Ironcrown Moon
At first, Felmar’s dream was much as it had been before. He was a young boy again, no more than ten or eleven years old, sitting under a flowering apple tree in the garden of the family manor house. His kindly grandsire was there beside him, warning him to beware of great danger from the wicked Kilian Blackhorse.
Now Felmar was able to tell Grandad about the newly hatched plan to outwit the alchymist. He described it eagerly, in much detail. But the old man shook his head in disagreement.
No, my lad. There’s a much easier way to get the better of Kilian. One of those moonstones you stole can provide a foolproof means of escape for both you and Scarth. I can show you how. You very nearly guessed the secret when you were playing your game.
“What do you mean?”
The sigil resembling a tiny carved door is called Subtle Gateway. It won’t take you to paradise, but it can transport you and your friend anywhere in the world in the blink of an eye.
“But the stone is inactive, Grandad! I can’t read the conjuring instructions.”
That’s not necessary, Felmar. There’s a simpler method of bringing sigils to life. Of course, only a very brave man can make use of it! But you’re no coward. I’m confident you can do it. Darasilo, the silly fool who first found the stones, never knew anything about this. Neither did his successors—including Kilian Blackhorse. All one need do to activate the sigil is hold it firmly, then touch it to one of the moonstone medallions affixed to the book covers.
“That’s… all?”
If this is done, the supernatural Guardian of the Moonstones will pronounce a strange phrase three times. A great sense of fear will come over you. There’ll be a good deal of pain, too. But if you keep up your courage until the phrase is said for the fourth time, the sigil will come to magical life, glowing with a green inner light. Hang it about your neck. Then all you need do is take hold of your friend’s hand—or anything else you want to transport along with you—and speak your destination in a loud voice. Instantly, you’ll be there!
“It seems too wonderful to be true.”
Try it! What have you got to lose?
“What about the other stones in the trove? Can they all be activated in the same way?”
Of course.
“I could… take all of them for myself?”
If you wanted to.
“Thank you for telling me, Grandad.”
Felmar forced his eyes open and struggled into a sitting position with his back against the saddle. His head spun from the brandy he’d consumed, even though Scarth had taken the lion’s share. The dim interior of the croft seemed to ripple like a disturbed reflection in water. He smelled acrid woodsmoke and wet leather, heard the other man’s slow snores and the rustle of gentle rain. The fire was still burning wanly.
The dream.
Could it be true?
He pushed aside the blanket covering him and crawled to where the bags of sigils and the books lay. Through bleared eyes he saw milky mineral disks in narrow gold frames fastened to each cover. Mere ornaments, surely.
Or were they?
Try it, a remembered voice inside his head seemed to urge. What do you have to lose?
He emptied both bags of moonstones onto the canvas that covered the floor, pawing and scattering the sigils in a frenzy of impatience until he found the tight wad of cloth that held the four important ones. He shook it open, dumped the stones, and selected—what had Grandad called the thing?—Subtle Gateway! The magical door leading to safety and to power. More power than he’d ever imagined.
Felmar grasped the little oblong carving and pressed it against a book disk, then gave a low cry of astonishment.
Both the sigil and the medallion began to shine with a gentle greenish light. He thought he saw a movement within the croft out of the corner of his eye, but before he could turn to look at it a deep voice that had nothing human about it spoke a question inside his head.
CADAY AN RUDAY?
Terror, deeper and more paralyzing than he’d ever known before, seized him like some ravening beast. There was pain as well, as though an ice-cold lance were being driven into his breast.
CADAY AN RUDAY?!
The awful voice was bespeaking him on the wind, more loudly this time and with angry impatience. The Guardian of the Moonstones, Grandad had said. The swelling pain was atrocious. His ribs were being torn apart and his heart crushed by frigid pincers. If he let go of the sigil, let it fall away from his flesh, the suffering would end. But then he would lose all chance of bringing the Gateway sigil to life—
CADAY AN R UDAY?!!!
He was deafened by the monstrous voice, blinded by hurt, shrieking voicelessly into the wind as the nerves of his body burned in icy flames. But he was brave. He would persevere, hold fast until the fourth time that the Guardian asked his question. He would remain courageous until the end.
