Voyage of the Shadowmoon

by Sean McMullen

  Laron rubbed at his head for a moment. “I see. Well, Druskarl, the Worthy Sister and I have much to discuss. Be so good as to pack, then report to the Shadowmoon tomorrow morning.”

  When Druskarl was gone, Laron’s control weakened.

  “I want that silver band!” he declared sharply, leaning over the table.

  His eyes were bulging, and even his fangs were visible. Terikel flinched back.

  “Your prospects are not good,” she pointed out. “Those are very powerful autons.”

  “Do you know their keywords?”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she drummed her fingers on the table. “What is it worth to you?”

  “What is your price?”

  “In spite of what Velander and Serionese have done to me, I remain deeply committed to the Metrologan Order. I want to save it from the fools who have seized control, I want to prevent more deaths among its members. I want it to be great again. Can you restore me as Elder, Laron? Undisputed Elder?”

  Laron pressed his lips together and closed his eyes. After a time he opened them again and stared at Terikel. It was an unsettling stare, but one of a predator warily facing off with another predator.

  “I cannot make you Elder …” he said, smiling and folding his arms.

  Terikel held his gaze. “But I have a feeling that you can help.”

  “Oh yes.”

  Terikel studied the crate in the lamplight as Velander looked on. After some moments she took a splinter of wood and prodded it at the opening. A glowing tendril wrapped around it at once, snapping it to leave a smoking stump in her fingers.

  “I thought you spoke the correct keywords to these autons just now, while Serionese was still here,” said Velander.

  “I lied.”

  Nobody had been more surprised than Velander when Terikel had volunteered to unpack the crates. She said that she did not want to see any more Metrologans die because of Serionese’s orders. That much was true. A crate had been carried into the ground level of an old tower, then Serionese had prudently left before they got down to the really serious work.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Velander.

  “Precious and sensitive records are obviously in here, hence the strength of the autons. I imagine there are other autons to destroy the crates if anyone gets past the warning traps.”

  “We bought that knowledge with two lives. Now what?”

  Terikel breathed a streamer of ether into her cupped hands and whispered an incantation to it. The orange wisp enmeshed the seal ring on her finger. As she stretched her hand toward the opening, Velander gasped in alarm, but Terikel waved her away with her other hand. Her hand entered the space and a loop snapped into being around her wrist, all crackling orange fire and reeking ozone. It was hot and tingling against her skin, but it did not slice off her hand. Other tendrils of deep green danced about her ring, then dissipated.

  “I seem to have passed a test,” Terikel breathed, with considerable relief.

  “I’m impressed,” Velander admitted as she watched.

  “A senior priestess loaned me her ring so that I could pass the gate auton to spend the night with Feran. She did not realize she had loaned me the ring, but that is all quite academic now, is it not?”

  Very cautiously Terikel removed five almanacs and as many books of tables from the crate. A file with the Elder’s crest stamped on it caused the glowing orange loop about her wrist to tighten painfully as she tried to remove it. She gasped with fright and dropped the sheaf of papers, which spilled within the space in the crate. Peering in, Terikel could make out part of a report on the Vidarian court sorcerer. Slowly, slowly, she reached down and removed it from the folder, keeping it within the crate. The guard auton did not give another warning squeeze.

  “So, ‘Reference Only,’” she concluded.

  “Sorry?”

  “Some items cannot be removed from the crate, but they can be handled and read within the crate.”

  “This does not make sense. Why take the thing out, if not to read?”

  “The guard autons have been cast clumsily. They were probably fashioned in a hurry.”

  It took an hour for Terikel to go through the crate, removing what she could and glancing over what was left. It was carried out, and another brought in. The third and fourth crates contained nothing noteworthy, but the fifth contained a few artifacts. The silver circlet inscribed with archaic writing could not be removed from the crate.

  “It feels … odd, powerful,” said Terikel as she turned it over in her fingers. “It would suit me, do you not think so?”

