by Richard Due
“I may have found a way to mend it.”
Dubb hesitated.
“I won’t have you risk yourself unnecessarily. I don’t need that sword.”
“Dain’s greatest swordsman deserves Dain’s greatest blade.”
“I am not Dain’s greatest swordsman, not by any means.”
“Oh? Then who?”
“I can think of many I would not wish to cross blades with.”
“That’s only because you are so cautious.”
“The Dragondain do not draw blades idly.”
“I know that,” she allowed. “But if I’m right, there should be no risk.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then no harm done.”
“All right, then,” he said, after a time. “I’ll get it for you.”
Dubb stepped closer to the fireplace and took hold of a long iron poker. He plunged its tip into the red-hot coals, probing for something. With a sudden jerk, the poker jumped forward a few inches and locked into place. Dubb unscrewed its handle a few turns, revealing a small hinge. He bent the handle to make a right angle, fashioning a crank. Slowly, but with great force, Dubb turned the crank. After several full turns, a muffled click sounded underfoot. Adjusting his grip, Dubb moved the poker like a lever from one side of the fire to the other, and a floorboard rose beside the hearth.
“Quick, pull that board upright,” he said, his voice straining with effort.
Lily and Ember grabbed the edges of the board, pulling until it locked into place. Dubb let go the poker, which held its position. Kneeling by the raised board, he reached in, retrieving a long bundle of dusty rags that he deposited on the edge of the bed.
Dubb parted the rags, revealing a beautiful scabbard, intricately inlaid in silver and gold. Each of the sword hilt’s cross-guards was tipped with a moon: one at three-quarters full and gibbous; the other one-third full and crescent.
Dubb yanked the blade free from the scabbard, laid it back down on the rags, and stepped aside. Unlike the scabbard and hilt, the blade was a wreck. A dark twisting crack, starting near the hilt, ran halfway down the length of the blade, marring inlaid silver and gold runes as it went. Even the blade’s edge appeared lifeless and dull.
Lily thought the sword oddly familiar. She had seen many swords since arriving on Dain, but none so finely wrought. Had she seen one like it in the Tomb of the Fallen? She made a mental note to check if she ever got back there again.
Ember formed her peerin.
“I don’t understand,” Dubb commented. “I thought peerins couldn’t show the magic underlying the moon swords or the rings.”
“It’s true that no one has seen into them with a peerin before,” she acknowledged, “but things change. I’m always learning. One can never be certain. However, I’m not planning to use my peerin. I’m just being thorough.”
“So if not your peerin, then what?”
“I’ve learned something very old. And I need something old to test it on. You see, I’m now certain that the moon swords were forged much earlier than commonly thought, and the reason we can’t see the underlying magic is that no one knows it anymore. Which would make sense—if no one knows it, who would teach it?”
“You haven’t been experimenting, have you?” said Dubb warily.
“All lunamancers experiment. It’s not dangerous to rearrange the things you understand, trying to build new things . . . usually, anyway. But as I say, I have no intention of using my peerin.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“You’ll see soon enough, though I must warn you: it could damage the blade further—although I don’t think it will come to that,” she added quickly.
Dubb rubbed his chin. “Well,” he sighed, “it’s useless the way it is now. And the fire that forged it has long been lost. Even if you turned it to dust—what would it matter?”
Ember closed her peerin, and her look changed to what Jasper would later term “Ember’s working face.” It was deeply contemplative, and not easily distracted.
Ember had studied the damage to Dubb’s moon sword before, but she had never attempted to do anything about it. She had learned a great deal since she first pondered mending it. First, she was certain that she had uncovered the sword’s true name and, just as importantly, its origin. And there was a third thing—something ancient.
What Ember now contemplated was far different from anything she had ever done before. Despite what she’d told Dubb, there was a risk. But she was firmly committed to the attempt. Whether out of guilt for all the dangerous missions she’d sent them on over the years or the desire to repay a debt from her past, she could not say. Perhaps it was simply loyalty to Dubb.
Ember spoke what she believed was the sword’s true name, and Lily thought she saw a weak winking of the moons on the cross-guards. The lunamancer placed her finger at the end of the crack nearer the hilt. Dubb walked to the other side of the room, nervously checking the hallway for Tavin.
Suddenly, emanating from where Ember stood, Lily felt a pricking at her senses, and the hairs on her arms rose. Ember had closed her eyes and was making lilting sounds in her throat, not unlike a melody. Dubb came back and peered over her shoulder.
The melody became clearer, and with finger poised on the edge of the crack, Ember hummed, working out something in her mind. Then she spoke a word that Lily had heard many times before: it was ungelari the first word of the nonsense poem her mother would say when Lily and Jasper were sick.
She felt the soft pulse of the moon coin, but the translation in her mind sounded like an electric crackle followed by distant thunder. Ember’s finger began to slide down the crack. She spoke the second word of the poem, and the moon coin pulsed again. Lily detected a force flowing from Ember. It ignited with her words, growing larger before swirling down a vortex where her fingertip met the blade. Inexplicably, Lily could feel that Ember was now locked to her task—and that she had not expected this.
