A hand gripped her arm. She slowly moved her heavy head, canted sideways on a neck that seemed to no longer support it, and stared bewildered at her father. He looked worried and silly, holding a handkerchief over his nose, and she could not help but to grin. She wanted to tell him how funny he looked; not to worry because everything was fine, fine, fine, but her lazy tongue would not form the words, and he turned her about and gave her a push toward the edge of the crowd.
"Castandra--keep walking and do not stop. Do you hear?"
"Mmmm," she replied. He gave a command to her hounds as she staggered forward in the direction he had turned her.
o0o
"Ward," he said, and Omen and Talisman obeyed. The dogs seemed unaffected by the strange scent of the flowers, and he wished the same was true of himself. The handkerchief only slowed the effect of the blossoms; even now he felt disoriented and giddy… and something else. Something dangerous. With his dagger he cut a narrow line of blood along his palm. The pain, bright and thin, sliced through the fog of confusion. He sprinted for Elzin.
A stout goodwife charged, brandishing an orange bloom like a saber. He sidestepped out of her path and she trundled past him, her mustached upper lip beaded with sweat. In a twinkling he covered the last few yards between himself and the Great Lady. He tried to stand her upright, but she folded limp as string, sliding from his arms like an octopus from a fisherman's bucket. An elite staggered up; Jenir, the guard who had given Elzin the snowdrop blossoms. Ignoring Val Torska, the guard clutched the arm of Elzin's robe, sobbing his desire for her. As Elzin reached for her lover, the count pushed him away. Jenir sat down on his rump and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his sober uniform.
The only thing left was to carry her. Crooning with delight, Elzin flung her arms around his neck and began to nip playfully at his earlobe.
"Do see if you can find a bit of soft grass for us, Caldan," Elzin said huskily into the well-nibbled ear. She used her hands to tear away his handkerchief so she could kiss him. Like everyone else, she seemed oblivious to the unruly revelers around her and without inhibition began to ply the councilor with her considerable skills.
Using both arms to support his charge, Caldan found himself helpless before her advances. He considered putting her over one shoulder, but changed his mind at the thought of what havoc she could wreak from such a position.
Further along, he stumbled. No longer checked by the barrier of his handkerchief, the pollen attacked his mind mercilessly. Elzin's lips blazed a tingling trail along his neck and cheek. He forgot where he was going, why he carried her. He thought how pleasant it would be, to lay her down gently in the long, cool grass. To lay her down… To lie down beside her…
Remember yourself.
Caldan. My name is Caldan. I know who I am; through sixteen generations, I can speak it, and beyond, there is--there are…
"No, no, not there. Here is good. Here." Her warm breath against his ear sent answering shudders down the length of his spine. Hungrily, Elzin covered his mouth with her own. Every nerve flared alive; he staggered with the force of it. Desire . . .
Remember! Remember!
Caldan! I am Kyr--what I feel must not be!
"Here, Caldan, here . . ."
No.
It will not end this way.
o0o
What was wrong, Elzin wondered. Surely Caldan wanted her. Why else had he come and taken her away from Jenir, if not to have her for himself? She had been deeply flattered by the romance of the moment when her dashing count had come and carried her away. Now she was deeply disappointed. Already she could feel her head clearing of the pleasant effect of the flowers. Too soon for the feeling to go away, too soon for a moment that had held such exciting promise to slip from her grasp. She pulled her lips reluctantly from his. What was wrong?
She wanted him to take her back to the field and the flowers and the people. She wanted to abandon, if only for a while, the worries that had plagued her these past weeks. Now she had only one worry more, this time about the reason Caldan treated her so coldly. She looked behind them at the people who laughed and touched and loved one other, unashamed and unafraid. She wanted to be so happy; she had wanted to be so happy with him!
Still the count marched on, farther and farther from the revelry behind them. Elzin's grief turned to hot fury. Her flowers! Her magic! How dare he rob her of her own! Her body and its pleasures were none of his concern. If he thought himself too fine, another would be more than grateful.
"Put me down!"
He did so, facing her, and Elzin was upon him like a lash.