  “It belongs to the Order,” Velander pointed out, sternly.

  “Just as I belong to the Order,” Terikel retorted. “Besides, it cannot be removed from the crate.”

  “What is it to you, anyway?”

  “It looks like an immensely powerful and ancient machine, made by the same etheric sorcery as was Silverdeath.”

  Velander reacted predictably, and moments later Serionese was back in the tower.

  “I must have it!” she exclaimed, peering into the crate at the circlet.

  “Worthy Elder, were boatmaster Feran to tell me he intends to sneak into the governor’s palace and roger his wife, I would point out that if caught he would probably be skinned alive before being suspended by his testicles and lowered into a pool full of ravenous crayfish. In the case of that silver circlet, I am pointing out to you that it is dangerous and powerful, and that you do not know what to do with it.”

  Tied to the circlet was an extract of the Annals of the Metrologan Order. Terikel reached in again, unrolled the scroll and began to read aloud, enunciating the words very slowly.

  “‘Silverdeath: This artifact, also called Weapon, or the Demon-Cloth, is known to have belonged to a god in the very distant past. Halitos of Agrevan has written that it may be a way the god delegated powers to mortals, for he who puts Silverdeath onto another may then command Silverdeath to do mighty and terrifying martial feats. When inactive, it assumes the form of a shirt of finely wrought, interlocking metalwork and jewels, and while in this form it was stolen from its heavily guarded Acreman shrine in 3129. Once the thieves learned the true potential of Silverdeath, they were so terrified that they buried it under a massive rockslide. The Councilium of our Order has inspected the site and is satisfied that even ten thousand men could not dig it out in a decade. Thus Silverdeath may be considered to be lost forever, and so is no longer a threat to our world. Updated the tenth day of the eighth month, 3133.’”

  “So many words, so little truth,” said Terikel. “Warsovran stole it from the thieves, and it was in turn stolen from him by Velander’s father, who buried it under the rockslide. Did you know that Warsovran seemed twenty years younger after Silverdeath released him at Larmentel?”

  “Where did you hear that?” asked Velander.

  “I knew a man who was in a position to know, and I got into a position to ask him.”

  Terikel lay on a sailcloth mattress stuffed with seagrass chaff, dressed in her priestly robes, with her arm in the crate and the circlet in her hand. The air was warm but bearable in the tower. Although Helion lay on the equator, its climate was mild, being moderated by cool ocean currents from the south. She breathed the incantation for a simple but concentrated auton to protect her tether. Orange shimmer drifted out of her skin like clinging smoke and settled on the smooth surface of the circlet—then slid off and collapsed to a point.

  “Very, very strange,” she muttered.

  Her guard auton had not bound to the circlet. The auton that was protecting the inside of the crate was also protecting both the circlet and her while she used it, but her casting was within the auton. Why had it not bound? Because it is not from my own world, perhaps, she speculated. Terikel spoke the incantation for darkwalking detachment.

  The lamplit interior faded, broke up into patches of darkness, then became all darkness. She had no weight; she was floating in a blackness where pinpoints of lig
ht gleamed and sparkled. Each was a concentration of enchantment. Most were clustered about the shrine, although some appeared to be beneath the ground. Her own tether had a distinct texture and density that she could sense clearly. In the etherworld she could see much that was not visible in her own plane of reality. Every few moments a gathering of shadows, a presence, or a cloud of glimmer would flit past to check her tether, then be gone again. She studied the tether intently, memorizing its feel and empathy before willing herself to drift farther away.

  It was like stepping onto Helion after the long voyage aboard the Shadowmoon. She knew what to do, but she was still clumsy and awkward. One by one she examined the sparkles nearby. Most were simple medical and protective charms, several were tethers, but a few were quite potent concentrations that were unfamiliar to Terikel. Soon she recognized the autons guarding the crates on the floor of the cave. She began ranging farther afield.

