HM01 Moonspeaker

by K. D. Wentworth

  At that point, his memory jumped to five days later when, disoriented and mindburned, he regained consciousness under the ministering hands of a healer. It infuriated him to have to depend upon second-hand accounts of the whole affair. He wanted to know exactly what had happened and why!

  Jayna rapped, then eased the massive door open. He caught the aroma of spice cake baking down in the kitchens. “Company, my Lord.”

  “Tell that Killian bastard to—”

  “He said, your Lordship, he weren’t going away until you spoke with him.” She gripped the door’s edge with work-reddened fingers, staring pointedly at her feet. “He says he’s come to—”

  “I know what he wants!” Dervlin glared at her. “And it’s none of his concern!”

  “We have a contract, Tal!” The heavy door banged inward and struck the wood paneling. Jayna’s head prudently withdrew.

  Dervlin scowled at the golden-haired man. Fifteen years his junior, Aaren Killian had in full measure that disquieting, long-legged vitality possessed by the entire Killian clan, the springy step of a finely blooded horse that could run all day. He had detested him for more years than he could count. Still, Killian’ayn wielded a lot of influence these days and he had finally agreed to a marital alliance to increase his backing in the Council. “I see Killian manners have not improved.”

  Aaren Bramm Killian glanced around the room with his light eyes. “No more than Tal hospitality.”

  Dervlin eased down into his wing-backed chair before the hearth. “No one asked you to come, Killian.”

  “I couldn’t get anyone in this drafty barn to keep me apprised, including your young snip of a wife.” Killian yanked a chair away from the desk by the window and sat opposite him. His expression was confident, overbearing. “I want to know what’s become of the girl.”

  “That’s none of your damned business!” Dervlin roused himself enough to meet the other’s eyes of pale-amber ice. “She’s not of age yet!” He fumbled in his pocket for a pipe, disgusted at the weakness dragging at him. “That matrimonial contract is probably worthless anyway. Even if the Council does locate her, I have no idea what action they’ll take.”

  Killian laughed, his big voice booming in the enclosed space. “You aren’t still holding onto the ridiculous fiction that an unNamed fifteen-year-old girl attacked and nearly killed you?”

  A numbing iciness crept into Dervlin’s fingers and toes and made its way up his arms and legs. “Get out,” he said wearily. “She’s not yours until, and unless, she’s first Tested, and then Named.”

  Aaren Killian rose to his feet and loomed over him, radiating strength and health. “Just remember, Tal,” he said softly, “if this is your way of trying to back out, it’s value for value in this life. You’ve had partial payment already, probably more than she’s worth. We expect the girl to be delivered at the proper time.”

  “If it’s at all possible, you’ll have her.” Dervlin rubbed his jaw. “Don’t forget Killian’ayn owes me yet.”

  “Their firstborn son will bear the surname of Tal.” Killian’s lips twitched. “Although I can’t imagine how you persuaded your daughter to go along with that. And how do you think that baggage you call ‘wife’ will like raising your grandchild?”

  “I don’t care what she likes.” Dervlin turned his eyes back to the fire. “It’s about time the insolent wench was good for something.”

  The flames bent as Killian opened the door, then resumed their measured feeding on the wood.

  * * *

  It is not possible to walk two places in the same When. Windsign projected images of Haemas lost in a universe of glimmering blue. Alignment is only possible with the vibrations of one When/place at a time.

  Haemas watched the ilseri’s hazy green body float casually above the tallest tree in the winterberry grove, wishing she too could just thin herself and fly.

  You must take more care, small sister.

  An ummit grunted somewhere close by. Haemas heard twigs snapping, the plodding four-beat footsteps of something large and heavy. She froze against the trunk of the nearest tree, then caught a fragment of thought . . . human thought.

  The shadowfoot has brought your companions. Summerstone drifted out of sight. We find them interesting.

  Haemas wrapped both hands around a low overhanging branch and scrambled up into the thick blue-green foliage. Below, an ummit’s triangular muzzle nosed through the brush. She crouched on a smooth limb, trying to make out the two men astride the beast, one black-haired, the other lighter.

