The Night Holds the Moon

by Roberts, Parke; Thompson, Colleen

  Another Caldan. Her heart pounded a nightmarish rejoinder to the thought. May Telriss give her strength enough to face the one she had already.

  Sudden fury stirred beneath her veil of calm. Why should she feel pain or fear? None of this was her fault. Damn you, Caldan. Damn you for making me decide. And for piling sins high upon sins until she could make but one decision.

  Sinking onto a cool, stone step, Elzin wept into her hands. Above her and below, she heard boots shuffling uncertainly on carved rock, the boots of ten elite incapacitated by her outburst. Let them wonder what to do, she thought with a perverse sense of satisfaction. Let them wonder how the masterful Caldan would have responded to her tears.

  She didn't need to wonder. Caldan, if he were here, would have sat beside her and taken her hand gently. And then, when she was ready, they would talk, his attention so unwavering that she would find herself forgetting that anyone existed except the two of them. But Caldan would never sit and comfort her again. Fresh tears streaked the blonde's pale face. He was already gone to her forever, no matter what came next.

  o0o

  Ableman's keys unlocked yet another door, this one formed by thick, woven iron strips, a trademark of all the doors deep in the levels of Queen Hulgmal's playground. Elzin stepped past and coughed. It smelled bad down here, but a different sort of bad from the smells several levels above. Above it stank of urine and feces, sharp smells, hot smells, the reek of the living. But here, the fetor was cold and dull and heavy; it didn't sear the lungs, it smothered them, pervasive as if the walls themselves exhaled it. It was the damp, fungal smell of old decay. Of old death.

  "His cell is around the corner, at the very end," said Ableman. "He is chained, but even so, Great Lady, please keep a safe distance between yourself and the bars."

  Elzin nodded slowly, unable to shake the feeling that if great age someday reduced her to a drooling, wizened child, if she remembered nothing else at all about her life, she would still recall the awful, hollow aching at her core this moment, the deepest pain that she had ever known.

  "I want you all to wait here."

  "Great Lady, I must insist on an escort--"

  "Jenir. Jenir can come with me, then."

  "And a crossbowman, at the ready, to your other side. Great Lady, it can't be that I must remind you of how dangerous--"

  "All right," she said, anger flaring again. "But that's all, Superior."

  Hesitantly, she rounded the corner after Jenir. Just behind her, she heard one more set of footsteps, the archer, she presumed. All but two of the cells in the long double row were empty, their doors of vertical iron bar flung wide. Elzin knelt before the first locked gate, where a pair of coal black muzzles pressed hard against the bars. She stroked the dark heads gently, each in turn, but the coursers did not stir. Instead, they continued to stare, eyes glimmering unfocused, as if patience and their steady pressure might unbar the way so they could go… to him. Not once, Jenir had told her, had their vigil broken. She rubbed her stinging eyes, caressed each dog a final time, and turned away.

  His was the cell at the very end, as Ableman had told her, the only cell that did not face another, facing instead the long, long hallway. In contrast to the rest of the dungeon, there was light here, so much light. Of course. The guards would need to see him, to watch him closely.

  She sent those guards away, too, and waited while they left, single file, hugging the wall to keep from crossing the archer's line of sight. And then they were gone, and she knew she must not delay any longer. She turned and looked past the light, and into the dark.

  He was there, almost to the back of the cell, watching her, sitting on the straw with his knees tucked up. He looked tired, that was all, just tired, and when he spoke his voice was warm and deep and tranquil, a tempting and familiar harbor for her storm-tossed heart. Too tempting. A treacherous harbor where she must not go. She wished now she had stayed away.

  "Elzin. Why have you come?"

  "There's something --" Too quiet, her voice, too tiny. She made herself repeat the words. "There's something that I have to tell you, Caldan."

  "Go on."

  "I… can't. I don't know how to, I--"

  "Elzin, they are only words. You have come all this way to say them. Speak."

  "I'm going to order your beheading." It was out before she knew it, just like that, simply because he had asked.

  "Better death than this," he said. "Truly, Elzin, I am grateful."