The end came, engulfing him in an agony of silent Light.
Beynor withdrew his bedazzled windsight, shaken to the core in spite of himself, and lay trembling in the bottom of the dinghy.
He rested for a long time, then sent his sight soaring once again to the interior of the faraway hut. Felmar Nightcott was gone, his flesh, blood, and bone reduced to a heap of gritty cinders. Although Beynor was unable to scry them, he presumed that the ancient books and the sigils were unharmed. From the conversation of the thieves, he had managed to identify three of the four Great Stones in the trove. The fourth was still a tantalizing enigma.
Perhaps when he entered the dream of the second man, he could coerce him into describing it.
But Beynor discovered very quickly that Scarth Saltbeck lay in a drunken stupor so profound that his mind was inaccessible to any invader. The jug-bitten wretch was incapable of dreaming! His natural talent was also totally incapacitated, and the protective spell of couverture had dissolved even before he and his companion had fallen asleep.
Beynor gave up trying to penetrate Scarth’s sodden brain after numerous failed attempts. His own head ached abominably from the effort and he cursed his bad luck. There was no helping it: he’d have to wait until later, when the liquor’s poisonous effects had worn off a little. Meanwhile, he’d keep wind-watch on the surviving thief as best he could, hoping no one else would scry out the unshielded lummox and come after him.
He relaxed on the pallet he’d made up in the bottom of the boat and stared up at the crimson night sky. With sail furled, oars stowed aboard, and no one at the tiller, the dinghy glided arrow-straight up the wide River Malle. Only a handful of people near the docks at Tallhedge noticed its uncanny passing, and they turned away from the sight in superstitious fear and told no one.
On Snudge’s orders, the guards at Elktor’s Mountain Gate had been questioned about strangers leaving the city late in the day. The officer who had been on duty clearly recalled a quarreling married couple mounted on mules—the man tall and robust, the wife petite and bristly about the chin. They had passed through shortly before the gate was locked for the night, even though the guards had urged them to wait until morning.
Heartened by this first solid evidence that the fugitives were in the area, Snudge told Count Olvan Elktor that he would use a map to guide his wind-voice, Vra-Mattis, in a fresh search. The two of them ascended to the top of the castle’s lofty north tower, and from that vantage point Snudge himself had labored for over three hours, nearly exhausting his limited store of energy in a futile scan of the land route to Roaring Gorge. Meanwhile, Mattis dozed peacefully at his master’s feet, wrapped in a frieze cloak against the persistent drizzle.
To Snudge, the shepherd’s path leading to Roaring Gorge had seemed the most logical way for the thieves to go. But the precipitous rock formations in the area proved a near-insurmountable barrier to his talent. The only living things he scried among the misty crags and ridges were animals.
Finding the boat was an unexpected piece of luck.
He had all but decided not to extend his search all the way to the gorge mouth,
since it lay twelve leagues from Elktor, and there had hardly been time for the thieves to travel so far on such a difficult path. But wishing to complete the job he’d begun, he continued scrying the portions of the path most readily visible to his mind’s eye, and at length came to the broad stony beach at the outflow of the river. The abandoned livestock boat out in the shallows caught his attention almost at once, and his heart leapt with hope. The presence of horse droppings on the deck at least made it feasible that the vessel had transported Kilian and his party.
Intent on finding something to confirm his judgment, he focused more closely on the craft, even exerting himself to scry through the wooden bulkheads. He saw an empty wine bottle fallen into the scuppers. Its label revealed that it had held a fine Stippenese vintage—a beverage far too dear for the purses of lowly watermen.
A promising sign, but it wasn’t proof positive.
He inspected the cockpit, the deck where the horses had been penned, and the interior of the little cabin, finding nothing of interest. A ladder had been positioned so that the roof of the deckhouse could be accessed, and something seemed to be caught on one of the rail stanchions up there, dangling down the opposite side. Again he strained to scry through the wood, and realized he was looking at an iron gammadion on its chain…
Snudge withdrew his sight and slumped down onto the parapet, drained by his efforts. Mattis was still asleep. The efficient castle steward had provided them with a covered basket containing a stoppered flask of spiced cider, bread rolls, and smoked goat-cheese. Snudge drank from the bottle and forced himself to chew several mouthfuls of bread. After a few minutes he felt himself recovering from the ordeal.
