"And you!" Malawar turned on Deirdre, his voice harsh, and the princess felt she had been whipped.
"What?" she asked, frightened. "What is it?"
"Your country has been invaded!" Malawar barked, not loudly, but still the words struck her like a blow across the face. "You're in command now. You must defend it!"
"What can we do?" the princess asked. A sudden enormity of responsibility threatened her, leaving her vulnerable to great doubts. "My father's gone, and my mother lies unknowing!" Even her sister, or Keane, she thought, would be comforting presences now.
"Send out your father's army! Strike back before it's too late! Mount the cavalry-patrol the borders! Be prepared to send a force into Gnarhelm to punish the insolent savages!"
So many commands! Deirdre's heart quailed at the magnitude of her challenge. But then, as quickly as it took her mind to focus on the thought, she remembered the presence of Malawar, and her fears vanished. With him beside her, she could do anything!
"But there is another part to this danger," said the priest, his tone modulating. Deirdre heard affection in his words again, and she felt a feeling of profound relief. "There is perverted magic at work, corrupting power that seeks to deceive your people into believing that their dead goddess returns to life! That is the menace of this Moonwell."
"My son Gwyeth addresses that problem!" Blackstone objected.
"It may be a task that is beyond him," Malawar replied noncommittally.
"But what can we do about it?" the princess inquired.
"If we have to, we can journey there," replied the golden-haired cleric. "To the place where the war will be decided. There we can make sure that we triumph."
"Where's that?" demanded Deirdre. "How can you know?"
"I don't know yet," replied Malawar. "But the knowledge will be given to me."
"Given to you by whom?" the princess persisted.
"By the power of my god." For the first time, all the lightness was gone from the cleric's voice. Deirdre was silent in the face of his solemnity.
"When do we go, then? And how?" inquired the earl.
"I'll tell you when. As to how…" The cleric's voice trailed off, and he looked at Deirdre. Once more he smiled. "Deirdre will take us," he concluded.
"Me? How?" she gasped, thrilled even through her amazement.
"Your power will take us far-and quickly, for we will neither sail nor ride," Malawar said levelly, his eyes meeting the woman's. "You will transport us by the power of sorcery."
Deirdre's heart pounded again-she had the power! Yet somehow she was no longer surprised at his remark. Instead, it seemed to provide a solid confirmation of suspicions she had begun to develop, ideas of her own powers and abilities that she had thus far been afraid to try.
Their attention suddenly was drawn to one of the great windows that marked the walls, too high for observance into or out of the hall but useful for admitting light.
A figure stood there, silhouetted against the gray sky. It was a man clad in a brown robe, his two hands upraised as if he would call some lofty power down upon the trio in the Great Hall below. At first Deirdre thought he stood outside the window, perched on the narrow ledge above the courtyard, but as she stared closely, she saw that the man was inside the Great Hall with them.
"Who are you?" she shouted angrily. Her first thought was that one of the servants, with colossal insolence, had chosen this time to clean the glass in the throne room windows, one of the few chambers in the castle equipped with the luxury of windowpanes. In the next moment, her suspicions grew. She felt that this visitor was a far more sinister harbinger.
"I bear witness to a congress of evil!" shrieked the stranger, in an old man's voice that was full of fury. He leaped from the windowsill, dropping twelve feet to the floor of the hall to land lightly and stride toward the trio.
"No!" Blackstone's tone was horrified, and Deirdre looked at him, shocked to see that his face had blanched in terror.
"Leave us, old man," demanded Malawar, his own voice soft. He rose and regarded the intruder, his expression menacing, but the trespasser marched resolutely closer.
Deirdre studied the approaching stranger, finding something oddly familiar about his appearance. The top of his head was bald, his robe tattered. His white hair trailed in a fringe to each of his shoulders, and a full white beard was matted upon his chest. His eyes blazed with a light that seemed wholly unnatural.
"Get away from me!" howled Blackstone, almost tumbling over his chair as he scrambled behind the stout wooden furnishing. "You're dead! I saw you die!"
