“Father would never take counsel with his sister—nor would she bespeak him,” she whispered. “Not after he banished her so cruelly and blackened her name.”
Beynor spoke matter-of-factly. “I think Father and Thalassa mended their quarrel. What’s more, he confided to me some weeks ago that he was thinking of sending you to her when the unrest in Didion simmers down and the Wold Road reopens. Father thought you’d benefit from a long course of arcane instruction. You see, he knew you’d been playing dangerous little games with sigils. In his more rational moments he was afraid—and I quite agreed with him—that you’d endanger the stability of the realm with your girlish dabbling.” He drew a rolled parchment out of his robe and flourished it. “We spoke of that tonight at some length. It helped convince him to sign this decree.”
“Damn you, Beynor! Damn you! What have you done?” She rushed at him in a rage and would have torn the document from his hand, but a shimmering veil of air sprang into being between them, and when she met it, she recoiled with a scream of pain. “Aaah! You demon dog-scat!”
The shield winked out and his pale face was suddenly a mask of odious exultation. He pulled a shining sigil from the collar of his robe. It was the one named Subtle Armor. “Watch how you speak to me, Sister. I’m the new Conjure-King of Moss.”
“No…”
He loosed the red ribbon that held the vellum. “Here’s the decree, witnessed earlier this evening by Master Ridcanndal and Lady Zimroth.” The document dangled before her eyes, a thing finely illuminated with red and blue and gold leaf, stamped with Linndal’s bloody thumbprint and those of the witnesses. “You, the eldest child of his body, are explicitly debarred from the succession, and I am created heir to the throne. Should I die without issue, the crown will pass to our young cousin Habenor or his siblings, with Ridcanndal and Zimroth acting as co-regents until their majority.”
“I see,” she said in a flat voice.
“There are two duplicates of the decree, held for safekeeping by the Guild. You may keep this copy if you wish. It’s quite legal.” He beamed at her. “My death would gain you nothing, so forget about poison in the soup or cruder forms of assassination. You’ve lost, Ulla.”
“Poor Father!” She looked away without touching the document. “He loved neither of us. I think all the love that was in him turned to dust when our mother was slain so hideously by the Lights.”
When she made no move to accept the parchment, he rolled it up and retied the ribbon. “It will do you no good to accuse me publicly of causing Father’s death. The Glaumerie Guild is relieved that he’s gone, and so are most of the rest of the court. They’re bound to approve my lucrative new alliance with Didion, and I have long-range plans for Cathra, too! Your sweetheart Conrig won’t catch the Didionite garrisons at Castlemont and Boarsden by surprise. Advise your prince to hang up his spurs and forget about launching that invasion through Great Pass.”
“Better perhaps that I tell him to prepare to defend Cala city against a surprise attack from the mainland—instigated by you!”
“Say whatever you please,” Beynor said indifferently. “You are to be confined to the dungeon until I make arrangements to ship you off to Thalassa Dru in Tarn… Knights! Arrest the Conjure-Princess!”
The armed warlocks standing at the door came toward her with condescending smiles. They did not even bother to draw their magical weapons.
“So you think you can exile me,” she said to Beynor. “Have you forgotten that I am also able to command sigils?”
“To do what?” he scoffed. “Defend your rooms against intruders while you mess about in deep matters weakminded women can never understand? You’re not safe in your sanctum now, Ulla—you’re here, in my power.”
Beynor gestured, and suddenly he stood four ells tall with his head grazing the vaulted ceiling and huge arms resting akimbo. He had activated Shapechanger in a childish attempt to intimidate her. She was unafraid, but the warlocks who took hold of her were strong men she could not shake off. One of them had a thick silken cord, which he used to bind her gloved wrists behind her. Another knelt, chuckling insolently, and began to tie her ankles. They intended to carry her off like a trussed calf.
Beynor’s gigantic apparition howled a peal of scornful laughter. “Not so high and mighty now, are you, Sister?”
“Imbecile,” she said. The sigils Interpenetrator and Concealer were still within her gloves, resting painfully in the palms of her hands. She whispered the spells commanding them and vanished from the confining arms of the warlocks like a puff of vapor, leaving the knotted silk cords behind in a heap on the scuffed rush matting of the throne room floor.
Chapter Thirteen
Iscannon’s sigil lay on the stone floor of the corridor, its glow and pain-giving potential temporarily in abeyance.
Without touching the thing with his bare hand, Snudge maneuvered it by its thong into his belt-wallet. The book seemed harmless enough when he gave it a fearful tap with his finger, so he rewrapped it and hid it again inside his shirt.
He hurried to the armigers’ quarters, arriving as the half-tenth-hour chime sounded. It was the usual bedtime for squires of the prince’s cohort, but none of the other boys were there. A quick overview of the palace showed him that they were part of the throng of courtiers waiting to welcome King Olmigon home from his pilgrimage. No one would miss Snudge. People were used to his odd comings and goings.
He hid the wallet with the sigil under his palliasse, which was closest to the outer door so he could sneak out easily at night, then went down the corridor to the necessarium. After entering and fastening the latch, he ignited the candle with his talent, unwrapped the book, and sat down on the covered stool to study.
The chapter that claimed his immediate attention was the one entitled Vital Precautions for the Thaumaturgist.
Nearly an hour later, hearing the sound of distant cheers through the latrine’s loophole, he closed the small volume with a sigh and returned to the dormitorium. The other boys wouldn’t tarry long in the forecourt once the royals arrived. The Palace Steward would shoo them off to bed.
