The Night Holds the Moon

by Roberts, Parke; Thompson, Colleen

  o0o

  Castandra awoke with a start, surprised to find that she had cried herself to sleep, fully dressed, with both hounds upon her bed. All outside her window remained dark, but no darker than her thoughts, which returned to her argument with Elzin.

  She wished she had not gone to the Saire's room, for she was now more worried than before. She had fully expected the wanton little lowlander to give in before her onslaught, to realize that she behaved shamefully, making a fool out of herself and endangering others. Instead, Elzin had turned on her, snarling at her like the mongrel dogs in the villages, and threatening something far more repulsive than lice.

  Could it be true? Could it be possible? Before, she would never have believed it. Elzin was everything that her father despised: ill-mannered, foolish, inconsiderate, irresponsible, shallow, promiscuous. Even in appearance she was hateful: short and dumpy, so very blonde and so very lowland. And yet, the way Elzin had come back at her, dared her to speak to her father. And the secret passage to the Saire's chambers. No one else but her father had been able to ferret out the meaning of the cryptic passage in a centuries-old map of Sheldwinn's castle. The secret of the Saire's hidden exit tunnels had been lost hundreds of years ago, and her sire had shared the knowledge of it only with her. Her, and now this scullion cum Saire with her decadent magic.

  Castandra relived for an awful moment the aftermath of yesterday's Playing. The powerful, primal waves of emotion, and the way she had been so easily tugged and swept along by them, clinging to her father's last command like a piece of driftwood. Omen and Talisman, circling, baring their teeth, using them when revealing them was not enough.

  She clenched her fists. Her father had left her to fend for herself, and gone off to rescue Elzin.

  Confused and hurt, the girl curled her long body and hugged her knees, resting her chin on her arms. Something hard pressed into her ribs. Jennzann's Pearl! She fished it out of her bodice and cupped it in her hand. Jealous of the Saire's magic indeed! The Saire's witchcraft brought nothing but trouble and grief. Here was good and useful sorcery. No garish butterflies or exploding fireplaces, just an opalescent stone that performed a miracle in the hands of a true enchanter. And that could, perhaps, become the guide for another, more important, miracle.

  With Jennzann's Pearl, any wizard could tell not only if a woman was with child, but to the day the age of the fetus, as well as the sex. Unlike normal spells, of which any magician could cast but one from midnight to midnight, the Pearl could be employed as many times a day as desired. Many spellcasters or one alone could use it, for the Pearl drew and held the conduit in the mind of the one that gripped it.

  If she could discover what it was that enabled the Pearl to be used again and again, and if that ability could be reproduced, wizards could change the face of the world. In a single day Gestinn's warmth spell could provide heat for an entire village. Room by room, repeating his spell, Zesil could illuminate the entire castle bright as noon. Magic would no longer be a rarity, its benefits hobbled by harsh restrictions. With availability would come practicality. More people would be drawn to study magic, and perhaps, one day, not a home in any village would be without warmth and light.

  An exciting prospect--and a great honor that she had been allowed to keep the Pearl and use it in her magical research. Certainly her father's position had been helpful in getting her the Pearl, and just as certainly the priestesses of Telriss agreed because Castandra was one of the few female sorcerers. Still, not every wizard called first power at thirteen years of age. And fewer still with a totally new spell.

  The silence spell was her father's idea. It had been very useful to him, and meant the opening of a whole, new world for her. She began to accompany her father everywhere. She was privy to every official secret council, and a great many clandestine ones as well. While at court, she had access to tutors and books impossible for her to procure otherwise. Not a moment of her good fortune had she wasted.

  She looked out the window once more. Still dark. She might yet have a few hours in which to work. Pushing all thoughts of her father and Elzin aside, she concentrated on the Pearl, then, puzzled, pulled her mind back. The Pearl held an impression--but how? It had been locked up tight since she last used it, until she took it out to work with it after her evening meal. It held no impression then, and had not left her possession since, not even when she went to the Saire's room.

