Voyage of the Shadowmoon

by Sean McMullen

“Go away,” Wensomer mumbled from beneath her pillow.

  “As usual you are awake and supple already,” said Sairet, dragging the covers from the bed.

  “That I am,” Wensomer moaned, her hands clasped over the pillow that covered her head.

  “Would that all my other students had your dedication,” Sairet said as she snatched the pillow away. “Ah, then, what magnificent, enchanting spectacles could be performed!”

  Sairet poured part of a pitcher of water onto Wensomer, who shrieked and tumbled from the bed. Eventually they began stretches and exercises, and an hour later, when the trays of food and drink were brought in, Wensomer was actually alert and reconciled to being awake.

  “How is your apprentice progressing?” asked Wensomer as they ate the light but expensive meal which featured sugar figs stuffed with candied honey ants.

  “My, my, but word spreads fast in Diomeda. How did you know?”

  “A strange man comes up to you in a crowded marketplace, introduces a girl to you, walks you back to your home, then counts out some coins and leaves the girl with you. You do not have to be a senior sorceress to work out what happened. So, how is she?”

  “Her name is Ninth. She learns fast, but has had an accident and is strangely blank in the most basics. In two years she will be able to support herself, unless I have found a suitable young man for her in the meantime. There is one strangeness about her, though.”

  “Describe it.”

  “She talks in her sleep. Partly in Diomedan, and partly in a strange, sharp language that is nothing like I have ever heard. Last night she seemed to be dreaming that she was back aboard some ship. She said aloud that ships could move with great precision on the open ocean had they but accurate timekeeping machines.”

  Wensomer thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Preposterous.”

  “In the morning I asked her what she meant, but she could not say. She did say that she must have been Visitor.”

  “You mean had a visitor?”

  “No, ‘been Visitor.’ The really strange thing is that when she was dreaming, her speech was very much more complex and confident.”

  “Curious,” said Wensomer. “Perhaps a village somewhere is missing its idiot.”

  “She seems bright enough, just … empty.”

  They resumed the lesson. It was difficult to get the dance movements and gestures to work properly, even with well-toned muscles and a lean figure, but Wensomer had neither. It was all the more urgent because they did not have much time. Wensomer had some agenda, some reason to perfect certain aspects of windrel dancing by a certain, unspecified date.

  “Now, legs straight and bend forward from the waist, arms above your head,” Sairet said, demonstrating as she spoke.

  Wensomer tried to follow her example, but could not bend as far. Sairet tried to be encouraging.

  “Hold there, count one, two, three, four, five, now swing your right arm down and push it up and behind you. Right around, a full circle. Good, now the left, and straighten.”

  “But I did this an hour ago,” groaned Wensomer unhappily.

  “That’s an hour in the past. Since then you have had a meal. Now, repeat the stretching exercise. Twenty times.”

  Wensomer did as she was told, and Sairet was pleased to see that she was steadily improving in her bending and stretching. A supple body could make up in part for the experience she was lacking.

  “Contract the muscles of your stomach and bottom, while pushing your chin and chest forward—no, no, keep your head up. Push back and up with your arms, keeping them straight. Relax, then repeat it. Twenty times.”

  “Twenty times! I thought this was meant to be dance practice, but all we do is stretching. How can I improve my dancing without … well, dancing?”

  Sairet was patient. Wensomer was not the first such student she had instructed, and their arguments and complaints were all the same. Nevertheless, she was different. Once out of bed and awake, Wensomer was driven, dedicated, and did what she was told in spite of all her complaints. Still, Sairet was being paid well for driving her hard, so she continued to drive.

  “You already know the steps and sways, but you do them with the grace of a camel. If we can remove the stiffness from your body, even those basics would be enough to have Warsovran himself sit forward on his cushions and leer.”

  The exercises went on until the sun was high, then Sairet finally went on to dance steps. Wensomer grudgingly admitted to herself that her teacher had been right. Many of her problems in the previous day’s lesson were gone, now that she had done a proper routine of stretches.