  “Water!” The black-haired man slid down the ummit’s shaggy gray side and hobbled toward the pool, using an unsheathed sword as a cane. Broad-shouldered, wearing a faded blue-green shirt and leather breeches, his dark face looked familiar. Haemas’s fingers tightened around the branch: it was the chierra bandit, Cale.

  “I wouldn’t bother that pool, if I were you,” the other cautioned. “It’s an ilseri artifact.”

  Haemas peered down through the leaves in astonishment. The second man was Kevisson Monmart, his face scratched and smudged, his clothes tattered. She rested her chin on her knees. What were they doing together? And why were Kevisson’s wrists bound? Why hadn’t they both simply gone home?

  They search for you, small sister. Summerstone drifted down through the leaves and bark, her diffuse mass making no sound. Neither will go back without you.

  Leaning heavily on the sword, Cale stared down into the pool. “Looks like water to me, old sod.”

  Kevisson slid off the ummit, steadying himself with his bound hands. “Go ahead, then.” He craned his head around the grove, warily studying the trees. “Of course, the last time I encountered one, I ended up forty miles and twenty hours away from where I started.”

  Cale sank wearily into the grass, holding one leg out stiffly before him. His shaggy dark hair fell into his eyes and he raked his fingers back through it. “Do you think that black demon is still following us?”

  Haemas glanced back at Summerstone’s indistinct face. He looks so tired.

  They have traveled far.

  Kevisson walked around the ummit, his steps slow and heavy. “I don’t know.”

  Haemas shivered as his mind reached out and brushed her shields. He rotated, his golden-brown eyes searching the foliage.

  “Haemas?” He tipped his head back and gazed up through the tightly clustered leaves directly at her.

  Her heart thumped wildly. She clung to the limb with indecisive fingers, then swung down, landing softly on her bare feet in the thick grass. The ilseri fabric settled in soft folds around her legs.

  “Mother above!” Cale leaped to his feet, then grimaced painfully and swore under his breath.

  Haemas winced as the pain in his foot beat at her.

  “What in the name of Light are you doing here?” Kevisson blurted, stepping toward her. His face was gray with exhaustion. “That last night . . . the flames . . .” He strained at the rawhide cords binding his wrists. “Jarid Ketral thinks you’re dead.”

  “Never mind about his high-and-mightiness here.” Cale limped in front of the Kashi and balanced on his good foot. “All he can offer you is more of what sent you down here in the first place. Come back with me.” His dark face grinned crookedly at her. “Don’t you want to live free without anyone telling you what to do and how to do it?” His blue eyes sparkled.

  Kevisson faced off with the chierra. “She doesn’t want to stay in this Light-forsaken place, living like a blasted tree barret.”

  You have come to a branching, Windsign said. A few faint crystalline notes tinkled, like wind chimes striking randomly in the breeze. You must decide.

  Kevisson raised his hands to his head, grimacing.

  “Decide what?” Haemas demanded of the ilseri. “Decide if I’ll go back to the Highlands and let the Council punish me for something I can’t even r
emember doing, or if I can leave behind what’s happened and live with Eevlina, stealing horses?” The crystalline chimes strengthened.

  “It’s the ilseri, isn’t it?” Kevisson reached for her with his bound hands, his face pinched. “We have to get out of here!”

  Examine the timelines, Windsign said. Each of these males would select a certain destiny for you, just as the ilseri would mark a different path. But you, small sister, must choose the line you will walk.

  The vibration ascended into a higher pitch. Kevisson fell to his knees, his eyes clamped shut against the pain. “So—loud,” he murmured. “How can you—stand it?”

  Cale collapsed into a forlorn heap on the forest floor, arms curled over his ears. Haemas glanced worriedly from one to the other, her mind attuning itself to the vibrations as Summerstone had shown her. She felt the lines radiating from the nexus centered in the pool, forming an infinite circle around her into When.

  Decide.

