The Night Holds the Moon

by Roberts, Parke; Thompson, Colleen

  The days of the week were no more secure. All were named for former Saires, and only the first day of the week, named for Saire herself, remained unchanged. Just before the prince left the castle, the council announced its intent to rename the day Rhennal to Welmiann, to honor the late Saire. His suggestion that the calendar might be more widely accepted if left alone was met with long, sanctimonious speeches on the value of tradition.

  Now, at last, he might record something of importance, a woman whose powers seemed to outstrip those of every Saire since the first. He had chronicled the ceremony in which the Flute had shown its preference for his mother's lady in waiting, and the strangeness of the day had filled him with excitement. Could the Saireflute have orchestrated events so that his mother's crown was certain to fall off, certain to roll before it, certain to bring Elzin?

  From the first the prince tried to make sense of the Saireflute's choice. He found no cause for the failure of the Candidates. Each of the girls came from a good family, and Mother Kanzal had taught them well. There was no reason to think that they had not been kept pure. Elzin, on the other hand, had a much less spotless background. Her ancestry was common, and the gossip concerning her behavior during her stint in the castle astonished him. There seemed to be nothing to explain the strange selection by the Flute.

  He must meet her. Somewhere, locked inside Elzin, must be the reason for the Flute's choice and for its growing power. Providing, of course, the Saireflute needed a reason at all.

  o0o

  Castandra watched aghast as Prince Heratinn, flanked by his Royal Elite Guard, rode down the hill toward the inn.

  "How could they have gotten here so quickly," she wondered aloud.

  At her elbow, her father sighed. "Think, Castandra. It is too soon for the Queen to know. Neither would she send Prince Heratinn on a mission of reprisal. No, he comes for something else."

  The prince did not bother to conceal his surprise.

  "I did not expect to meet you so soon, Count Val Torska. Has there been an illness in your party?"

  "I regret to say, Your Highness, that the situation is far more dire. May we speak in private?"

  "Er, of course."

  "My room will suffice. Castandra can secure it. Your guards may wish to set up barracks in the stable with the Saire's elite."

  "Yes," he agreed distractedly, and reminded his valet to distribute the packets of mail. Then, face clouded with apprehension, he followed the count to the shabby inn.

  o0o

  Thelwinn accepted the letter from the prince's manservant, glad for word from home. The couriers were undependable this time of year, and it had been thoughtful of Prince Heratinn to deliver messages to the members of the Saire's party. As soon as the guard had a private moment, he tore open the envelope. His first shock was that the handwriting was not that of Vellal, his wife. His second was the imprint of the royal seal. Normally on any sort of official correspondence, the Queen's seal graced the outer envelope as well, to guarantee the proper handling.

  What could the Queen possibly wish of one of the Saire's Royal Elite Guards? Thelwinn could not guess. Nervously, he read:

  "Esteemed Royal Elite Guard Thelwinn:

  In times such as these, my gentleness ofttimes gives way before necessity. Therefore it is with great anticipation that I have brought into my castle to reside with me your daughter, Velwann, that she might refresh me in these matters. She is a delightful little girl, with such beautiful golden hair and delicate features that it pains me that your lovely wife has borne you no more children.

  Unfortunately, your wife misunderstands the generosity of my decree that the child should live with me. By sad necessity, your lady wife has been detained in the West Wing until such time as you might return to explain to her the error of her unpatriotic display. I am certain that her crime may be easily forgotten with the correct reparations on your part. If not, I might be forced into a situation which both of us would find uncomfortable. I have never yet needed to eliminate a family member of one of our Royal Elite.

  I require information, Thelwinn, which you are in a position to provide me. It is possible that this Saire threatens the stability of our fair and noble government, and I must know of all her actions, in great detail, to wisely deal with any difficulties. I must know of her alliances, the extent of her powers with the Flute, and its effects upon the common people. Her health, too, concerns me deeply. She should have realized the folly of a journey to the north this time of year.