"You plan your own doom, you who would seek to doom the earth!" cried the intruder, pointing his finger at the quailing earl and then at the princess.
"Leave here now!" Deirdre shot back, "or I'll summon the guard and have you put to the sword!"
The white-haired man's laughter mocked and infuriated her. Though she felt no fear of this intruder, his appearance enraged her beyond any capacity for reason. She opened her mouth, ready to shout for the castle guards, but a gesture of Malawar's held her command, and she paused.
"You have the power," said the golden-haired mage quietly. "You have no need of guardsmen to banish this impudent rogue."
"What do you mean?" she demanded, her anger turned even on the man that inspired such passion in her heart.
"Use it-use the power," Malawar said, his voice still soft. "Remove him!"
Deirdre whirled back to the old man. He had ceased his advance and stood watching the three of them, his hands planted on his hips, his mouth twisted into an expression of derision that served to madden her still further.
Abruptly she sensed the rightness of Malawar's suggestion. She raised a finger, pointing it full into the chest of the old man. He laughed, his tone still mocking, and her fury grew to volcanic heights.
"Go!" she shrieked, her voice sounding like a distant, shrill wind in her ears. Deirdre stood motionless, her finger aimed at the intruder, all her concentration, fueled by her massive rage, directed at him.
For a moment, the Great Hall settled into an awful, poignant stillness. Then the shrieking that Deirdre had heard moments earlier came back, as if a groaning, howling maelstrom of wind sought to form within the huge building. The princess felt like a statue, locked motionless in the grip of her own power.
She began to tremble, to feel an awful heat building within her, but still she couldn't move! Her finger remained fixed, and the stranger stared, as challenging and insolent as ever.
A dull rumbling shook the great tables, and chairs bounced and vibrated on the floor. Dishes rattled against the hearth, and the windows shivered in their frames. Deirdre felt as though she would burst.
Then the explosion came-a massive release of tension that ripped outward from the woman's finger in the form of a great bolt of energy. Red lines of power pulsed, etching themselves in the air, sizzling toward the wild-eyed prophet, striking him full in the chest and smashing him backward to the floor, battering his body with crushing force.
The rumbling continued, but now Deirdre could lower her hand. She felt weak, but suddenly Malawar was at her side, catching her when she would have fallen and lowering her gently into a chair.
The intruder, meanwhile, lay upon his back, the expression of awful gloating still fixed upon his face. Crimson flame outlined his body as his back arched and his legs jutted stiffly, raising him into an arc over the floor.
Then the hellish light pulsed brightly, so intense that Deirdre had to shield her eyes against the flash. When she looked again, the body of the stranger was gone.
The stream of pilgrims trickled to the Moonwell, Ffolk from small farms and highland pastures, remote from even the modest-sized town of Blackstone. A few came from the town, while others were drawn from farther cantrevs.
A woman from Blackstone told Danrak that Sir Gwyeth had proclaimed the Moonwell bewitched, forbidding travel to it until he and his guardsmen had had the chance to break the spell. He posted men-at-arm
s beside the foot of the trail, but those pilgrims coming from Blackstone immediately started bypassing the trailhead, following a treacherous goat track over several steep foothills.
Danrak talked to one young man who had carried his crippled bride all the way up the sheer and rocky trail. The fellow said Gwyeth had recruited a cleric of Helm into his plans and that the knight and his men would come to the vale of the Moonwell on the following day.
Not all of those who journeyed to the small pond had come with some need for healing. Some made the trek from curiosity, others because they had inherited a knowledge of druidical teachings from their parents or grandparents and wished to see the power of the goddess incarnate on the world. This, in fact, was what they believed: that a miracle had restored the Earthmother, and this well was simply the first sign of her coming. The faithful represented all ages, men and women and boys and girls, and though they were destitute, the miracle of the Moonwell gave them great joy.