He now had a solid clue to the whereabouts of Kilian; but if the alchymist and his companions had gone into Roaring Gorge, there was probably no chance he’d be able to oversee them from here. They would have to be hunted by a ground party—and most probably not one including him and his people, unless King Conrig himself gave the order.
He reached out a hand to awaken Vra-Mattis and have him bespeak Gala Palace, then hesitated. A wild notion had popped into his mind. Rising to his feet, he walked across the flat roof of the tower to the opposite side. On his left soared the dark rampart of the Sinistral Range. Rolling moorlands lay at the foot of the mountains and extended eastward, interspersed with isolated masses of upthrust rock similar to the tor on which the castle stood. There was a track down there that wound over the heath toward Beorbrook Hold.
What if the thieves had gone that way? What if something had prevented them from taking the fork in the track that led to the gorge, giving them no choice but to turn in the other direction?
Shutting his eyes and summoning his last reserve of talent, he focused his windsight once again.
Conrig Wincantor brought his fist down with a bang on the table of the Council Chamber, causing Vra-Sulkorig, who was seated on his right, to blink in unspoken disapproval. The other chairs were empty and the table was littered with abandoned sheets of parchment, rolled charts, waxed tablets, and styluses. The candles in their gilt stands burned low.
“What do I care if he’s busy helping Vra-Mattis windsearch?” the king bellowed. “He can take a few minutes off to talk to his liege lord! He should have given me a progress report yesterday. We wouldn’t even know that he’d reached Elktor if Ollie’s windvoice hadn’t had the sense to notify you.”
“Let me bespeak Vra-Alamor again, Your Grace. I’ll insist that he interrupt Sir Deveron.” The Keeper of Arcana drew his hood over his face and bowed his head.
Conrig sat back in his chair, fuming. It was well after midnight and he’d dismissed all the Privy Council members except Sulkorig, who was serving as deputy to Stergos, after a long but none-too-productive conference about the situation in Tarn. The king had felt it necessary to inform his advisers about Maudrayne’s possible survival after another windspoken message was relayed to the palace from the outlaw shaman, Blind Bozuk—this time through a different, and presumably less expensive, intermediary.
Bozuk claimed to know where Ansel was taking the princess. He was willing to part with the information in exchange for five thousand gold marks, which the shrewd magicker demanded be kept in escrow for him until Maudrayne’s capture. The Sovereignty’s Ambassador to Tarn, Lord Grendos Wed-morril, had no such enormous sum at his disposal. It would have to be borrowed—either from bankers in Donorvale, who would demand punitive interest, or from the Tarnian Lord Treasurer, who would hem and haw and perhaps even insist on tax concessions. News of the extraordinary transaction was bound to spread quickly to Cathra via the financial grapevine, and the Lords of the Southern Shore would ask embarrassing public questions of the Crown.
Conrig had put the matter up to his Council: should he respond to Bozuk’s offer and obtain the money, or put the shaman off—at least for the time being—until the Royal Intelligencer was on the scene and in possession of all the facts?
The Council had waffled. In the end, Conrig decided to wait.
But he was not willing to wait for a report from Snudge. How dare the intelligencer remain incommunicado? He was supposed to report to the palace every evening, even if there were no new developments—
Sulkorig straightened and pushed back his hood. “Your Grace, I’ve bespoken Vra-Mattis. He says that Sir Deveron has scried out the hiding place of one of the fire-raising thieves, Scarth Saltbeck. He has also located an abandoned boat at the head of Elk Lake, which was very likely used in the escape of Kilian Blackhorse from Zeth Abbey.”
“Thank God!” cried the king, starting up from his chair at the head of the table. “Tell me more!”
