The Hidden Stars

by Madeline Howard

  Sindérian took no part in these rituals. She went below to wash off the blood and change her gown, and returned in time for the funeral, standing stiff-shouldered and mute while the Master spoke solemn words over his own men, the Prince over Tuillo. She did not join in the eirias after, and turned abruptly aside and went back down to her cabin as the bodies were tipped over the rail and consigned to the deep.

  After the funeral was over, the Prince and Faolein climbed the ladder up to the quarterdeck and spoke for a long time apart from the others.

  “We will never make it as far as Skyrra,” said Ruan. “Can we even make it as far as Hythe?” Though outwardly cool and composed, he could feel his heart still beating strongly, his nerves tightly strung, like those of a man on the verge of battle. But where was the threat? Not anywhere that he could see.

  “We will land at Tregna, in Mere,” the wizard answered. “It is the nearest port. In a storm, these makeshift repairs would never hold, nor could my daughter and I work the weather and keep the hull together with our spells at the same time.”

  It was a bright blue afternoon of sun and soft wind. The deck swayed gently under their feet; a cloudless sky tilted overhead. It was hard to imagine a spell of bad weather on such a day, but the Thäerian Sea was prone to freakish gales, as Ruan knew very well.

  He made a wry face. “And so we are forced to land in Mere—where the Duke keeps faith with no one and plays all sides at once—where otherwise we should never have ventured at all.” He felt an uneasy stir of suspicion; his frown deepened. “It seems to me that the sudden appearance of this water dragon was almost too convenient. Can we really be certain that our enemy didn’t free the creature, break the spell that held it sleeping, and send it to follow and attack our ship?”

  “Sea serpents and water dragons and all such creatures are utterly lawless. No one can tame them, no one can predict where they will go or what they will do,” Faolein replied in his calm, gentle voice. But a fine line appeared on his high white forehead: there was something tense and watchful in his lean, stooped figure. “Phaôrax is an island the same as Thäerie, the same as Leal. Ouriána has no more desire to fill the seas with monsters than we do.”

  Ruan pondered that for several minutes—a loose strand of silver hair blowing across his face, his turquoise eyes narrowed against the light—considering all the implications. “To fill the seas with monsters.” He repeated the words slowly, thoughtfully. “But how many such creatures could there possibly be?”

  “According to legend, the greatest of all wizards, Mallion Penn, bound six hundred and ten dragons to the ocean floor with his spells. His brother Coall accounted for one hundred sea serpents, as well as nearly a dozen great monsters that even his fellow magicians did not know how to name. Meanwhile, the other wizards of Alluinn—”

  But then (remembering, perhaps, that these were only the tales of minstrels and storytellers, not written histories) Faolein shrugged. “It’s likely the numbers have been exaggerated over the years. And though the creatures live longer than wizards, longer even than your kinsmen among the Faey, they are not immortal. Some of them must have died during the long years of their captivity.

  “For all that,” he said, sliding his hands into the sleeves of his long purple robe, gazing out across the water, “there could be hundreds of them, even thousands of them.”

  7

  Two days later, they limped into the harbor at Tregna and docked at a weather-beaten pier south of the port, where the waves broke white against massive piles of rotting oak.

  Those on deck had already spied three sleek black galleys of thirty or more oars, ominous with red sails and banners of crimson and sable, in among the great merchant cogs and carracks and three-masted round ships at the busier quays to the north. They might not have docked at all, but for the fear they had already been spotted entering the mouth of the bay. To turn back then would have aroused suspicion, and battered and patched as she was, Balaquendor had no hope of escape if the galleys pursued her.

  Ruan and the two wizards met by lanternlight in his cabin to discuss their situation. Sindérian sat on the bed, wrapped up in her cloak against the dank chill of the leaky hold, while Faolein and the Prince studied a map spread out on a chest between them. It was a rough map of the coastal duchies and principalities, sketched out by the wizard from memory—not to be absolutely relied on, he said, for he had last traveled in these realms as a young man more than a hundred years ago.