  It is critical that you provide me with any information you feel might interest me, for, since your only child resides within these castle walls, our security is crucial.

  The arrangements for delivery of your messages are detailed below. I trust that our relationship will remain purely confidential and that your daughter will stay well. There are men in my dungeons who have not seen a woman for many a year. To them it will not matter that she is only eight years old."

  o0o

  Heratinn gaped at the count. He may as well have told the prince the seas had all gone dry. Val Torska and his daughter waited quietly. The girl stared at her feet, her ears sealed with wax.

  His mind reeled with implications, far too many to consider all at once. What would happen when the island learned? Would King Gorbagg of Buktoz, a dangerous trade partner in the best of times, find a way to use their loss to his advantage? What steps would his mother take to maintain order? His mother. Heratinn's thoughts spiraled off in that direction, and his brown eyes filled with pity for the pair before him.

  Count Val Torska was, in Heratinn's opinion, the most competent of council's lords. The prince had long admired his cool intelligence and his knowledge of the island's history. Despite the fact that the other lords were prone to vote against him, his was a level head. Lhant would surely need his skills to weather a disaster such as this.

  Lady Val Torska, too, was valuable. Her spell could aid this time for secrets, a time for unspied plans. She was too young to die in payment for some accident beyond anyone's control.

  What waste, thought Heratinn with fury. Such idiotic waste!

  "You know as well as I what will happen," he told Val Torska. "The Queen must have her goat. If there were any way I could prevent it, I would. Why do you stay and wait? I will aid your escape in any way I can; I swear it."

  The count smiled at him compassionately. "That, Your Highness, is a generous offer that I am afraid that I must not accept. Our sovereign might then decide it necessary to exact retribution from Tarska. I cannot risk that."

  Heratinn's admiration for Val Torska swelled. There must be some way to help him. Castandra. "I will escort your daughter, if you wish, to Tarska. I can at least help her to safety. She is very young. My--the Queen--will soon forget her."

  "She would not forget your treason. No, my daughter will escape to the highlands, but you must not have a hand in it. Indeed, it may be in your best interest to return to Sheldwinn. The second son of Her Majesty presents a tempting hostage."

  "I suppose that is true," the prince responded thoughtfully. "But, I may not leave. I am under orders from Her Majesty to investigate 'this Flute and lion nonsense,' as she put it. And what a tale I have to tell. Like it or not, I am more of a historian than a prince, and I intend to stay and do my work. I mean to record all for the archives, so if you decide to take me for a hostage, you will kindly leave my pen-hand free."

  "Boldly spoken," said the count, "by one who is more prince than he knows.

  "Castandra and I are at your disposal. In the meantime, perhaps you had better reassure Superior Twentysails. He, too, will soon come to the conclusion that I may pose a threat to your safety."

  "I will attend to it at once," said Heratinn. He wanted to say more, to offer something to restore sanity to the situation. But all was in the Queen's hands now, and he knew as well as anyone that his mother was not the place to look for anything but madness.

  o0o

  The Royal Birdmaster stood with lowered
head before the Queen as she read her private message. The nervous tic at the right corner of his mouth leapt into life each time he heard her groan. As if he guessed or knew the news was bad, he stood as still as possible so that he might, like a new hatchling, escape the predator's notice.

  "Guards," called the Queen. An involuntary tremor passed through the little man before her. She smiled. Perhaps the long association of Lentinn with his birds had caused him to resemble the pigeons he tended; perhaps, instead, he had been drawn to creatures so much like himself. "Escort the Royal Birdmaster to a private place. Then, pluck his feathers and wring his neck. I wish to see the head within the hour."

  His frightened squeak so reminded her of a chirp that she laughed aloud. Her good humor, however, was short-lived. She had Count Val Torska's letter to consider, a letter that could be so damaging, should its contents become known before she could prepare, that she dared not risk the chance that the bird man might have read it. She decided the birdmaster's replacement would be blinded for the post.