"What's wrong with you?" she shrieked. "Why did you take me? Why didn't you? Well, why wouldn't you?" She gave him an angry shove. "I had every right to be there! And I thought you… I thought you wanted to…" Frustrated and disappointed, Elzin dissolved into tears.
He gathered her in his arms. Though she fought to pull away, he held her, stroking her blonde curls as if soothing a frightened child. He did not speak, but just held her close as her struggles ceased and the last of her sobs turned to sporadic hiccoughs.
"Elzin." he said quietly. "Elzin, you have asked me why. Will you hear my answer?"
She glared a mute challenge to him to offer an excuse. Her tears had vanished; behind they left the countenance of stubbornness itself. Elzin's father had long dreaded that expression, the herald of each disastrous result of any attempt to control his willful daughter.
"Great Lady, I am many things, but even half a lifetime spent under the appellation 'barbarian' has not turned me into one. What occurs behind us is not normal. The Saireflute has done this; it has made you want what must not be. Am I no better than Lord Gold, to take advantage of a magic so potent it made even you forget the child you carry?"
Elzin softened, realizing now what he meant. But, instead of alleviating his distress, her comprehension only seemed to increase it.
"No," he said. "No, say nothing. I lie. I lie to declare myself better than Lord Gold. It is right that you should know that, I thought, for a moment, I might take what I desired and claim myself a victim. I wanted the forgetfulness the Flute offered. I very nearly took it."
The wind, blowing clean back toward the field, lifted the raven hair fallen across his brow as he bowed his head. "I am ashamed.
"My dogs will ward you. I must go. I left my daughter behind. She is just a child and I fear… Great Lady, I beg you to excuse me."
Elzin nodded slowly, still pondering his words. She watched as he signaled to his dogs to protect her and then ran into the crowd, where she had longed to be. Finally, she lost track of him among the colors that swam and shifted upon the hill.
Elzin reached into the long pocket of her robe and drew out the Saireflute. The touch of the cool silver metal somehow comforted her as she stood thinking of the count. Often in the past few years people had tried to make Elzin feel shame: her brother, her father, the Queen--countless friends and as many strangers. Where they had failed, Caldan had succeeded by confessing his own.
Not once had she thought of the child, but only of herself and her pleasures. How could she have forgotten the neshing? The months when a child's body and soul drew together were full of hidden danger. During the neshing, the second month, many things a woman could do would endanger the child she carried. A too-cold bath, a black hen's egg, a meal with a woman in her blood cycle--any of these might kill or maim the neshing child. Any of these--or relations with a man. Elzin sucked in a breath so sharp her chest ached. In the heat of her passion, she had forgotten. But he had not.
Absorbed in her thoughts, Elzin ignored the approach of the man in black, mistaking him for one of her elite until she was struck. Stunned by the blow to her head, she fell forward, and the Saireflute spun from her grasp. The man rushed past her, and in an instant Elzin knew that he intended to take the Flute.
The Saire screamed and scrambled on her knees, grabbing her attacker by one ankle. He dislodged her with a single kick and stepped beyond he
r grasp.
Through the dim vision of one closing eye, she saw him reach for the Saireflute. A cold and alien fury turned her fear to brittle ice and smashed through it like a fist.
"B'rai Sayren knithem vhat," she hissed. I curse you in the name of the Flute.
The thief's hand touched the silver metal of the Saireflute and a blue flash, so bright it commanded the attention of even the most avid reveler, erupted like a silent fireball and rolled soundlessly to the east.
o0o
The count broke through the edge of the crowd at a run, half-dragging his daughter behind him. Castandra overbalanced and nearly fell when he let go of her hand to sprint for the prostrate Saire.
The sorceress spared not a glance for Elzin. The great gulps of untainted air had done much to clear her head, enough for the sight of two prone, black coursers to have full impact on her senses.
"No…" She knelt quickly beside the nearest, the female, Dagger. Expertly, she felt for the pulse points, finding nothing. At first she did not locate the dart, burrowed like some loathsome parasite in the courser's glorious ebony coat. She gingerly pulled the thing from where it had struck, behind the shoulder, close to Dagger's heart. The male, Arrow, had been served the same.