  The island was all points and sparkles of enchantment. None was particularly strong, but several had very large potential capacities. There were some fairly senior initiates on the island, but they were keeping their powers and identities to themselves. At least two other consciousnesses glided about near the guard autons of the crates while she was exploring the island’s patch of Etherworld, but they quickly fled when she tried to approach them.

  After what seemed to be a short time she returned to the tether. It was certainly different from everything else there. Not powerful or potent, but strange. It had no truename. She tried giving it a name of her own, but the name did not bind. That was odd; almost as if it did have a truename, but one that could not be felt.

  She was about to return to herself when a light blazed up briefly beyond the island, a harsh, green light that made her look away by reflex in spite of its distance. When she turned her vision back in that direction the source had gone. Something powerful but well cloaked was in the vicinity. Returning to the immediate area of the anchor, she briefly cast about for another tether before settling back into her body.

  The marked candle on the table had burned five hours! When darkwalking it was easy to stay away too long. Both time and distance were distorted. Terikel got up shakily and began to stretch the stiffness out of her limbs and body. She rapped at the door.

  “I wish to speak with the Elder,” she called when the guards did not unbar the door.

  “Elder’s orders are that you can’t leave here until morning,” a guard called back.

  Terikel considered for a moment, contemplating what she had—and had not—seen while darkwalking.

  “Bring the Elder here, then.”

  “She’s asleep, it’s nearly dawn.”

  “Then wake her. Tell her I have the silver circlet.”

  Serionese arrived with the deaconess Latelle before Terikel had counted fifty breaths. She was hastily dressed and even more hastily groomed.

  “Where is it?” she demanded.

  Terikel was sitting on the edge of the crate. She did not stand up for Serionese. “Good morning, Worthy Elder, how liberal of your mother to let you stay up so late.”

  “Where is the circlet?”

  “In the crate, protected by the auton.”

  “What? You lied!”

  “I drew illuminations around the truth. I can remove it, but you will not wish me to.”

  “And why is that?”

  “It will bind to whomever removes it from the protection of the auton. I cannot remove that auton, but I can remove the circlet.”

  “How?”

  “With an iron case such as this.”

  Terikel lifted an iron case the size of a large book from the top of the crate and handed it to the Elder. Serionese hefted it.

  “Put that case through the guard auton’s fabric, drop the circlet into the case, and close the lid. The guard auton will no longer be able to see the circlet.”

  “Yes, yes, iron is proof against magical influences. Very clever and simple, just like all true solutions.” Serionese sighed, suddenly satisfied that the problem had been solved. “All right, let us start.”

  Terikel stood up, then reeled at once and nearly fell. One of the guards caught her.

  “Air, fresh air,” she mumbled. “Think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Latelle, get her out of here,” ordered Serionese.

  “Don’t do anything until I return,” Terikel gasped as Latelle and a guard helped her out.

  Taking a barhook, Serionese poked it into the translucent fabric of the guard auton within the case. The fabric colored angrily around the intrusion, but did not resist the steel tip. Next she put the open iron case on the flat of the barhook and pushed it through the auton. Sliding the case off the barhook, Serionese picked up the circlet on the barhook’s tip and dropped it into the iron case.

  “Now we shall see if she was telling the truth,” the Elder said to the watching guard; then she flipped the lid of the case closed.

  The auton registered that the circlet was gone, even though it was still within the crate. Following orders configured into it when it was created, it discharged all its energies in a single, intense flash of light and heat with a blast like a lightning strike. Serionese and the remaining guard died instantly, flung across the room and smashed against the stone wall. The wooden door was blown from its hinges, and flame belched out across the courtyard in front of the tower.

  Terikel had expected something like that. Snatching up a discarded sun-cloak, she draped it over her head, took a deep breath, and dashed back into the tower. Burning paper and wood from the annihilated crate was everywhere, the air filled with smoke. Luck was on Terikel’s side. The iron case lay within two yards of the door, and a tap on the release lever popped it open. The circlet was hot but undamaged as Terikel fished it out and hid it within her robes. She dragged Serionese’s body outside just as Velander and the other deaconesses came running up.