  Both Saire and Saireflute missing. She found herself a victim of a tremor not unlike Lentinn's. Such an ominous sign! She needed no soothsayers with their rattling bones to speak to her of portents. The Saireflute had established Lhant, and every ritual and legend linked the isle's fate to the Saireflute's. The common folk would see it as an omen. They might dare to point the blaming finger at her rule. Every foreign king who had ever drooled at the thought of Lhant's great wealth would know of it, and with the common troops demoralized, even an invasion could be possible. She cursed once again that miserable wench, Elzin. The simple slut managed to trouble her even in death!

  There was but one solution, a ruthless display of her power, the same she had used to establish herself at the time of her husband's questionable death. She must be quick, for rumors would sweep the island like the seawinds from the north.

  Whatever the cost, the monarchy must be preserved. She would send a unit of her own Royal Elite and the finest of her cavalry to go to the place of the Saireflute's loss and to bring back the entire company in chains. Then, as soon as possible, she would execute them all, from the humblest servant to the Saire's Royal Elite to Count Val Torska himself. Not one could be spared. She would decry the calamity that their recklessness had caused. She would publicly weep at the theft of the Saireflute by these vile criminals, and all of Lhant, she hoped, would rally behind her. She would busy her agents of official propaganda with offers of hero's rewards to those who turned in traitors, and the public burnings of those traitors would light the island's nighttime skies for months to come.

  She summoned a lady in waiting and sent her for a meal. Something about a full stomach helped her to concentrate. Hulgmal's repast had but one interruption: a guard carrying Lentinn's head in a gore-wet sack. Fortunately, she was blessed with a stomach as strong as it was ample.

  At last, her orders given, she sat satisfied before the remains of her dinner, idly stacking a mountain of flesh-stripped ribs; squab, in honor of the late Birdmaster. The pigeons' round heads, unplucked, filled a small golden bowl at a place of honor beside Lentinn's head.

  "There now," she crooned. "Are we feeling less lonely?"

  Lentinn's head did not answer, and with a long sigh, Hulgmal tossed the skeletons to her pugs and watched, contented, as they snarled over the denuded carcasses and lay choking on the bones.

  o0o

  Atop the east tower of Castle Hawkshold, Tyrmiskai watched the snow fall. Spring snow, fat and wet and hopefully short-lived. Caldan had sent word weeks ago, warning of his early return from Sheldwinn and the strange company he brought.

  Lowlanders. The first to be admitted to Tarska in decades. And not just any, no--the Saire herself. The Elders permitted him. But was it possible they permitted him too much?

  Caldan, what are you thinking?

  In the gust and swirl of the thousands of white flecks against the storm-dark sky, Tyrmiskai's sharp eyes singled out the one that did not move in pattern. He soon recognized it for a bird, and followed its progress as it fluttered to the ledge, then bobbed into a hole. One of the carrier pigeons. He swept off his cloak and stepped in. Not news of a delay, he hoped.

  The bird pecked hungrily at the plate of seed on the shelf, scarcely noticing as Tyrmiskai slid shut the door over the pigeonhole and retrieved the message. He read it once in disbelief, then ran to his room, lit a lamp, and read again.

  A mishap has broken the dragon's egg, it said. Watch for the unicorn. The forest swallows the wolf.

  Command format: past tense, the first--its instructions must be followed with all haste. The unicorn. Castandra. He sent her home. Lastly, Caldan, ambiguous as always about himself. The forest swallows the wolf, indeed, but would it offer shelter and concealment, or crush him to a pulp and use his blood to feed its growth? Whatever, the wolf moved. And he moved boldly.

  Carefully, word for word, Tyrmiskai copied the first line of the message, then captured a pigeon. Three in the cage with the blue dot would soon carry the same message.

  "Fly on eagle's wings," he whispered as he released the bird. It flew south in the thinning snow. South toward Seacoven.

  o0o

  Dagger and Arrow formed and unformed, coalesced out of mist like autumn wolves, then writhed back wraith-like into nothingness.