“The man Saltbeck is hiding in a hut on the moors some eight leagues east of Elktor. A party of warriors, led by Deveron, will set out shortly to arrest him. When this is accomplished, Deveron will bespeak me personally with all details of the venture.”
“I trust that the miscreant has Darasilo’s Trove with him.”
“There would be no way to determine that, sire, until the thief is taken. Sigils cannot be scried. Neither, I presume, can the two magical books, since they have moonstones on their covers.”
Scowling, Conrig expelled a noisy breath. “I’d forgotten. God grant that the entire trove be there in the hut, and the intelligencer is able to take it safely in hand!… What’s this about a boat?”
“Sir Deveron is convinced, from various clues he oversaw on the empty vessel, that it transported Kilian, his fellow-traitors, and their horses to Roaring Gorge at the head of Elk Lake. It’s possible that the chasm would provide an escape route into Didion for the whole gang of conspirators, provided they had an expert guide. When Kilian and his three friends fled the abbey, they took with them a young Brother named Garon Curding. He belongs to a mountain clan and would likely know the gorge area well. A force led by Lord Olvan Elktor will pursue Kilian and his companions—although the troops will have a hard time of it because of dangerous terrain and unfavorable weather.”
“I don’t give a damn whether Kilian escapes into Didion, so long as he doesn’t carry the Trove of Darasilo with him.” Conrig pulled a wry face. “I won’t sleep this night until I know whether Deveron’s pursuit is successful. Will you keep watch with me?”
Sulkorig rose. “Why don’t we go to Lord Stergos’s chambers, sire? We can wait comfortably in his sitting room without being disturbed. If we receive good news, we can inform the Royal Alchymist at once. Lord Stergos would be greatly comforted. Perhaps he can also advise Sir Deveron how best to ensure the security of the recovered trove—no small matter, you’ll agree.”
“No,” Conrig agreed. “It’s not. I’ll have to give it careful thought myself.”
They thundered down the steep road from Elktor Castle and galloped apace for the Shore Road and the Mountain Gate: six of the count’s most intrepid household knights and four times that number of men-at-arms, heedless of the misty drizzle that enveloped the countryside, intent upon apprehending at least one of the Sovereignty?
??s most wanted criminals. Snudge led the troop, with Vra-Mattis riding at his side. He had deemed the other members of his party too inexperienced to accompany him, and had left them behind in the castle, sound asleep and heedless of the climactic events now unfolding.
Persuading his eager host, Lord Olvan, to lead the hunt for Kilian rather than the more exciting apprehension of Scarth Saltbeck had been a touchy matter. Although the young nobleman was brave, generous, and of a cheerful disposition, Ollie Elktor’s character disastrously combined rash impetuosity with a truly monumental fatheadedness. His people loved him in spite of his flaws and were inclined to overlook his errors of judgment; and happily, these had become less egregious since the viscount’s redoubtable father, Earl Marshal Parlian Beorbrook, had installed a handpicked steward to manage the castle household and an iron-willed constable to maintain discipline among its knights and warriors.
Lord Olvan yearned with all his heart to go after the notorious villain who had fired Gala Palace; but in the end, even a valiant dullard such as he understood the reasons why Sir Deveron Austrey sent him in the opposite direction. Chasing a fugitive over the eastern moorlands presented no special tactical difficulties to a newcomer to the region, provided he had local men riding with him. Roaring Gorge, on the other hand, was hazardous territory where specialized knowledge was vital to survival. Lord Olvan had actually ventured into the dreadful, haunted place a few times, if only for short distances. Sir Deveron knew nothing about the gorge, and confessed to being inexperienced in mountain travel to boot.
So Ollie manfully conceded the point. While Deveron and his men raced off on their lightning foray, the count assembled a larger force that was equipped for a long haul, and rode out at a more prudent pace an hour later. By then, Snudge was more than halfway to the croft where Scarth Saltbeck lay in a state of sodden insensibility.
The truth was that the intelligencer had a stronger reason for not wanting Olvan—much less any of his sharper-minded lieutenants—witnessing the arrest of Scarth. He intended that none of the Elktor people should ever know about the Trove of Darasilo, much less what he planned to do with the trove if he found it.