  “Move your hips in a circle, and as your left hip rolls out, take a small step with your left foot—yes! Now roll your hip back and around to the right—”

  “And take a little step with my right foot?”

  “Yes, and so on for as many steps as you wish. Walking backwards is similar. Good, very good.”

  By now Wensomer was quite impressed by her own progress, and she had a increased respect for Sairet. The thin, wavy-haired Diomedan was a patient and perceptive teacher, always able to see what the problem was and how to solve it. She did not use ridicule to excess, but she did work her students very, very hard.

  “That walk-step is vastly improved on yesterday’s. I thought that I could never do it so fluidly. You are a fine teacher, Sairet.”

  Sairet folded her arms and shrugged, then looked away over the sunlit water to where part of Warsovran’s massive fleet lay blockading the island palace of the king.

  “The windrels of Diomeda are the finest dancers on the continent,” she said without turning around, “but I am different from them, and in my own way I am better.”

  “Let me guess,” said Wensomer. “Secret royal blood?”

  Only Sairet’s eyes moved, to give Wensomer a sidelong glance. “I merely remember what it is like to be at your level: awkward and ashamed. That makes me a sympathetic teacher.”

  At Wensomer’s villa Laron presented a note to her steward. He was left seated in a parlor, and a servant brought wine and a tray of candied fruit. After a short time the steward returned and led him farther into the house. Wensomer was lying on a wicker couch in an upstairs room. The rugs about her were surrounded with scrolls and books, and half a dozen little green, blue, and red autons were darting about with mouse bodies, either hard at work or playing. Wensomer had fair skin, the beginnings of a weight problem in spite of her dancing, and sharp, darting eyes.

  “Ah, welcome to my new villa, one and only vampyre,” said Wensomer, looking up.

  “Learned Wensomer, the mere sight of you is my pleasure,” Laron responded mechanically.

  “But you have bruises!” she exclaimed, suddenly sitting up and staring. “You can’t get bruised.”

  “Pox take my bruises. I need your recommendation; I want to study.”

  “Study what? Better table manners?”

  “The skills that living people need. I no longer have supernatural strength, my wounds take weeks rather than hours to heal, and I can be killed very easily. I also need normal food.”

  “So, you can eat?”

  “It’s good for my health.”

  “Anyone would think you were no longer dead.”

  “They would be right.”

  Wensomer stared at him for a moment, then got up and walked over. She felt his forehead, examined his teeth, then pulled away his beard.

  “Warm blood, no fangs, no pimples,” she said, circling him with her hands on her hips. “How?”

  “A fortuitous accident.”

  “I’ve heard of people dying accidentally, but not being brought to life by accident—apart from accidental conception, of course. Quite a lot of that happens.”

  “True. The average haystack in spring probably sees more accidents of that type than I want to think about.”

  Laron suddenly threw himself down on the wicker couch and began to weep. “I want to die,” he sobbed, inconsolable with misery.

>   “Uh—again?” Wensomer asked, stroking hair that had grown for the first time since she’d known him.

  It took quite some time for Laron to finish the story of what had happened to him, and to sundry other relevant people.

  “I thought I could trust him; of all people, I thought I could trust Druskarl,” Laron concluded. “Now Ninth is somewhere in Diomeda, or maybe already sold as a slave. I have visions of her brutalized, violated, murdered. Lady Wensomer, she is so innocent, she is a baby in a woman’s body, a totally trusting child.”

  “Ninth is a constructed soul, you say? An auton?”

  “Yes. I think that the Metrologans were experimenting with drawing the experience and memories of demons into oracle spheres. When images of normal souls are used in the spheres, they often go insane with the contradictions. The Metrologans must have fashioned her with no memories of her own to get in the way.”

  Wensomer held up a slate, upon which she had been writing.