  "Come!" she called. "Come to me!" But her voice was swallowed up into grey, sucked in like a breached ship in a maelstrom, engulfed, like the hounds, by the hungry miasma.

  "Oh, please come back." Think of his joy if she knocked on his door, his own two hounds at her side. But every time they seemed about to emerge, solid, from the mist, they turned from her. Turned and changed, their forms elongated, spiraled upward, became almost human, turned away, broke apart, became mist.

  Once again she saw the coursers' shapes begin to reappear; black noses, long muzzles, pricked and tufted ears gracefully drew themselves out. What if she went to them? She stepped forward, then, shivering, drew back. The murk roiled at her hungrily. Coward, she chastised herself. Craven. Frightened by a bit of fog; what would her father think? Dagger and Arrow became more solid with every moment; if she came to them now, touched them, they might yet return. Tears of dread sprung to her eyes; her whole body shuddered violently as she forced her unwilling legs, step by wooden step, to the border of the mist. She reached out and it yielded, molded to her hands and arms, a thin curtain of cold tar that gave without tearing. Another step, and it pressed against her face. Blinding. Suffocating. She clawed at it frantically as it rushed to seal her mouth and nose, unable to even draw breath to scream.

  The sorceress ripped the coarse blankets from her face, breaking one carefully manicured nail to the quick in her desperation to be free of the covers. Gulping great lungsful of air, she stared about herself, looking for something, anything familiar that might anchor her to this world. Omen and Talisman, pressed close to the head of her bed, watched in consternation. She half-coaxed, half-pulled them onto the bed and clung to them, quaking with fright.

  A dream, she told herself, a nightmare. The long, tense wait for the impossible return of the Saire disturbed her; it troubled even her dreams. Why did the rest delude themselves? The Saire was dead; she had destroyed herself and the Flute with her folly. And, how like her to leave behind others to pay for her mistake.

  Castandra pressed her hands along Talisman's sides. Did she carry the pups? One of the seven remaining female coursers would. For seventy-five years, ever since their first appearance, there had always been eight braces of Tarskan coursers; if a pair died, one of the bitches always became gravid. Always, sixteen days after a braces' death, another pair of pups was born. Unlike normal dogs, they were born with teeth and open eyes; they did not suckle, but went straight to meat. She wished she could use Jennzann's Pearl to tell if Talisman would be the one, but it was well documented that the Stone did not work on animals. No one would know which bitch carried pups until she whelped.

  She prayed that it would be Talis
man. Her father would doubtless take the pups as his new brace; it would be wonderful to present him with them the day after tomorrow. Surely that would cheer him.

  Gods! The day after tomorrow! Where was her head? She would not be here--today was Saire--her father would send her to Tarska with Olkor. She flung open the shutters, hoping to guess the time by the view from her window. Instead, she stepped backwards and stared in horror.

  It was the mist. It lay over the steep and jagged hills like the stench of death over a battlefield, evil and pervasive. As she watched, a tendril of vapor uncoiled itself, groping like some blind, monstrous tentacle for her open window. The sorceress bit off a scream and slammed the shutters closed. Pulling on her simplest dress, fumbling with the lacings, she ran past the stares of her two handmaids from the room and nearly collided with Olkor in her haste.

  "Where is my father?"

  "He has gone to hear the guards' report," he replied, beetling his eyebrows at her dishabille. "He--"

  She didn't wait to hear the rest, but he ran after her to the stable and arrived just as she slipped the bridle over her Tempest's head. The mare, caught up in her anxiety, rolled its eyes dangerously.

  "Give me a leg up, Olkor. I have to go to him."

  "Mistress, what is the matter? Have you seen something?"

  "Yes. No. Oh--do as I ask!" she demanded, stamping one bare foot in frustration.

  "Mistress, you have no saddle--"