  It required only the briefest of examinations to establish that the Elder was dead. The surviving guard confirmed that Terikel had been outside when the guard auton had detonated.

  “Your Elder has managed to kill herself,” Terikel declared in hard, crisp words as she paced before them. “She disobeyed my order.”

  “You killed her!” Velander cried, genuinely shocked.

  “Not so, Worthy Sister,” said the surviving guard. “Worthy Terikel told her not to do anything until she returned.”

  “What did she promise you, to tell that lie?” Velander demanded.

  “He speaks the truth,” agreed Latelle.

  “I am the Elder now!” Velander insisted. “I was Worthy Serionese’s deputy and—”

  “Actually, that does not make you the acting Elder,” Terikel interjected. “The acting Elder’s position automatically goes to the most senior surviving priestess—me.”

  “You were impeached and cast down while Elder!”

  “I checked the law on that. I was only acting Elder, not having been voted into the position permanently. Only a permanent Elder can be impeached. What you and Serionese did was, well, merely to vote her to fill my position: that of acting Elder. I have committed no breach of the rules since Worthy Elder Serionese died, so unless you have new grounds to impeach me, I am indeed the acting Elder—again.”

  “You—”

  Velander caught herself. Legally, Terikel was sure to be right. Velander knew the etheric and cold sciences well, but Terikel specialized in law and was sure to be on firm ground with whatever she said.

  “When the ordeals are done and all four new priestesses can vote, we shall see who is Elder,” she snapped.

  “Why wait fifteen days?” asked Terikel. “Look, the sun is rising and it is the fifth day of Deaconess Justiva’s ordeal. Shall we check the fire?”

  Justiva had left her vigil fire at the sound of the explosion, and they had been talking for twenty minutes. With a cry of anguish the deaconess dashed back to the ceremonial hearth, followed by the others. The bundle of twigs should have lasted only a quarter
hour, but somehow a distinct flame still danced amid a few last fragments of driftwood. Justiva looked about. One bundle remained. Had there been two when she ran to help? She was so tired … perhaps she had been seeing double.

  “Congratulations, Worthy Justiva, your flame is still burning,” said Terikel.

  “But I abandoned it.”

  “Legally, you only have to keep it burning, not stand beside it. You are now a priestess. The Goddess of Measures saw fit to have you ordained to vote in our time of crisis. As acting Elder I hereby call for nominations for permanent Elder. I also nominate myself, and stand by my record of service, scholarship, and loyalty to the Order and its Sisters.”

  “Your record?” Velander exclaimed. “You fornicated, you defied the Elder, you betrayed my soulmate vigil.”

  “Do you wish to nominate?” asked Terikel.

  “I nominate myself!” declared Velander.

  “Do you wish to speak to your record?”

  “My record? Your record is at issue. You have sinned, you can never be forgiven. A whore like you is not fit to herd a flock of geese, let alone the Metrologans.”

  “Is that all you wish to say?”

  “Yes!”

  There was silence for a moment. Suddenly Velander noticed a dangerous glint in Justiva’s bloodshot, dark-rimmed eyes. With a qualm, Velander recalled that the local Metrologans ministered to the local harlots, and that two of the deaconesses had been recruited from among their number. Which two?

  “Those supporting the appointment of Worthy Terikel to the position of Worthy Elder of the Metrologan Sisterhood … ?” Terikel was saying.

  “No, wait!” cried Velander, but two hands were already rising, blood-red in the horizontal rays of the sun.

  “A majority has been achieved—Worthy Terikel is declared Elder of the Metrologan Sisterhood,” Terikel declared. “My first order is to put out the fires in the tower. Worthy Sisters, Aspiring Sisters, I also proclaim that makeup, tailored robes, and individual bedcells are permitted henceforth, and that celibacy is optional. Now, carry the bodies into the temple.”