  “I have a little list, Laron. May I check it with you?”

  “I’m flattered that you were paying attention.”

  “Well, I am your friend—and I’ll expect the favor returned.”

  “How altruistic of you.”

  “Firstly, you want to die. Why is that?”

  “I preferred being a vampyre. Life was simple when I was undead. Now I get beaten up, I have to eat food, and I have no strength. I really miss my fangs. I feel like getting a false set made up. I am constantly bullied, humiliated, imposed upon, and laughed at. I wouldn’t wish life on my worst enemy.”

  “Welcome to mortality. Second, you want a recommendation to Madame Yvendel’s Academy of Applied Castings.”

  “I need a reason to be in Diomeda. Besides, I may need the skills and qualification to buy food and clothing as I try to live as a mortal.”

  “Thirdly, you want to find Ninth.”

  “If I ever get my hands on Druskarl, I’ll—”

  “Four, you want to kill Druskarl.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Five, you want to recover Silverdeath.”

  “We all do, I suppose.”

  Wensomer picked up a piece of chalk.

  “There may be a way to render you undead again.”

  “Hah! I would have to drink the blood of another vampyre first, and I am—was—the only vampyre in the world. How can—”

  “I am the sorceress, I shall determine that. Second, you want a recommendation to Madame Yvendel. Splendid choice; I’ll write one out before you go.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You also want to find Ninth. Druskarl apprenticed her to the finest dance teacher in all Diomeda—”

  “What?”

  “Roval will be past soon, he can take you to her.”

  “She—I—Roval, too?”

  “Fourth, you want to kill Druskarl.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Oh, good. Fifth, you want to recover Silverdeath. Well, if I could tell you how to do that, I would recover it myself.”

  Laron paced before Wensomer’s couch several times, shaking his head as he silently read over the points on her slate.

  “How do you do it?” he finally stopped and asked. “I walk in unannounced, after years away, and you know everything. It’s like magic.”

  “Well, I am a sorceress.”

  “But how?”

  “I know a lot of people, and I listen to what they tell me—not just what they say to me. You told me that Ninth’s benefactor is Druskarl. My earlier informant did not. Now I know that he is in Diomeda, and that my informant is being discreet about the fact. They can hardly be having an affair, so I am left to wonder why.”

  At that moment the bell rang. Some seconds later, the steward entered.

  “The Learned Roval awaits your convenience, ladyship.”

  “Splendid, show him in. Laron, I think that your colleague in espionage should give you some lessons in surviving life, at least while I do a little more research into the first problem on your list.”

  Roval entered, and Wensomer immediately arranged that he teach Laron a few elements of the fighting techniques used by the Special Warrior Service. Laron then left, and was shown to the door by a servant. He had taken three steps along the street when there was a piercing shriek from an upstairs room.

  “He’s what?” demanded Wensomer.

  “Warsovran is recruiting dancers next month,” came Roval’s barely audible voice.

  “Next month?” screamed Wensomer. “Just look at me!”

  “All of what I can see is quite lovely,” Roval said diplomatically.

  “That’s just the trouble!” cried Wensomer. “There’s far too much of me. At least fifty pounds too much, and this is to blame!”

  Pastries, sugar figs, candied fruits, and honey delights showered down around Laron, and a large jar of sweet frost wine shattered at his feet. Laron sidled out of range.

  “You are going to make me fit,” commanded Wensomer. “You know how to do that sort of thing, with all your SWS training.”

  “But that would take years.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to join the Special Warrior Service, Roval, I meant that I want you to put me through its fitness program for the next month!”

  Could I but sell tickets for that, I’d need never work again, thought Laron as he hurried away.

  Late in the afternoon, the former vampyre was escorted to Yvendel’s chambers by one of the more senior students. The rector was reclining on feather-down cushions on a thick carpet in a room whose walls and ceiling dripped with hangings. The air was thick with incense, and scented smoke from aromatic candles. Yvendel wore a violet tunic over scarlet silk trousers with a sunburst across the midriff and embroidered silver stars all down the sleeves. Her hair was combed out but pinned by silver combs in the shape of skeletal dragons.