  “Repairs to the ship will take too long, and we dare not sit here waiting to be noticed by those on the Pharaxion galleys,” said Faolein. “We never intended an overland journey, but it seems we have little choice now. It will be lengthy and arduous, no doubt, and not without danger, perhaps. Yet the sooner begun the sooner ended.”

  The Prince nodded grimly. He slid his dagger from its sheath, traced out a route on Faolein’s map with the point. “It will be at least a four days’ ride north to the border—and that’s with good roads and good weather. Then, I suppose, we turn immediately east and head across Hythe to the Cadmin Aernan.”

  In the passage outside, there was a stir of movement. Faolein’s gaze flickered briefly in that direction, but it was only the two guardsmen keeping watch against any intrusion. “I had far rather head east from Tregna, and so come sooner to the mountains. There could be some delay crossing the border into Hythe, and even if not—” He hesitated, then went on with a faint air of apology, “Even if not, I do not quite like the idea of putting ourselves in the hands of your kinsman, Prince Bael.”

  Ruan’s strange eyes widened in surprise. “Bael is a fool, but he holds to the Alliance. Whereas the Duke of Mere—”

  “The Duke of Mere knows nothing of where we are going or what we intend to do there. Hythe does know, and may even await our coming, hoping some mischance will bring us his way. Mere with his uncertain loyalties worries me less than Hythe and Weye in their reckless zeal. A man may serve the Dark, Prince Ruan, and never suspect that he does so.”

  An incredulous smile played across Ruan’s face; he looked at the wizard, at Sindérian, then back at Faolein. “What is it you imagine that Bael would do to us? Or, more to the point, I suppose, try to make us do, if we were in his power?”

  “There is no saying what Prince Bael might expect of us. It is bad enough when our enemies take us by surprise, but when it is our friends who prove unpredictable and untrustworthy—” He shook his head dolefully. “It seems that we can’t avoid a journey across Mere, either north or east, but we can choose not to risk Hythe as well, and that is what I advise.”

  Though still unconvinced, Ruan declined to argue more. He had not spent much of his youth under Elidûc’s tutelage without learning that a wizard’s instincts sometimes took him where reason might not follow: nevertheless, those instincts were not to be ignored, nor a wizard’s words lightly set aside.

  In the morning, they prepared to go ashore.

  “It would be better,” said Faolein to the Prince, “if until we reach Skyrra you went by some other name, or by one of your lesser titles.” He had already discarded his purple robes, replacing them with nondescript garments of earth-brown and russet; now he traded his long carven staff of yew wood banded with silver for a shorter one of oak with a bone handle, such as any old man might carry.

  “I shall be the Lord of Penraeth,” said Ruan, after a moment of thought. “That’s a small holding on the west of Thäerie, which nobody here will know anything about.”

  In leather breeches and silver mail, with his long fair hair hanging loose behind and braided in front, warrior fashion, there was little in his dress to set him apart from the guardsmen Aell and Jago, except for a cloak of fine soft wool dyed the brilliant blue of a summer sky and a slender golden torc that he wore on his neck. Just before they had parted, his grandfather had provided him with a heavy purse filled with gold and silver, and the amber and ivory used as money in the north, for there was no telling what expenses they might meet with al
ong the way. This purse he gave into the wizard’s keeping before he left the cabin.

  Tregna, in Mere, is a grey old town, crouched behind massive dikes and breakwaters of stone and clay, which hold back the sea during a high tide. Yet it is nearly impossible to pass through Tregna dry-shod: water wells up between cobbles in the streets, makes brackish rills of all the gutters, trickles under wooden walkways. Along the noisy waterfront, peddlers hawk boning knives, fishhooks, and string; scrimshaw, trinkets made of whalebone and shell; and baskets of clams or live eels. The houses are built of sun-bleached planks, and the nets of the fishermen make a canopy of light and shadow overhead, where the fishwives string them from house to house to dry.