The brace had fallen close enough together that Castandra could rest both heavy, unresisting heads upon her lap. Protectively, she curled over them with arms and body, burying her fingers in their soft pelts, screwing her eyes shut. She clenched her delicate jaw, condensed her world, shutting out all else until only she and the two coursers remained. Into that narrow sphere she poured all of her will, every conscious thought.
Dagger, awaken, now is not the time for sleep. There are doors to ward and feet to warm and a thousand wind-blown leaves to be tagged.
Arrow, you also; this is no time for rest. There is game to run and the wind to taste and a long, long journey before us.
You can not die, you must not, for I have known you always, and always you have been at his side.
o0o
The Royal Elite encircled their fallen charge to isolate her from the people already gathering. Several investigated the area, and one ran quickly to stand guard over the Saireflute.
And what remained of the thief. With a stick, Jenir poked through the heap. Here and there, bits of cloth, fat, flesh, and hair smoldered among the ash and charred splinters of bone. He gagged with the smell. Beside the remains lay the Saireflute, looking bright and innocuous as ever. Jenir left it where it lay. It was forbidden for anyone but the Great Lady to touch the Flute. Apparently it was a rule well worth heeding.
People in varying states of disarray straggled toward the Saire to find out what had happened to the celebration. The intoxication of the flowers had vanished with the destructive flash of blue light. Everywhere Jenir looked, he saw leggings quickly drawn on and undergarments being hooked and buttoned. The elite maintained a superior air amid the blushing and furtive grins, until a laughing boy pointed out the female undergarment that dangled from his pocket. Jenir flushed hotly and stuffed the article out of sight.
o0o
Elzin awoke with a sudden start. "Is it gone?" she cried. "Sayren rai neth!" Agony roughened her voice; the tearing in her center felt too like her mother's death. Her words boomed like thunder. The surrounding air felt charged and potent, then abruptly, the feeling of power left her all at once, like water streaming from a shattered vase.
"Gently, Great Lady. The Saireflute is here, and the thief is no more," answered Val Torska. "You are our greatest concern. How do you feel?"
"My head hurts," she complained. She sat up and put a hand to her temple. A bump rose already, and her eye had swelled shut from the kick to her face. "Gods, I feel like I drank half a keg of bitterroot spirits and hadn't the sense to die."
o0o
Shagril nodded as one of his command murmured a report in his ear. "Get Reztinn and Tower. Nobody gets closer than a hundred feet to the Saire. Understood?"
His orders carried out, Superior Gage turned to Val Torska. "My Lord, there is something we should see."
"By your leave, Great Lady?"
Wincing under the ministrations of the elite's physician, Elzin waved them away.
As the two men made their way to the guard's discovery, each stole a furtive glance in Castandra’s direction. Her hair is not even mussed, noted Shagril with disgust. While he could only see her back as she curled herself over the two unmoving hounds, it was easy to see she had kept her prissy self intact. Of the row of what looked to be a hundred tiny buttons that ran along the spine of her dress, not one was popped, or even askew. Pity. In his opinion, what the count's daughter needed was a good thaw in the arms of some lusty horse-groomer.
Caldan's eyes settled on the ebony dogs. A sudden pang of loss raked over him, sharp as a shattered glass. He could not remember a time when Dagger and Arrow had not been his inseparable companions. His earliest childhood memories were of black eyes and soft coats, pink tongues and sharp puppy teeth. They had been the one constant in his life; all others might change or leave or betray him, but he had always been certain that they, incorruptible, would remain.
He thought, for a moment, of going to them. But they were already gone, and there was something else, something more important, that required his attention. There was always something more important.
The elite had found the thief's horse. On first inspection, Caldan and Superior Gage found little to tell them anything about Elzin's attacker. The fat, padded pouch contained a large amount of currency, all of it Lhantian. The saddlebags held some dried fruits, meats and hard biscuits, a razor and a small mirror, and other items that might be found in any traveler’s possession.