Ember spoke the third, fourth, and fifth words, each time echoed by the coin like a storm off in the distance. She mispronounced the sixth word, mangling a short syllable. The results were immediate. A spasm of pain gripped her face, and her voice strangled in her throat. Lily felt Ember attempt to slow herself, but what she had started carried her forward relentlessly. She could not turn back. The currents flowing through her had increased. Lily perceived Ember was not just in great pain, but in dire danger as well.
“Ember!” Lily heard Dubb say, but his voice was far away.
Ember did better with the next several words, not stumbling again until the second verse, when she mispronounced another syllable. This time, she fared far worse. She shrieked in pain, trembling all over. Lily felt the flow increase, and she felt a bit of Ember’s mind rip loose from its moorings, sucked downward and swallowed by the hungry crack. Her face was drained of color, and for a second, Lily thought Ember would fail, but she rallied, continuing with the second verse of the poem.
Lily couldn’t explain the connection she felt to Ember. Somehow she could sense the lunamancer’s thoughts. She tried to help Ember focus while also trying to slow her progress. But Ember’s fear was mounting. Through some intuition she didn’t understand, Lily knew with absolute certainty that Ember might be able to survive one more mistake, but the next would surely end her life. If Lily were to intervene, now was the time. But she could think of no way to help.
Suddenly, Lily felt Ember call up within herself an awesome power, as though preparing for the next time she would fail. Feeling helpless, Lily watched Ember struggle, pausing her finger’s march down the crack. She was only a quarter of the way through the poem. Why was she stopping? With a great wrench, Ember turned to Dubb.
“This will not end quietly. You must get to safety. . . . You must take Lily. . . .” Ember’s voice sputtered,
and her head jerked back to her task. The fight had left her. Ember had used all the power she’d summoned to try and save them—to save her.
Knowing that Dubb was a man of action, Lily imagined he would soon scoop her up and run from the room, and Ember would die—her life force and all her knowledge sucked into the crack of this greedy blade. But what to do?
And then it came to her. Without another thought, Lily placed the tip of her index finger on the top of the crack. But when she spoke the poem, she spoke it clearly—perfectly—and more quickly. The instant her finger touched the crack, she felt an electric jolt. She became part of the spell, attached to the task as though she had jumped onto an invisible track. In time with every word of the poem, the moon coin pulsed strongly on her chest.
Lily felt Ember attempting to slow her pace again, trying to gather her ebbing strength, but she was failing. They were both speaking the same poem, but in different parts. Worrying that each word Ember spoke could be her last, Lily increased her pace. As she approached the place where Ember had first stumbled, Lily sensed a palpable resistance building against her. Simply continuing took great effort. She summoned her will and leaned into the gale, pressing forward with all her might. Sweat streaked down her face. Ever so slowly, she gained on Ember.
When Lily reached the sixth word, where Ember had made her first mistake, she discerned something like a knot that she knew she must untangle. She passed over the damaged area, shouting out the correct pronunciation of the word that Ember had misspoken. The moon coin thumped upon her chest as she corrected the word, and Lily felt something within the process right itself. Immediately, she felt strength returning to Ember, as though Lily had drawn something back that the crack had taken.
That’s one, thought Lily.
Lily dug in for the long fight, and wondered if she’d increased the chances that Ember might survive another mistake. She pushed herself harder. For a short time, the going got easier, until she came to Ember’s second—and worse—mistake. Lily prepared herself. She knew the poem perfectly. She knew she would not fail. And yet, at the exact moment Lily attempted the correction, Ember mispronounced another word. In the jolt of confusion, Lily almost stumbled herself. Although it was Ember’s fate that tilted in the balance, Lily came to the horrifying realization that continued mistakes could drag them both to their doom. But Lily succeeded in saying her word correctly, and Ember, though terribly weakened, held fast.
Lily found it difficult to take her eyes off her own finger after that. She could sense Ember’s finger ahead of her, but she was unsure how far. Lily started on the next verse, pronouncing each word loudly and clearly. All the while, her finger inched closer to Ember’s: two inches away . . . one inch away . . . and then they were touching.
Now for the hard part, she thought.
Using all her remaining strength, Lily slowly inched her finger onto Ember’s, willing Ember not to speak as she herself finished the last verse of the poem. Watching their fingers move as one, as she parceled out the last remaining words, Lily realized that their rate of movement across the crack was somehow related to the length of the poem, and that they would reach the end of the crack just as she spoke the last word.
Which she did.
With an electric shock, Ember lurched backward. Dubb caught her by the shoulders, guiding her to the chair by the fire, where she collapsed.
Lily eyed the blade contemptuously. The hungry crack was unchanged. She felt an inexplicable anger welling up. Wheeling away from the sword, she advanced on Ember.
“Don’t ever do that again!” Lily spat furiously.
Ember gave Lily a look of bewilderment, but found it too difficult to look directly into her eyes.
“Those words don’t belong to you!” Lily heard herself scream.
Ember nodded wearily.