  In those days, Tregna, like other towns in Mere, had a mixed population: Men in great numbers; tiny, claw-footed Gnomes; and a thriving colony of full-and half-blooded Faey. Sinderian saw many of these Faey as she crossed the slippery stones down by the breakwaters, heading for the town: white-skinned and yellow-eyed, with fine, flowing hair of ivory or silver gilt, and delicate, birdlike bones. Few even of the half-bloods were as tall as Prince Ruan. He walked right past them as if unseeing, and none of them looked at him.

  While Faolein, Jago, and Aell went off to buy horses, waterskins, saddles, and all of the other things they would need, Sindérian and the Prince stopped in one of the fishy dockside taverns to gather what news they could.

  In the low-ceilinged taproom, windowless and smoky, Sindérian sat down on a narrow bench scarred with the names and initials of previous visitors, and glanced around her. Already, the tavern was crowded, though the hour was still early. The air reeked of herring, onions, pipeweed, and unwashed bodies, but under all else she detected the unmistakable stench of fear. The conversation on every side of her was loud and profane, with much laughter, yet the laughter was false and much too shrill—and if nobody mentioned the Pharaxion galleys at rest by the quays, Sindérian guessed there was not a man present but knew they were there.

  Loudest of all was a group of Men by the bar, in shabby cloaks, out-at-elbow tunics, and worn-looking boots. They wore random bits of armor, unpolished and beginning to show rust, and some had great swords hanging from belts or leather baldrics marked with the Duke’s badge of the armored fist.

  Soldiers, she thought, recently released from their lord’s service, with no place to go and no way to keep themselves. Their faces were lean and hungry, the bones too prominent, and the eyes wary; though their part in the war was apparently over, nobody seemed to know what would happen next.

  Over oatcakes, green pears, and a thin young wine, Sindérian asked Prince Ruan if he had kinsmen in the town. “Is there anyone here,” she asked, lowering her voice, “who might possibly know you?”

  His face hardened; he linked his fingers around the stem of his cup, and his knuckles showed pale in the gloom. “The Faey you see here are Ni-Ferys—they have nothing to do with me,” he answered coldly. “My mother is of the Ni-Féa.”

  A short while later, when one of the Merian Faeys chanced to pass too close on his way to the bar, there was an immediate and instinctive reaction on both sides—a flaring of nostrils, a flash of bared teeth—so that Sindérian was reminded of two lean white cats, bristling and spitting their defiance.

  Just after erién, the noon hour, Faolein pushed his way through the crowd and came to their table. Supplies, he told them, had been easily if not cheaply obtained. “Whether there are shortages or not I can’t say, but prices are so inflated that few can buy, and our Thäerian gold was readily accepted.” When Sindérian and the Prince followed him outside, they found Aell and Jago minding five good horses and a pair of pack mules.

  For Sindérian, her father had purchased a bay mare and a lady’s sidesaddle. Gathering up her heavy dark skirts, she was preparing to mount, when Prince Ruan appeared at her side, holding out a hand sheathed in a grey leather gauntlet.

  “I know that you have often traveled with an army,” he said, as he helped her into the saddle. “But here there will be no wagons—no other women—not any of the things to which you are accustomed. I wonder,” he added, with a glinting smile, “if you regret that you came?”

  She gave him a sparkling glance of defiance under her dusky veil. “I am not so poor a creature as you seem to think,” she said, taking up the reins. “And if you, Lord, can put aside your titles and your silks and velvets, and take no harm from it, it is likely that I can survive as well.”

  On the outskirts of town, they rode past a large and prosperous-looking inn, three stories high with stables and a garden, behind low stone walls. The yard was full of stamping horses under the lime trees; men in black armor with traceries of silver and bronze stood in a knot by the door; and a troop of harried, baggage-laden servants ran back and forth between the horses and the covered porch. It was, to all appearances, a nobleman’s party, about to embark on a long journey.

  But riding past the gateway, Faolein felt a chill pass over his skin. He reached out and touched Sindérian lightly on the arm, directing her attention to a gaunt white-haired figure, booted and spurred and cloaked for travel, who was just crossing the yard and moving toward the stables. A vagrant gust of wind billowed the cloak of rich wine-colored brocade; there was a flash of scarlet beneath, and a thin hand covered with shining silver scales reached out to grasp an edge of cloth and pull it back again. On every knuckle of that hand were rings of hard metal.