Methodically, they took apart the bedroll, the saddlebags, then finally, the pouch. There, nestled in the stuffing between the thick lining and the leather, they found a tiny glass vial, no longer than Shagril's thumbnail and only half its diameter.
"Poison?" Superior Gage asked.
"I am certain of it," Val Torska replied. "Look at the dogs. We are fortunate he did not use it on the Saire."
"Yes, Reztinn?"
"Jenir found these with what was left of the thief." He passed over two objects: what appeared to have once been a steel buckle, now twisted and fused, and a bright gold coin.
"I've never seen anything like this," said Shagril. He offered the coin to the count, who absently placed the vial in a pocket to take it. "Do you know this currency?"
Caldan examined the gold disk. Both sides were identical, deeply inscribed with a creature, a nightmarish combination of serpent and cat. With disbelief, he recognized the image immediately. Shiath.
"I cannot identify it," he lied. "But, I do not think it is a coin. It looks to be almost decorative."
"Decorative? That grotesque thing? There's no hole, how do you suppose it was worn?"
On the inside, thought Caldan. They swallow it. And I thought it was a story--fiction. "Perhaps something more flammable held it. A clue to its identity might be found in the library at Sheldwinn. Shall I keep it until then?"
"By all means keep the ugly thing."
o0o
Left alone, the councilor once again studied the coin. Soul disk: talisman of a secret cult from far across the sea. The worshippers of Shiath swallowed the gold "coin", believing it guaranteed them safe conduct into the afterlife.
How had the soft metal survived the conflagration? The thief's steel buckle had been melted almost beyond recognition, yet on both sides of the disk, the image of the bloodthirsty god remained as distinct as if the coin had been freshly minted.
The cult was Buktoz, but the book revealing it had fallen into his hands in Utlamhut, thousands of miles across the immense continent of Yaabaak from Buktoz. He had been a boy then, travelling with his father, and the book had been a catalog of Utlamhak gods and goddesses, before a careless elbow and a toppled candle revealed the hidden writing. Passing the candle flame close to the pages, Caldan discovered that between ea
ch line of text, another had been written. Back then, he had read the descriptions of adventures and rituals, dated and chronicled as in a diary, as an imaginative fiction and nothing more. But with the appearance of the disk, so carefully depicted in the diary, he now knew the journal for what it was.
The hidden diary had described a cult of assassins, reared from childhood to worship Shiath and to kill in the god's name. The origin of their members didn't matter; most were purchased as toddlers from the Buktoz slave markets and trained by the elders of the cult. What concerned the order was that their members were unquestioningly loyal and adept: strong, intelligent, and able to kill quickly, silently, without detection. The cult eliminated the unsuitable. Permanently.
The sale of these "talents" brought immeasurable wealth to the cult. Who employed them now? The assassins seldom murdered for outsiders, but more than mere proximity made King Gorbagg of Buktoz likely. Relations between Lhant and Buktoz had never been good. Like the ships of every nation on Yaabaak, Buktoz vessels had to land at Lhant to take on food and water before they continued on to Egia, the only other known significant body of land. It took half a year to reach Lhant from Yaabaak, half a year again to Egia. To attempt to cross the ocean without harboring at Lhant meant loading a vessel with enough water and food to sustain its crew for an entire year. Possible, but hardly profitable. It would leave no room for cargo.
Lhant had grown wealthy on the exorbitant fees it charged the nations of both continents to dock and take on provisions. In retaliation, King Gorbagg of Buktoz once tried to convince the nations of Yaabaak to unite in charging Lhantian ships one set fee that matched the island's own. The agreement quickly fell through as nation undercut nation to monopolize Lhant's business.
He doubted the Saire had been meant to be spared; somehow the invincible Fangs and Claws of Shiath had been thwarted. Still, it appeared the assassin's primary goal had been to steal the Flute. Theft was unheard of for the cult. Somehow they had been compelled to accept such a commission. Who could do that? Gorbagg. The Buktoz king would have the means necessary to persuade the cult.
The Night Holds the Moon Page 11