  The Saire! Elzin had touched her as she reached for the door! The lowland harlot was pregnant! Castandra concentrated on the Pearl again--a male, exactly sixty-seven days along. The sorceress drew her fine brows together. Why, that sounded so familiar! A male, exactly fifty-two days . . . She'd said that to her father, fifteen days ago!

  So, he knew about the Saire and her bastard.

  The sorceress climbed down off her bed and locked the Pearl away. She had much to consider. Much, indeed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Saire Elzin called the snow-white doves

  With laughter on her breath,

  Saire Elzin called the snow-white doves

  That foretold of her death.

  --Summer Festival song, 811

  Tarts and soft bread, still steaming from the oven. Hot tea, sizzling bacon, with eggs, lightly turned. Half a roast pullet, glazed with honey and fragrant with cloves. Thus armed--to the teeth, one might say --Kezwann hastened to her appointed battle, the daily sortie in which she strove to prevent the Saire from sleeping past noon. But the handmaid arrived to find the battleground deserted, the pillow abandoned and the bedclothes flung aside. Kezwann's worthy opponent already engaged another.

  "What a mess!" the Saire complained as she pulled at her curls.

  "Oh, but you should have called for me," her handmaid said, setting aside the heavy tray. "I would have--Great Lady! What has happened to your face!"

  "Well I just woke up," grumbled Elzin defensively.

  "But the bruises! They're all gone!"

  Elzin gingerly touched her temple. There remained no soreness, no swelling, not a hint of discoloration. She hadn't noticed this morning how much better she felt. She had simply put away the Flute and gone about her business.

  "The Saireflute," Elzin mused. She'd slept with it last night, and come to think of it, she didn't remember taking it from her case, although she had awakened to find it in her hands. For Kezwann, the Great Lady's words were explanation enough; the handmaid bowed her head reverently before taking Elzin's comb and proceeding to help her with the worst of her tangles.

  Elzin stared blankly into the mottled glass while the brunette worked. Yes, the Saireflute--and some strange dream this morning. Odd dream, odder words.

  "Now why can't I remember?"

  "Remember what, Great Lady?"

  But the Saire, preoccupied, began to dress.

  o0o

  A late winter storm blew south from the mountains. As they rode, bowed in the saddle against the cold rain, Elzin struggled to recollect her dream. Something to do with the Flute. Something simple and vast. But whether the blame lay with the rain or the gods or her own deepening frustration, the words and their meaning had been washed thoroughly from her mind.

  o0o

  Much to the blonde's relief, the storm brought in its wake fine weather, with a true promise of springtime on the breeze. Every night she slept with hands tightly curled about the Saireflute, still, each morning, she felt some unconscious victory slip from her mind, leaving her only meaningless phrases quickly forgotten.

  Bored with endless riding, Elzin had turned this morning's phrase into a merry tune she rolled over and over in her head to the rhythm of Tutor's gait. Such pretty words: Malinden cie. She spoke them once aloud to see how they would sound.

  Tutor nearly sat down on his haunches, so abruptly did the surprised Saire haul back on his reins. The horse of her nearest guard bumped its shoulder into the gelding's wide rear, and the whole parade came to a ragged halt.

  "We have to stop," she said breathlessly as sh
e swung her legs free of the sidesaddle's padded supports.

  "Saire Elzin, we've barely gone a mile."

  Elzin flashed Superior Gage a look of mulish defiance that snapped his square jaw shut like a trap. She drew the Saireflute's case from her saddle pack.

  "Great Lady," dared Gage. "Today is not Saire."

  "Malinden cie," she countered firmly, flipping open the case. Then, she laughed. "Malinden cie!"

  Lifting the Flute gaily, she played. The notes echoed her strange words. "Malinden cie! Malinden cie!" the Flute seemed to cry, and as each set of four notes swelled, a dove appeared, white as starlight. There came another and yet another. To Elzin's every shout the Saireflute trilled its answer, until a flight of pure white doves fluttered and cooed overhead. Elzin crowed with delight, stepping away from the dancing hooves of a nervous packhorse. She looked back over her shoulder at Castandra, but Lady Val Torska ignored her smug smile.