All those who sought cures for ailments, it seemed, were miraculously healed by the magical waters. They came with limp and twisted limbs, with great scars on their skin, or with ears or eyes that failed to sense. They came, they bathed in the waters that-though they flowed directly from mountain heights-seemed as warm as a bath, and they emerged from the well healed and whole.
Some of them remained, resting or praying, around the water, while others started back to their farms or homes. They would spread the word to their neighbors, and soon the truth would carry across the isle. For a time, Danrak meditated with contentment on the miracle worked before his eyes. None of the pilgrims, except for the crone whom he had aided to the water, took any notice of him. The old woman took the time to gather a pouchful of sweet, dark raspberries and offered them to the druid. Danrak realized, with surprise, that he was famished, and he ate the simple meal with warm gratitude.
But as he ate and considered the steady stream of humanity, he realized that he could not become complacent. The young man whose once-crippled wife even now danced in the shallowest part of the pool had provided fair warning of the mischief intended by Blackstone's acting lord.
Danrak knew that the pilgrims, none of whom were armed, would be unwilling or unable to defend this place against the band that Gwyeth would bring on the morrow. He expected that group to be much larger than the half-dozen men he had routed on the previous day, and they would also be supported by the religious powers of a cleric.
Against them stood only Danrak of Myrloch, with his bare hands and the talismans he carried. Yet a week ago the prospect of such a struggle would have depressed and disheartened him-though, of course, he would still have faced it resolutely. Now it presented a challenge that inflamed his determination. He began to form a plan.
He selected several talismans and decided to begin his discouragement of the lord's party some distance away from the valley. If they became confused and demoralized during the half-day march into the mountains, he reasoned, they would be less likely to stand firm against him here.
Still, the question tickled the back of his mind even as he refused to consider it: What, in truth, could he hope to accomplish against a score or more of armed men and the magical abilities of a cleric who had known his god for his entire life?
Danrak's deity, after all, had so far been around for no more than a few days.
From the Log of Sinioth:
The Moonwell! That is the key now. The armies are poised to spread chaos across the isle, sweeping Talos to his proper position of power and domination. The princess yields herself to me, and in our union, we shall prevail.
But that is why the destruction of this vestige of the Earthmother's power must be accomplished with all haste. If the young knight of Blackstone proves incapable, then the matter shall fall into my own hands.
And I will not fail.
16
The Sea of Moonshae
Sir Gwyeth felt considerably heartened now that he was clad in his suit of plate mail, mounted atop his eager, prancing charger, and trailed by a column of more than one hundred men-at-arms. He had doubled the size of the party he had originally planned in order to make certain they could deal with any threat.
The presence of the cleric Wentfeld, riding beside him, did much to enhance his confidence. Whatever the nature of the ensorcellment transforming the Moonwell, the knight of Blackstone felt certain they would make short work of it. Even the rain, beating against his armor and trickling in icy rivulets down his skin, couldn't dampen his enthusiasm.
The column, which included the cantrev's ready men-at-arms plus more than threescore hastily recruited troops from the militia raised in the town itself, marched out of the manor's gatehouse several hours past dawn. Most carried swords or axes, though some two dozen carried heavy crossbows. Sir Gwyeth was taking no chances.
The sky remained gray, and a chill wind blustered, bringing frequent squalls of rain. All in all, it was miserable weather for a march, but even that didn't seem to dampen the enthusiasm of the footmen. Perhaps Gwyeth's enticement of ten gold pieces for each member who remained with the expedition through the completion of its task served to warm the souls of these avaricious guardsmen-or perhaps they all sensed the danger that the resurgent Moonwell and its attendant faith presented to the mines that were their means of living.
In any event, the men raised a crude marching song, which the cleric pretended not to hear. Gwyeth felt as bold as any general who had ever embarked upon a war of conquest.
"Have you any clues as to the nature of this enchantment?" he asked the pryat as they made their way along the broad trail that preceded the narrow, steeply climbing path leading directly to the Moonwell's vale.
"Dark magic, undoubtedly," noted the cleric, who had given the matter little thought once he had received his pouch of gold. "But with the faith of Helm behind us, we'll make short work of it, I'm certain."
