, Laron had no trouble slipping past it. Fortunately, the Elder was a neat and highly organized type of person. Books stood neatly on shelves, scrolls lurked in a carefully labeled lattice of cells, and behind a solidly built table was a high-backed chair, rather like a throne. Glittering machinery littered the table: pyramids of glass, a slab of slate with petrified ripples imprinted from some ancient sea, at least a dozen spheres of gemstone, crystal, and glass, ungainly lumps of skystone, thin sheets of gold leaf, silver mountings and mechanisms, and cups cut from black glass and crystal.

  What was on the table would have made him rich for several lifetimes, but faintly glowing filaments of alarm and accountant autons were threaded among them. To one side of the table was a heavy silver cover, bound to a silver platter by a separate auton. Laron put a hand down on the table. Immediately the autons there swarmed over his flesh, but soon concluded he was dead. He did not try to take anything. Confused, the autons remained enmeshed around his hand. Now he spoke the words of release, and the guard auton on the silver platter changed from a glowering red to an inoffensive green. With his free hand he lifted the cover.

  Beneath the cover was a complex of mechanisms and autons, and at the top was an oracle sphere, a globe of violet crystal with an oddly metallic sheen. It was about twice the diameter of a fingernail, and rested on a spring balance and within tripod calipers. Both mechanisms were bound to glowing guard autons. This was something his informant had not warned him about.

  Laron took an identical sphere from his tunic, then breathed a glowing tendril of nothingness at the mechanism. The guard autons blazed up at the threat, then began to pulse. There was the life force of something dead here, a contradiction in terms. The autons consulted with each other, verified the contradiction, then decided to recast themselves. In that heartbeat interval while the autons closed down to reset themselves, Laron deftly substituted his own oracle sphere for that of the Elder. His casting collapsed as the autons became active again, and Laron stood absolutely still as they checked the balance and calipers. Nothing was amiss, as far as they could tell. Laron put the sphere away, replaced the silver cover, and unbound its locking auton. Now he slowly raised his other hand from the table. The autons there unbound themselves, continually checking whether anything had been moved or removed. Once his hand was clear, they locked into the auton binding the silver cover. It registered that one authorized access had been made. The table’s accountant autons disagreed. No living being had touched the table or anything on it since the Elder had left. The cover’s guard auton was adamant that one authorized access had been made. The accountant autons conferred, decided the guard auton knew nothing about good accounting practice, and left their records unaltered.

  Relieved but still wary, Laron took the oracle sphere from his tunic and examined it for a moment. Any gemsmith could mimic the appearance, of course, but there were tests that would distinguish empty fakes from those enchanted with … whatever they were. On the Elder’s desk he noticed a small, tapering cup cut from black glass. Glass from the sky, no doubt, he thought to himself. Nearby there would be an eye, an eye of greenstone. Looking around the room, he noticed an ornamental gargoyle supporting a ceiling beam. A single, green cyclops eye stared sightlessly down at him.

  There was no auton guarding the greenstone eye, and it came out of its quill-and-resin mountings easily. It was about the size of a peach. Again he put his hand on the table and again the autons swarmed to investigate it. Very carefully he placed the violet sphere in the concave bottom of the cup of black glass, then breathed in fine tendrils of the life force from someone he had fed upon the night before. He capped the cup with the large greenstone eye.

  A hazy face appeared in the greenstone, the face of a woman with large, dark eyes and framed with greying hair.

  “You can invoke me all you like, Elder,” it declared. “The exchange must go both ways or I shall give you no more secrets.”

  The voice was faint but distinct, and the language was vaguely familiar. Latin, he suddenly realized. Memories of a world with a single moon and no lordworld flooded through his mind.

  “Elemental, can you hear me?” Laron asked in Latin, a language he had not used for seven centuries.

  “Hear you? Yes,” answered the voice. “I say, your Latin has improved a lot—no, you’re new.”

  “Where did you learn Latin?”

  “At school.”