  Laron bowed, presented his petition, and backed away several paces. Yvendel studied it.

  “Recommended for admission by Learned Wensomer,” she said slowly.

  “Yes, Rector.”

  “You seem too normal to be in her favor.”

  “Er …”

  Laron was not sure how to respond to this observation. The silence stretched. Eventually the rector stretched, yawned, and continued reading.

  “You wish to be graded to the eighth level of initiation,” she stated, as if to confirm what was on the parchment.

  “Yes, Rector.”

  “But you currently have no grading at all.”

  “No, Rector.”

  “But nobody is without grading. Girls washing linen on the riverbank, beggars, and sweepers can manage two. The parrot chained to a perch at the Bargeman’s Pole could probably manage level one. I once met a drunken harlot who graded as four. She’s now the academy’s nurse, as a matter of fact, and is even studying Etheric Physiology. Why are you without grading?”

  “I’ve not been well.”

  Yvendel picked up a slate that lay beside her.

  “Well, Wensomer would not have recommended you unless you were capable of grading at seven. Health and physique … normal. Unusually normal, according to the medicar autons that examined you this morning.”

  “Is this a problem?” asked Laron.

  “Probably not—for me, at least. Have you been observing celibacy?”

  “Yes, Learned Rector.”

  “Well, if you have not, we shall soon know. So, you survived the fire-circles while millions died. You do not look very charred for someone who has lived through the fire-circles.”

  “I had a nice, deep refuge.”

  “Why are you in Diomeda?”

  “I wish to study with you. Am I acceptable?”

  Yvendel had a dilemma. In a conventional sense Laron had no redeeming features at all, but then she was not particularly conventional where sorcery was concerned. Being interesting could make up for a lot, and if nothing else, Laron was certainly interesting. Still, there was no point in letting him know that, or he was
liable to get ideas. Everyone knew how dangerous they were.

  “If you were to enter this academy, then you might be able to reach a very high level of proficiency in a very short time. You may study with us for a year, after which your progress will be examined before you go on to further study.”

  “Thank you, Learned Rector.”

  “For this you will pay fees equal to a year of study.”

  Laron swallowed. It was a lot of money to part with at a single stroke. His confidence and self-esteem had been under severe strain over the previous two weeks. Nevertheless, here was an opportunity to recover some strength and independence.

  “Learned Rector, I accept,” Laron announced.

  Yvendel allowed herself a smile.

  “Splendid. See the accountant about the fees, then call in at the registrar’s chambers to arrange a syllabus and tutors.”

  Sairet and Ninth looked up as the bell beside the ladder tinkled, then Ninth went to the edge of her rooftop tent and looked down. Sairet had a great many visitors, mainly students, but these were men. Or at least one of them was a man. The other was a youth dressed to make himself look broader in the shoulders and trying to stand as straight and tall as possible. He also had several lurid bruises on his face.

  “Laron!”

  A minute later they were sitting on cushions at the edge of the dance floor, exchanging the dozens of adventures they had lived through in less than a single of Miral’s months. Roval and Sairet stood across the other side of the roof, arms folded and steadily regarding their respective charges.

  “He has come from a … Perhaps you could describe it as a sheltered background,” Roval explained. “His hearts are in the right place, he just lacks the body to back them up.”

  “Yet it was he who rescued Ninth from drowning?” asked Sairet, doubt plain in her voice.

  “I have it on good authority, yes. As you can see, however, he has a build that attracts bullies and thieves. That is where you come in.”

  “Me? If I teach him belly dancing he is going to attract a lot more than bullies and thieves, and—”

  “No, perhaps I expressed myself badly. Lady Wensomer says that you seldom use this dance space in the mornings.”