The good pryat knew that Helm, as one of the New Gods of the isles, was inherently superior to the primitive Earthmother the Ffolk had once cherished. Though Helm was not an evil god, he was ambitious, and a resurgence of any rival was something that ever vigilant deity regarded with little pleasure. Therefore it pleased Wentfeld doubly, for the profit and for the knowledge that he served his master's will in this endeavor.
"What can we do to reverse the effect?" inquired the knight. "It seems to be potent sorcery."
Pryat Wentfeld reflected. "Polluting the pond will be the most effective tactic, I believe. It was done successfully to a Moonwell many years ago with coal, but I should think a mountain of ashes would serve as well."
"The trees-we burn them and dump the ashes into the pool!" Gwyeth liked the idea.
"Correct. If we have to, we persevere until the thing is nothing more than a patch of grimy muck!"
"Hold-what's this?" demanded Gwyeth as the trail curved around a steep foothill.
"Where goes the path?" inquired Pryat Wentfeld, also puzzled.
The valley floor, which they remembered as a bare and rocky expanse, vanished behind a choking growth of forest. Oaks and pines, tangled with trailing creepers and densely packed among bristling thornbushes, filled the expanse from one steeply sloped side of the valley to the other.
"This is the trail, as the gods are my witnesses! It follows the stream! Backar-come here, man!" Gwyeth called to the sergeant-at-arms who had led the abortive expedition to the Moonwell two days earlier.
Backar, who marched near the head of the footmen, hastened forward at his knight's command. "Yes, my lord! What is it?" He saw the wooded tangle before them and gasped. "Curses to the Abyss, sir-this was plain and clear two days ago!"
"Are you certain you came this way?"
"Aye, lord. There is no other good way!" Backar, still stinging from his previous failure, swore his sincerity.
"Go and seek a path, then!" commanded Gwyeth. The man, with several assistants, hurried forward to examine the wall of dense growth. From his position on his proud charger, the knight could see no
suggestion of a break that would have allowed a small child to pass through the overgrowth, much less a band of armed men.
The sides of the valley, to the right and the left, rose unusually steep at this point to form a pair of rocky bluffs standing like gateposts. The forest formed the gate, and Gwyeth had the unsettling impression that the wood had been placed here, where it would form the most effective barrier. The clouds capped the valley, covering the heights with oppressive weight and yielding their steady wash of rain over the increasingly disheartened humans below.
Backar and the others hunted across the face of the tangle, pressing back branches, hacking away creepers, and trampling thorns. After some minutes, during which Gwyeth grew increasingly restless with the delay, the man trotted back to report.
"There's no path, sir. It's solid as a briar patch. From the size of the trees, it could have been here for years, but I swear it-"
"I know!" snapped the knight. "Well, stop making excuses. Get out your axes and hack us a path!"
The song of the men had faded away when they discovered the inexplicable barrier, and now the knight and the cleric heard muttered curses as a dozen men shouldered axes and advanced to the wall of the thorny forest. They began to chop at the wood that closed over the path, slowly carving a tunnel-like path.
"Wider!" demanded Gwyeth. "I've got a horse to get through there, imbeciles!"
In the meantime, Pryat Wentfeld dismounted and advanced to the edge of the wood. He removed a small pinch of flour from a pouch at his side and muttered a short, arcane command. At his words, the particles of flour whisked forward with magical speed and stuck to the nearest leaves, sticks, and trunks, outlining a small area in white.
"As I suspected," he reported, returning to Gwyeth's side and remounting. "The forest is magical in nature."
"That helps a lot," growled the knight sourly. "Can you make it disappear the same way?"
"I have an enchantment that will dispel magic," the cleric responded, ignoring his companion's tone. "But I can cast it only once per day. I fear it would be unwise to expend it here, when we don't know what other obstacles might be placed in our path farther up the trail." The priest didn't add another disturbing thought in his head: that the power behind this enchanted forest might well be too great for his own magic to dispel.
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