  Very slowly, and apparently without seeing them, the head turned their way. Faolein knew that dead white face, with its heavy jaw, hawk nose, and barren eyes—and Sindérian knew it, too. He heard her sudden harsh intake of breath; saw her hands tighten convulsively on the reins; but she said nothing. Nor did Faolein, until they had pounded over an arched wooden bridge and left the town behind.

  Then, just out of sight of the houses, if not of the smoke that hovered over the rooftops, he called a brief halt. The other men drew up their horses in a circle around him, while he told them what he and his daughter had seen. “One of the Furiádhin, in Tregna. Whether he is on the way to Skyrra as we are it is impossible to say. But if he is…we are only a little ahead of him.”

  Sindérian had gone as pale as wax; her voice trembled with anger and loathing. “It was Goezenou—little chance that I wouldn’t recognize him, having seen him lead armies so often in Rheithûn. They say he is the cruelest of all the Furiádhin, and that he was the one who ordered the slaughter at Gilaefri.”

  Ruan and the men-at-arms exchanged fierce, eager glances. The horses, scenting their excitement, danced in place. “How many with him?” asked the Prince, only just managing to keep his restive roan stallion under control.

  “Some eight or ten that I saw in the yard,” answered Faolein. “Perhaps more inside the stable or the inn. And I caution you, Lord, that we are not at home here. We have no right to break the Duke’s peace without provocation.”

  The guards looked crestfallen, and the Prince gave an angry laugh as he tugged at the reins.

  “Then let us go swiftly,” he said, wheeling the stallion about, casting a savage look back the way they had come. “If we are not to fight them, let us at least make haste to reach Skyrra first.”

  They rode all through that afternoon, in the soft light of a fine spring day. The sky overhead was high and cloudless, but there was a thin haze to the west, turning the sun the color of a ripe apricot. Because nothing further happened to threaten or disturb them, they camped that night under the stars, continuing the next day at a more comfortable pace.

  On either side of the road there were wet green fields; little rills and streamlets, waterways choked with reeds; ditches alive with muskrats and voles; and silver pools and lakes, scattered like coins across the countryside. Sometimes, the level of the land sank beneath the water into marshland, then the road continued as a mighty stone causeway. Frogs sang in the bulrushes; great flocks of white birds startled up out of the high grasses as the horses passed by.

  Wherever there was higher ground�
��a steep embankment, an upswelling hillside—there always seemed to be a tiny village or isolated manor house, seldom more than a handful of buildings, a garden patch, and some pens for the animals. The country folk of Mere, said Faolein, lived largely by fishing and fowling. This was not good country for farming.

  Occasionally, they passed, off in the distance, a shapeless heap of stone and rubble, marking some ruined city or castle. Many had fallen during the Change, the wizard explained, but no few had been destroyed by the earthquakes that rocked this region at every full moon.

  In the early evening, they stopped to rest and water the horses by a narrow stream running swift between large mossy stones. Some old bent trees, willows and alders, grew on the bank, trailing their hair in the water, and there Sindérian threw off her veil and knelt in the green shade to wash the dust from her face and hands.

  With the others, she made a cold supper of bread and cheese, washed down with water from the brook. Aell and Jago sat a little apart, keeping watch on the road. By the time they had finished eating, the shadows of the trees lay long on the grass, and the sun had disappeared behind a hill to the west.

  “It will soon be night,” said Ruan. “But the moon is already up, and waxing near to full. Surely after the horses have rested we can keep on for several hours more.”

  Yet the hour was so peaceful, no one felt inclined to move. Sindérian wondered if the others felt as miserably stiff and sore as she did, after such a long ride yesterday, a longer ride today. As she sat trying to knead the pain out of a muscle in her calf through the folds of her skirt, she could not even remember the last time she had spent so many hours in the saddle. However long it was, she thought glumly, she paid a heavy toll now in aches and pains.