  She had known what would happen! Her words and then her playing had made it so! Saire's words, she knew at once, and she wondered what other marvelous gifts those words might bring. She would say another and find out.

  "Kni-" No, that wasn't it. Was it Nefrelle? No, that was the name of Sheltsin's, cat. What could it be? Nethem? Frustrated, she swore. Now that she knew they all had meanings, now that she knew she could speak to the Flute, she could not remember any other words. Angrily, she repeated the two she knew and echoed them with her playing until she sneezed beneath a cloud of falling feathers.

  There were more, many more, and she would remember them somehow, she thought as she put back the Flute. She looked up, suddenly conscious of the appalled stares of her companions.

  Of course, even Superior Gage had said it. It was not Saire, and she had played the Flute. The first Saire and all those since had played only on the week's first day. Well, it was hardly her fault, she thought hotly. She had to play the Flute after saying those words. Castandra's counterfeit boredom forestalled Elzin's notion to explain. Instead, affecting her own expression of what she hoped would appear sublime mystery, the Saire allowed Caldan to help her mount her horse and left everyone's unvoiced questions all unanswered.

  For hours as she rode, ignoring her companions, she tried in vain to remember the words that hid inside her until her mind strayed stubbornly to more entertaining thoughts of pleasant nights and pleasant lovers. Watching the small of Caldan's back sway gracefully to his stallion's trot, she at last gave in and let imagination paint a new face on her favorite memories.

  o0o

  They had left behind the river. As the hills grew larger and more deeply forested, the inns became shabbier and more rare. Though tonight, as always, her status and her gold assured her the finest room, the finest was tiny and bare.

  "Not even a piece of polished metal for a looking glass," the Saire complained. "And look, Kezwann--these blankets carried flour to market once, or my father was no miller!"

  Elzin threw back the offending covers, only to reveal the musty reek of an aged mattress and one frightened mouse. The mouse popped into a hole and was gone. The smell was another matter.

  "Phew! I wish I were Tutor tonight. The straw in his bed can't be any older than the stuff that's in mine, and I know those red blankets of his are cleaner."

  "The nerve of those people, calling this place an inn," huffed Kezwann as she gathered the bedclothes into a bundle. "Now don't you fret, Great Lady. I'll find you better."

  "If there's any such thing here." Elzin glared in the direction the mouse had gone, then stooped to peer cautiously under the bed.

  "Unless I miss my guess, your elite have already inspected there," said a voice too deep to be Kezwann's.

  Elzin laughed. "Caldan. Well, if Shagril Gage has been here, he ignored the worst of my would-be attackers."

  "The six-legged ones, I presume. Let me see if I might--"

  "No, no--Kezwann's already gone, and anyway, what happened today--I want to talk to you about it. It's so strange! The last few mornings when I've gotten up, words have been stuck in my head. Strange words. Nonsense. Gibberish. But when I try to think about them, it's like something stops me. Well, it seemed to me like nothing – you know, like one of those dreams that wakes you up but you never do remember. Then today, while we were riding, I started to doze, and there they were--the same words from this morning. I said them out loud, before I could forget. I don't know why or how, but I knew just what they meant. I knew just what they'd do--and I had to let the Flute sing them!"

  "You knew if you said 'Malinden cie' and then played the Saireflute, you could make doves appear? Before you said those words?"

  She paused to think a moment and sat down on the bed. "No. No, after. But once I'd said them aloud, then I knew the dove would be. Then I knew that I could do this again and then again. Just by saying 'Malinden cie' and playing those same words."

  Playfully, Elzin resisted the compulsion to reach for the Flute, but in a moment it overwhelmed her. She played the four notes, and a dove fluttered to her bed. Elzin grinned.

  Caldan returned her smile. "Perhaps you had better release it before it does something indelicate," he suggested.