  She raised her eyes and gazed down the dancing lines. At the ends of many lay the boiling maelstrom. And at the ends of most of the rest—her father’s dead body rested on a bier surrounded by fluted bowls of blue chispa-fire, often next to the body of his daughter.

  * * *

  Naming Day! Jarid’s lip curled back in disdain as he sidestepped another chierra carpenter carrying lumber for tomorrow. Tradition dictated the ornate Naming stand must be built on the day it was used, then destroyed before sundown. His lips tightened. What a waste. He remembered his own ceremony: no stand and certainly no guests beyond the single witness required by law. No one had cared to celebrate the Naming of a bastard Killian son.

  Late for the temporal enclave, he took the stairs two at a time and burst out into the warmth of the late afternoon sun. A light wind ruffled his hair as he glanced around the courtyard. Alyssa was nowhere to be seen, but he detected her floral scent. Not today, he told himself, and especially not this close to his uncle. The peppery old coot was making a miraculous recovery, and would no doubt miss very little from now on.

  Shutting the heavy door, he strode purposefully to the portal housing. If the Light was on his side, he could be off to Senn’ayn before she intercepted him, but, just as he reached the foot of the portal, she stepped out from behind the framework of carved wooden beams, swathed in a long black shawl. He crowded past her onto the covered platform.

  Jarid, we have to talk! She surged up the steps after him.

  Setting his jaw, he turned around and gazed down at her strained face. “Why, Aunt Alyssa!” He made a mocking half-bow. “Forgive me. I thought you were one of the maids.”

  She slipped the coarse black fabric down to her shoulders. Her burnished-gold hair gleamed in the sunlight. “What are we going to do? He says he will have the brat Named!”

  “What brat?” He took her soft shoulders and pushed her firmly out of the portal. “He would have to find her first, and even then he would only be Naming a ghost.”

  She clung to his sleeve with desperate fingers. “How do you know? You never saw her body.”

  “I know!” He stared down at her small hand. “And just now I’m late for something more important than you can possibly imagine. You must forgive me for rushing off, Aunt.”

  “Don’t call me that!” Her green-flecked golden eyes glittered with unshed tears.

  He seized her delicate wrist and exerted pressure relentlessly until she released his sleeve. “Why not? You are united with dear old Uncle Dervlin, are you not?”

  She rubbed her wrist, her golden eyes narrowed like a cornered silsha. “I’ll tell!” she hissed, backing away. “I’ll tell Grandfather everything you did!”

  “We did, my dear.” He smiled thinly down at her white face, then opened his mind to catch the crystals’ vibrations. “Don’t let me keep you from your preparations for tomorrow. I’m sure you’re very busy.” He concentrated, matched the resonance in his own mind, then altered it for the portal at Senn’ayn.

  Alyssa’s bitter face faded from view, replaced by the iron grill-work of the Senn’ayn portal. He ran a finger over the corroding black metal. When he was master of Tal’ayn, he would have nothing but Old oak from Alimn’ayn, damn the cost.

  A nervous chierra manservant in red-and-black Senn livery bowed as Jarid stepped down, then guided him to the meeting room where everyone was waiting.

  Lord Birtal Senn’s silver head looked up as Jarid entered the large study. “About time,” he grunted. “I thought we might have to give it up for today.”

  “Please forgive my tardiness, gentlemen.” Jarid removed his cloak, handing it smoothly to the waiting servant. “I was detained at Tal’ayn—details about tomorrow’s Naming.”

  “Naming, indeed!” Lord Himret Rald locked his hands over his paunch and leaned back in his chair before the dark gleaming expanse of the wooden table. “And I suppose we’re expected to show up for this farce.”

  Jarid took the remaining seat on the opposite side, across from Senn. “I hope you’ll all be patient.” He let the slightest hint of embarrassment leak through his shields. “Uncle just hasn’t been the same since—”

  Senn stared across the polished wood at Jarid. “Is there actually going to be a Naming? I was under the impression the Andiine Searcher never located the girl.”