  "It will be at sunset."

  "Sunset. And where is the sun now?"

  "It's only just come up."

  He did not say anything, then.

  There was something else, other words, a question she wanted to ask, but instead she stepped close to grip the bars and said, "I'll grieve for you, Caldan."

  "I should be surprised," he answered. "But I am not. You always were a gentle creature, Elzin. It was the thing I liked about you best."

  Even now, his words worked their old magic, taking away a little of the sting. She wanted, too, to ease his pain, if only for a moment. "I'm going to make Castandra queen."

  "She will be very good for Lhant."

  "A lot better than I would be," the Saire admitted.

  And to this also, Caldan said nothing.

  "I… came to ask you something, too," she said. "It's about my brother. Elzmere was all the family I had left who loved me, Caldan. He was a good man. He deserves a place with Shador. It's the only thing I can do for him now, to return him to the sea. Please Caldan, if you would just tell me… tell me where he is."

  She tried to hold his eyes, to make him see if he would not hear how much it meant to her, but he dropped his gaze to the straw-strewn floor and was silent. She thought that she had lost him, then, when at last he spoke.

  "I will tell Castandra, and no other."

  Her fingers slid from the bars in disappointment and resignation. "If that's what you want. I only hope she'll come to hear it."

  "She will come."

  "You don't understand. There's something you should know, Caldan. There's no point to the secret anymore. Castandra loved Heratinn. They loved each other."

  The almost indistinguishable change in posture, the sudden alertness in his face -- both gone so quickly that she at first suspected she had imagined them, told Elzin what another might have missed. The news had taken Caldan by surprise.

  "Make her come, then, if you will know."

  "Caldan--"

  "Those are my terms. Now I, too, have a request: some water, just to drink."

  It was almost too much. Hearing him ask for water, knowing that he had to ask. It was wrong, all wrong, to have so much within her power. She turned away, clinging to her composure, unable to bear the thought that he might try to comfort her.

  "Water? You wouldn't even give him water, Jenir?"

  "Elzin," said Caldan softly at her back. "There was no malice. They could not leave me a vessel to be made into a weapon."

  "Yes, of course. Of course you can have water. And some food, too, Jenir."

  "As you say, Great Lady."

  Well, it was done then, wasn't it? It was over, she had done what she came to do. "I--I have to go now, Caldan."

  "You will not come, for the ending?"

  She shuddered where she stood. "No."

  "Good. It is best, that way."

  Tears, dammed, threatened a stranglehold on her throat, but she knew she must not cry, and most of all, she must not waver. Yet neither could she turn around to face him.

  "I have to go now," she repeated, hating the ragged whisper of her voice, the way she could not raise her eyes above the hem of her cloud-white gown. "There's so much I have to do."

  "Yes, there is and will be, Elzin. Few may match the grandeur of their titles. They possess, but they do not earn. Yet I tell you truly, you have proven to me that you are all that you are called and more… Great Lady."

  o0o

  Unfair, unjust, to do it this way, to give Castandra no war
ning whatsoever. Elzin glanced back at the sorceress, standing glassy-eyed and wan behind a phalanx of Royal Elite. But what was she to do? There had been so little time, so many preparations… No, that was untrue. Of all people, she should at least be honest with herself. She hadn't talked with Castandra because she couldn't risk her own resolve, couldn't hazard the chance that Caldan's daughter would try to change her mind.

  The Saire peered out an arrow slit. Below, a sea of heads and upturned faces rippled and surged, the unending sound of their conjecture a mumbled susurration, the gnawing of the sea against a far and even shore.

  She wanted them here, the crowds. She needed them. She'd sent criers at dawn throughout Sheldwinn, to announce that she would speak. Hundreds had left their homes and their labors, just because she had asked. She had a lot to ask this day.

  Deep and somber, the castle clock tolled. Nine… ten… eleven…

  Twelve. Elzin stepped forward between two thick, stone merlons, and instantly, from a multitude of throats the exultant roar rose, so strong she felt it could lift her bodily, so palpable she could not help but think of the crushing weight of it should it fall, and she paused, self-conscious but resigned, as a thousand voices took up the mantra of her name.