Still seething, Lily examined the pendant, which did not appear any the worse for wear. She thumbed loose the fob, and the moons shimmered silvery white. Lily spun the inner wheel of moons, the now-familiar click sounding as each moon passed the pointer.
“Lily!” said Ember, exhausted. “Where are you going?”
“Home,” said Lily. Her anger spent, anxiety crept into her voice.
“When will you come back?”
Lily tried to imagine how her mother and father had been dealing with her long disappearance. No simple trick or fib would get her out of this one. Her parents were no fools. Surely, Jasper would have told them by now about the necklace.
She gave Ember a hard look. “Someone will come, but I doubt it will be me.”
Lily spun the ring of glowing circles until Earth was directly underneath the pointer, then snapped the fob closed. A moment later, she was gone.
Chapter Nineteen
A Cry in the Night
Dubb stared at the place Lily had been just moments before.
“What do you make of this?” Dubb asked Ember. “Is she safe?”
“For the moment.”
Dubb ran his finger over the crack in the moon sword. “Where do you think Lord Autumn could be? Do you think he’s alive?”
Ember twisted her hands, which Dubb took as a yes, though she said nothing.
“He’s been missing for a very long time,” Dubb began delicately. “But you know where he went last, don’t you?”
“I need to rest.” Ember struggled to stand.
“Wait. There’s something else. I probably should have given them to you a long time ago, but I was afraid. You lunamancers are a mysterious lot, but I’ve made it my business to understand your abilities.”
“You mean from a tactical perspective.”
“Precisely. Knowledge is power. For example, I’m no master of the two-handed sword. I don’t have the wrists for it. You have to be a man half again the size of me to truly master such a weapon. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know its strengths and weaknesses.
“I understand the knife’s edge you walk when you dive deep into your peerins. I’ve seen what happens when something stored in a peerin for too long goes bad.” Ember grimaced. “You know, I didn’t have to become a Dragondain. It was my right, by blood, but I was not bound to it. I could have chosen the path of the peerin.”
“Your father never would have allowed that.”
Dubb nodded his head. “And he would have been right to try and stop me. It would have been folly for me not to pursue the blade.”
“You would have made a great lunamancer.”
“It doesn’t matter—I knew I would be a greater Dragondain.” Dubb paused. “You, Cora, and now her daughters . . . I have watched your progress these years.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Do you know what happens to the bearer of a moon sword?”
“The challengers come for you.”
“Yes. As they should. If you bear a moon sword, and you want to keep it—”
“You must be the best of the best.”
Dubb paused. “There is similar lore for peerins. Is there not?”
Ember looked up quickly. “What have you found?”
Dubb reached once more into the rags that had wrapped the sword, producing a small leather pouch.
“On the day Wrengfoul attacked, after we did what we could to rescue the lower townships from the rising waters, we noticed large band of Wrengfoul’s creatures bent on breaching Castle Fendragon. We didn’t know what they were up to, but we knew it couldn’t be anything good.”
“Where were they headed?”
“Down. Down to the burial chambers of the Kings.”
“But those chambers are locked by powerful wards. They couldn’t have gotten in.”
“They had a dwythbane with them, three blackmages, and a dozen other assorted uglies. Tavin and I knew another way to get down there. Tavin has
a knack for those passages. He can detect and open secret passages that I can’t even see after he’s shown me where they are. We put together a small band of our own and went down to intercept them.
“I won’t explain it all, but they broke into places we’d never been before. It wasn’t difficult to find them, though. They weren’t making any effort to be quiet. It was the very first time we’d ever encountered a dwythbane face to face. We lost nearly everyone on that sortie. When it was over, and we started picking up the pieces, Tavin and I came upon two swords. This one here”—Dubb pointed to the moon sword—“and the thing he now carries. We saw them at the same instant, even though they lay a fair way off. We both knew the moon sword on sight, of course; we’d dreamt of them all our young lives. Like little boys, we raced off at once.”
Dubb went on. “Tavin was full of tricks, even then.”
Ember smirked.
“Well, yes, you would know something of that. I kept a very close eye on him as we ran. I knew it was coming—I could see it in his eye. And he knew I knew. He’s like a magician that way. He thrives in chaotic environments: he knows how to create them; he knows how to escalate them.” Dubb sat on the edge of the bed, next to the moon sword.
“It was the floor that proved my undoing. He didn’t know that would be my undoing. In fact, I’m sure Tavin was going to try something else, but he worked to keep my mind and eye distracted. You see, the floor was strewn with bits of bone, shards of rusted metal, all kinds of things, everything covered in cobwebs and dust. I was so concerned with him that I misplaced a step—just one! It wasn’t much, really; I would have recovered in a second, but Tavin reacted instantly, making as if to trip me. He could have taken me down, but he correctly judged that I’d’ve brought him down with me.” Dubb laughed. “But it was only a cleverly dealt feint, and so was the next. I lost a little of my balance, then a little more. The next thing I knew I was helpless. Tavin brought me down with a push of two fingers. I tried to take him down, but he’d done his job well and got away free and clear.”