  Ask a stupid question … Laron thought.

  “Can you speak anything else?”

  “Just a little Diomedan. Some witch called the Elder has been teaching me.”

  This made sense. Few in Zantrias could speak Diomedan, the trading language of the Acreman east coast. Thus the Elder had exclusive communication with the trapped elemental. Is that why Terikel is learning Diomedan? he wondered.

  “Elemental, what is your name?”

  “I call myself Penny. Who are you?”

  “Laron,” he responded, then added the name he had not used in centuries. “Laron de Belvaire. I was once like you, inside an oracle sphere. How were you trapped here?”

  “Trapped? I’m n—Er, I don’t know! Can you help me?”

  “Perhaps. I hope so.”

  Laron found himself strangely moved. He had encountered elementals before, but they were nothing like this. Existence within the sphere was not pleasant. A thought came to him. “How many moons has your world?”

  “Moons? There’s only one.”

  “Who is the king of France?”

  “There is no king in France! Remember 1789?”

  Laron blinked. “No king? Are you sure?”

  “France is a republic.”

  Republic. The ancient, ancient word stirred something within Laron’s dead breast. France was now a republic. That seemed impossible, yet … yet it had been six or seven centuries. Anything might happen. Whatever the case, this elemental—no, this woman was from his world. Long, long ago his master had taught him to behave with honor and chivalry toward helpless women in peril, even at the risk of his own life. Well, he no longer had a life to risk, but there was a woman in need of defense here, so by Miral’s rings he was going to behave with honor and chivalry! A truly helpless woman of good breeding and high degree, no doubt, because she knew Latin. Surely some god was smiling upon him.

  “Your image, it’s breaking up and flickering—” Laron said.

  She was gone, but that did not matter. Laron removed the greenstone ball and allowed the remains of his life force to soak back into his fingers. Placing the oracle sphere in a pouch around his neck, he prepared to disentangle his other hand from the table’s autons—then noticed they had collapsed. Vanished. Something had drained them completely, yet they had been both powerful and deadly. Puzzled and wary, he replaced the gargoyle’s eye.

  Laron did not bother to check that the room was as he had found it. Were that not the case, the autons should have been shrieking their alarms by now, and the place would be alive with tendrils of fire that could slice any flesh, living or dead, yet … they all seemed to be drained. The sun was below the horizon as he squeezed through the window and past where the last guard auton should have been. The Elder was going to get a shock when
she next returned.

  Laron’s client eyed the violet oracle sphere with satisfaction as he held it between his fingers, but there was suspicion in his voice.

  “This looks to be genuine,” Kordoban conceded, “but so did the sphere I gave you.”

  “They could well be the same,” agreed Laron.

  “I do have ways of detecting forgeries.”

  “Then use them. I have nothing to hide.”

  “Was this in plain view?”

  “No, there were three gold covers protected by guard autons. Being dead, I could bypass them, and naturally I took the sphere from the cover with the strongest auton.”

  “You—you did?” he asked urgently. “Did you check the others?”

  “No. The auton that was strongest—”

  “Damn you, that might have been part of the decoy!” cried Kordoban. “Why didn’t you check all three?”

  “I had no way of knowing, and the cradles had weight-sensitive mountings keyed to the autons. You only gave me one decoy sphere, remember?”

  Kordoban spoke to an auton guarding what appeared to be just another stone block in the wall. A stone plug began to unscrew, then it floated free of the wall and hung in midair. Kordoban drew out a padded iron box from the hidden chamber, and within this was a smaller version of the cup of black glass the Elder had been using. His greenstone globe was also smaller, and had several flaws and cracks.

  “I shall check this oracle sphere. Wait.”

  Laron was kept only moments before Kordoban looked up from his etheric machine.

  “A fake,” he sighed, tossing the sphere to Laron. “The old fox. Are you sure that you disturbed nothing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you must go back. I shall have two more of these made, and next time you will bring all three of the Elder’s spheres to me.”