  "Elzin! Elzin! Elzin!"

  And there--far back--a black ship adrift in a sea of color, a cluster of priestesses. Silver axe heads collided with the sun in blinding flashes, a circle of cold fire surrounding a lowered sedan chair. A tiny figure, her dark robes gathered with a belt of bright silver, parted the curtains and stood. Despite the ruin of their Keep, the temple had sent an envoy. Her hood fell back as she lifted her face, baring her coiled white hair, but the high priestess seemed not to notice. She was chanting with the rest.

  "Truly, you have proven to me that you are all that you are called and more…"

  Great Lady. Did they believe so? Was she? She still felt like Elzin. Just Elzin.

  And they were chanting her name.

  Nervously, she raised her left hand to call for quiet, as she had seen Hulgmal do on those occasions when she spoke (how many times to gloat, Elzin thought miserably, over her latest execution?). To the Saire's surprise, the shouts subsided at once, and a brittle silence spread from those directly under her to those she could not see.

  She gripped the stone as if to anchor herself before delivering her words. "I know what you were told," she began hesitantly, "that I had gone away somewhere, disappeared like magic with the Flute."

  A hesitant cheer arose at this theory, but she quelled it instantly with her strident protest.

  "But it was a lie! I was never really gone at all. The king betrayed me. He betrayed all of us. He killed Prince Heratinn—others--all the line of Sheldwinn are dead because of him. And then, he tried to murder me. He tried to destroy the Saireflute!"

  She clung to the wall, buffeted by their outcry--her outcry--all of her frustration and rage multiplied and echoed by hundreds upon hundreds of throats. She wanted to shout with them that awful and unanswered question. Why? Why?

  She raised her hand, but this time they would not quiet. She closed her eyes. To strengthen her resolve, she reviewed the dark parade of horrors he had left her as a legacy. Shelvann's tiny, sheet-draped body. Beksann's dreadful rictus. Heratinn's final, poignant plea. The worst Goddess, she must not forget Venwinn's voiceless scream as he suffocated in her womb.

  Why?

  Caldan's hands, gentle, cradling the back of her head.

  "I dare not hope you will forgive."

  "No!" she shouted, heard it, and then realized that the crowd had once more settled at her command. Quickly, she hurried through her next words, terrified of their import and her own ability to speak them.

  "In the name of Sheldwinn, in the name of Lhant, Caldan will die at sunset."

  The noise swelled, crested. Though Elzin heard nothing but the shouts of agreement and support that rose to her from the crowd, she turned, only to see Castandra, pressed against the bare blades of unyielding guards and desperately mouthing the word "No!"

  Quickly, Elzin looked away.

  "Swing 'im from the highest parapet so's we all can see!" a rough voice bellowed. Others took up the sentiment. They were wild now, and eager in a way that made her blood run cold. She had given them the kind of carnival they'd grown accustomed to under Hulgmal; they'd turn the whole thing into a celebration if she let them. She could see it now, the sweetmeats vendors and the whores, the laughing ruffians with their cruel jokes at his expense.

  "No! I'm not Queen Hulgmal. Those days are over, and nobody's death is going to be a circus anymore. I won't let my child grow up in a place like that.

  "I have a son now. Venwinn owes his life, like I do, to Princess Castandra. She saved me from the king and helped me escape, and then last night she brought me back --" Elzin continued, barely resisting the temptation to glance once more behind her at the sorceress. "-- back to take my rightful place as Saire.

  "And now it's time for Castandra to take her rightful place too, as Queen of Lhant."

  Like wind pressed before a storm, a murmur swept the crowd. "Long live Castandra," Elzin exhorted. "Castandra, the Queen of Lhant! Castandra! Castandra!"

  She cried it out until they took it up, until every throat burned hoarse as her own, until the highlander's name resounded like the roar of a tempest against the grey, stone walls. Then, she stepped aside and signaled for the guards to part.