  Jarid shifted uneasily in his chair, looking down at his reflection in the shining dark wood. Finally, he raised his head and met Senn’s gray-flecked golden eyes. “The only tactful thing I can say, gentlemen, and please don’t repeat this, is it would be a kindness if you did not attend tomorrow.”

  Rald snorted. “I thought so!”

  Several other golden and gold-streaked-with-silver heads around the long table nodded. Jarid pushed his satisfaction deep within his mind where no one would read it.

  Senn rapped on the wood. “Gentlemen, please.” His craggy face glanced down the table, meeting each pair of golden eyes in turn. “We must return to the business at hand.” He straightened in his chair. “If you will remember, at our last meeting we were very near a breakthrough. It was the general consensus that our lack of a full quorum in the power relay was the only factor blocking us from total success.”

  Again the heads nodded.

  “With the acquisition of young Jarid Tal Ketral to fill his uncle’s seat, I believe we have remedied that situation.” Senn placed his hands palm-down on the smooth wood. “Shall we begin?”

  Standing ready at the floor-to-ceiling windows, the chierra servant drew heavy drapes against the light. Then he handed the old Lord a large box of Old pine, bowed and left the room without a word. Jarid heard the snick of the key turning in the lock.

  Senn opened the box and removed, one at a time, seven fist-sized pale-blue ilsera crystals. He passed them around the circle so that every second man had one before him. He gestured at Lord Rald. “Himret, are you willing to attempt the transfer?”

  Looking solemn, Rald nodded his balding head and pushed his chair away from the table to stand. Jarid followed the others’ lead, throwing open his mind, striving to match the crystals’ vibration. Traveling between portals was so automatic now that he did not really have to think about it. What the conclave needed, however, was very different. They were attempting to coax a much higher vibration from the crystals, a painful one, vastly more difficult to follow.

  Fighting to keep his shields open, he matched the nerve-wracking sound in his own mind, feeling the others strive to do the same. In the center of the table, a circular pattern formed of indistinct blue lines radiating outward.

  * * *

  Without warning, disruption snaked through the grove, worse than before. The crystalline vibrations phased almost instantly from music to dissonance, much worse than before, wracking Haemas’s mind with the incompatibilities. Looking down the timelines in every direction, there was only the yawning blue maw of the maelstrom, bristling with unleashed energies
. She realized they must be very close to entering the nexus.

  Follow the disruption to its source, said Summerstone. Make the males of your tribe understand they can only destroy everything if they persist in broaching the pathways.

  Haemas could not even feel the grass beneath her feet. She stretched her hands out before her, lost in a blue universe of pain. “I tried before. They’re not going to listen to me. Why haven’t you made them understand?”

  They can not hear our voices, Windsign said. We have never been able to make the males of your tribe hear us.

  Fire seared every nerve in her body. She pressed her hands to her temples, fighting to raise her shields before her brains boiled. The suggestion of living gray rock surfaced inside her mind, and the pain—dropped away.

  She stood ankle-deep in cool blades of grass; the leaves rustling in the breeze was the only sound. Breathing in shuddering gasps, Kevisson and Cale lay curled into knots on the forest floor, immured in their own private agonies. The shimmering blue lines writhed through the ilseri nexus, making the grass and the trees seem to undulate beneath her feet.

  You must stop them.

  Haemas turned around and took one hesitant step. The pool at the center of the grove was obscured in dark angry blueness. Her heart thundering in her chest, she took a second fearful step—and glimpsed a form standing before her, clearer than the last time. White-haired and trembling, an old man anchored the center of the crackling disrupted energy, his golden eyes staring at her. His lips moved, but she heard no sound.

  She recognized him this time; it was Lord Rald, an acquaintance of her father.

  You must stop this! she told him. You are destroying the timeways!

  His eyes widened for a moment as if he heard her, but then she heard his mind still calling for more power. He took another step on the writhing blue line, then clasped his head and collapsed like an empty cloak. The line beneath him disappeared into nothingness. The grove reverted to sanity.