  The Saire trapped the bird gently before it could escape. Outside the door, she handed the dove to a mystified Superior Gage, then shut him out without explanation. "If it's going to do anything like that, he's just the man for the job."

  "Be gentle with poor Shagril. His nose may be hard, but he keeps it clean. He cares only for your welfare, Elzin."

  "I know he does." Chagrined, she sighed. "What a mess."

  He caught her hands and turned them over. "Not yet--at least, not here. Let us hope the superior is so fortunate."

  Elzin giggled. "Next time I'll conjure up something with better manners."

  o0o

  Restive and thoughtful, Caldan gazed out the open window of his darkened room. It had been recorded that, long ago, when it first appeared, Saire could command the Flute. Because of the biased nature of the lowland writings, he had dismissed the idea. Even during Saire's time, most of the Flute's magic had been frivolous and without purpose, although in her hands it had seemed to respond when there was a true need--a drought, an uprising, the painful battle where the Flute called forth the fire-wasps. When Saire had called forth the fire-wasps, he corrected himself. He was convinced of it now.

  An unfamiliar chill rode down his spine. What if she was right? What if Elzin could and did learn how to command the Flute? She had seemed certain that she would. 'Next time I'll conjure up something with better manners,' she had said, unaware of the import of her words. What would happen to Lhant, with something so potent in the hands of a woman who, for all her benevolent intent, could not--would not--fathom the consequences of even her simplest acts? A thousand horrific images painted themselves across his mind. Life under Saire Elzin's power: chaos and endless orgies in the grass.

  He ran long fingers through his raven hair. No matter what she meant to him, how could he allow it?

  o0o

  Elzin conjured nothing more in the days that followed, for her dreams, though still filled with the words and their aura of wonder and power, made her uneasy. The symbol of the doorway to the Saire's wing at Sheldwinn haunted her; the Flute, passed to Saire's hand by Telriss, and so easily removed the same way.

  How could she have played the Flute on a day not Saire? Never again, she promised herself and the goddess repeatedly.

  Still, all week, she wrestled words and phrases from the twilight of her consciousness and hoarded them with care. Like an old beggar woman collecting lengths of string, she could not guess what use she might make of them, but, compulsively, she gathered. Over and over she repeated the words in her head, careful not to say them aloud lest she be forced to play. Soon she knew each phrase by heart.

  She fretted, anxious for the Flute's day, when she might speak them. What would the phrases bring? What if she uttered something awful? She thought of Caldan's tale of the fiery wasps, now so much more
real and possible.

  Elzin chose to honor the Saireflute in a small field cleared for plowing, not far from the crude settlement where they spent the night. The crowd that had followed them as they journeyed beside the river had gone. They neared the borders of Tarska, Jenir explained, and people feared to venture there, for the highlanders were ferocious in the defense of their borders. Anyone not a highlander who went in, he told her darkly, never returned. Elzin pooh-poohed the notion. After all, they were going, weren't they?

  The few people who gathered here looked rough and shabby as her room. Only one week before she had played to happy throngs dressed in velvets and satins. Here the families looked weary, and one small knot of rough-looking men eyed her mount's rich decoration with undisguised avarice, until their gazes found Caldan, and followed him thereafter with dark and threatening glares. Elzin kept a tight grip on the highlander's arm, pressing against him with far more familiarity than she supposed she should have shown in public. Several times she glanced beside herself to be certain her elite stayed close to hand.

  With some trepidation Elzin paused while her guards stepped back to give her room. Caldan gave her arm a reassuring squeeze before he, too, stepped away, and then she stood before the crowd, alone. She nodded--too jerkily--and tried to gather her thoughts. She wanted to impress these people; she wanted them to like her. Elzin thought of the gathering power of the Flute, the glorious spells that it had woven in the last weeks. What if Caldan was wrong--what if he missed the most obvious reason of all for the instrument's surge of strength? What if it was the audience that affected the Flute? What if this tiny, sullen gathering caused the Saireflute to produce something ridiculous, like Saire Welmiann's onion sprout?