  But Castandra did not step forward. Instead she stood, angry and erect, her silence a chasm between them.

  "They're your people now," Elzin said, seeking a bridge. "You ought to stand where they can see you."

  "My people," the sorceress spat. "My people, or yours? I was a fool not to guess how inevitable his end would be, but I won't compound the error by gobbling up some empty title as a sop. I will be no puppet, Elzin. Swear to me on the Saireflute that I will have in truth all of the authority which is now rightfully the sovereign's of this isle, or find yourself another."

  "A puppet? No, Castandra, no--I never meant that. I would never want that. Don't you see? Since last night, everybody's been hounding me, pushing me, decide this, order that--I haven't had a moment's peace. And some of the things they want me to do are awful, Castandra! Awful! They're wrong, and I tell them so, but still they keep insisting. Soon enough, they'll go ahead and try them on their own.

  "Castandra, I won't know how to stop them. I wasn't meant to be a ruler; I never will be. But you can. You are. Please, Castandra, take the throne, it's yours. I swear to you by Telriss and on the Saireflute that after sunset, you'll be Queen of Lhant, really and truly."

  "After sunset." The sorceress smiled, but it was bitter. "Yes, I understand. I will take what you offer me, Elzin. Remember your vow, and I will serve Lhant well. After sunset."

  o0o

  Elzin turned away from her and started back toward her apartments. More blood, more death, she thought, and she cried harder, unable to control her grief. She felt suddenly, irrationally angry with Heratinn. You could make sense of this for me, she thought furiously, you or Elzmere. Where are you now, now that I need you? There was no one else she trusted to ask. It was her decision that she must execute Caldan, that she had no choice. What if, later, she thought of some other way? It was her decision that Castandra should now rule Lhant. What if she were wrong--again?

  She pushed away the handkerchief offered by one of her elite and brushed past him, into her apartments. She ran to her room and buried her face in a pillow. Damn you, Caldan! Why had he done this awful thing to her? It had been so easy, so easy to trust him with the decisions, and now he had forced her to make her own.

  Decisions. She had always hated them. Oh, she had made some, about things like dresses and what food she liked and who to make love with, but the important ones, the choices that really mattered, she had always left to someone else. Someone who knew better. Now, though, she had no one else, no one else that she could trust, and she had been forced to make some terr
ibly important decisions of her own. She sobbed into the brocaded silken sham and stained it with her tears.

  In a few minutes, she felt another weight settle just behind her, and a hand touched her shoulder gently. Kezwann, who cradled Venwinn in her arms.

  "You should give him more than tears," the brunette reproached her, not unkindly.

  Elzin sat up, and Kezwann handed her the dozing child. She put her finger in his palm and watched his tiny fingers curl around it. Sleepily, he stirred.

  "He's hungry again," said Kezwann. "But you need to be alone now. Here, let me take him. I'll bring him back when you are ready." She reached for the infant, and he began to cry, tentatively at first and then more loudly, as he decided that he would settle for nothing less than feeding.

  "No, wait," said Elzin. "I'll take him. I want him, really." Kezwann smiled as Elzin positioned herself so her son could nurse.

  Venwinn depended on her now, she thought as she held him. She made his decisions, though there was no one to make hers. She watched him suckling with abandon, trusting her completely to care for him, to keep him safe. She closed her eyes and sighed. Now all she had to do was learn to trust herself.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Salt of our bodies,

  Salt of our blood,

  Join with the ocean,

  Join with Shador.

  --"The Funereal Prayers", Hymns of Shador

  Jenir had cautioned her to wear something supple and simple, that she would be thoroughly searched before she could go in. Castandra, Queen of Lhant, had done as she was told. She had left her coursers in a locked cell, submitted to the elite's prying hands and eyes, consented without protest when they had insisted that even the combs for her hair must be removed. Her father was, after all, a dangerous criminal; he might try anything in this last and most desperate hour. The sorceress barely withheld her derisive laughter. Oh, Father, how flattered you should be. The awesome elite fear that you might battle your way past them armed only with the sharp end of a woman's comb.