He undressed, tucked the wrapped book under his pillow, and lay beneath his covers, watching the smoky flames in the oil sconce hanging on the wall, thinking about what he had discovered.
Parts of the book were straightforward enough. Empowering a sigil—bringing it to life—always inflicted great pain upon the conjurer. Invoking the magic of the moonstones caused more or less suffering, depending upon the strength of the spell required. Also, certain sigils affecting the human body would only work when in contact with the owner’s skin. The invisibility charm he’d taken from the spy was of that type.
When the owner died, a sigils efficacy was cancelled. Ordinarily, someone else wishing to conjure a “dead” sigil into fresh activity would intone a rather lengthy incantation laying claim to it. The formula was in the book, but unfortunately written in that same unknown language used in the two larger books he’d left behind in Kilian’s sanctum. As written, the strange words had far too many consonants and odd diphthongs for Snudge to guess at their correct pronunciation. Saying them wrong, he had learned from the Vital Precautions led to horrible penalties.
By chance, using the moonstone disk on the book’s cover, he had stumbled upon a hazardous shortcut that invoked the Beaconfolk directly without the appropriate ceremonial overtures. This constituted a breach of magical etiquette that the book strongly cautioned against. As he had suspected, the cranky wind-voice he’d heard had been one of the Beaconfolk (a low-ranking one, in charge of less-important sigils), asking him what the bloody hell he wanted. According to the book, his failure to answer the query properly might well have resulted in his annihilation. Only lucky happenstance had saved him.
The appropriate response to the affronted Light was right there in the book—also given in the foreign tongue, and thus quite useless to Snudge.
The Vital Precautions chapter had a long list of magical missteps
with consequences that were mortal—or worse. Reading them with a sinking heart, he had almost dropped the terrible book down the dunghole right then and there.
I can’t do this! he’d said to himself. I want to be Prince Conrig’s intelligencer— not risk my life mucking about with sky-monsters that can squash me like a gnat.
But niggling curiosity, and a feeling that he would be nothing more than a craven child if he gave up so easily, had compelled him to turn back to the beginning of the little volume and skim through it as best he could. The unfamiliar spelling and peculiarly shaped letters bothered him less and less as he read the short chapters; but there were still certain explanatory sections he could make no sense of, as well as the all-important spells written in the foreign tongue.
The much longer chapter with the catalogue of sigils included a precise drawing of Iscannon’s piece of moonstone and its proper name, Concealer, together with its uses and its activating incantation. The thing was a futtering miracle! Not only was it capable of making its wearer invisible, it could also hide other specified living or inanimate things within a radius of “four armes longthes” if given the proper command. With that feature, he learned, a sorcerer might conceal the horse he was riding on or even a small boat, or shield a group of people huddling within about four ells of him.
But only if he pronounced the alien spell properly. If he said the words wrong, the sigil might kill him in various hideous ways, or the annoyed Beaconfolk might play one of their capricious jokes—such as casting him into an abominable arctic netherworld minus his skin, where he’d spend eternity in frozen agony.
I’m stumped, Snudge admitted miserably, as he lay in bed. He might as well throw both the sigil and the book into the sea, as Conjure-Prince Beynor had commanded. There was no way he’d ever be able to use this magic safely.
By now he had read or paged through virtually every volume in Vra-Kilian’s main Alchymical Library. He knew for certain that none of them had been a pronouncing dictionary of that distinctive weird language. Neither had there been such a book in the locked cases in the inner sanctum. Perhaps the inability to pronounce the spells was the fatal flaw that had deterred the villainous Royal Alchymist from utilizing his own large collection of sigils.
Shite…
By rights, Snudge concluded, I should speak to Prince Conrig before getting rid of Iscannon’s sigil and the book. His master might want to confer with Princess Ullanoth, who doubtless was familiar with such dangerous sorcery. Perhaps she’d tell the prince how to pronounce the spell of invisibility.
But all the boy’s instincts rebelled against that course of action. Ullanoth had warned Conrig that the sigil was too dangerous to keep. Rather than share its spell with him, she’d more likely demand that he turn the moonstone over to her immediately, or throw it away.
Snudge heard young voices in the corridor outside. The armigers were returning. As they trooped into the room, some of the boys giggled and gave owl hoots when they saw Snudge already abed, but he cursed them good-naturedly and drew his feather-tick over his head. After the usual noisy scrambling about subsided, Belamil snuffed the light and commanded silence. Everyone settled down just as the castle chimes struck the first hour of morning.
I’ll decide what to do tomorrow, Snudge thought.
But he’d reckoned without his nightmare, which was about to change.
In it, he fought Iscannon as usual, and felt himself succumbing to the icy enchantment. But when he stabbed the spy to the heart and heard the windvoice cry out desperately for Beynor, the Conjure-Prince entered Snudge’s dream in a completely different aspect.
No longer at sea, the Mosslander was sitting at a table in a darkened room, wearing a quilted robe decorated with rather silly little stars. His expression was different; the erstwhile haughty self-confidence was gone and he looked both angry and diminished, as though he had experienced some great defeat or humiliation.
I know what you’ve done, Deveron Austrey.
“Oh, really?”
The question is, what am I going to do about it?
“I hope you don’t intend to bore me with your usual threats and insults— or bring me more painful nightmares. They’re a nuisance, nothing more. If you could have harmed me seriously, you’d have done it already. You’re all piss and wind, Prince Beynor.”
Not quite! But in light of recent events, I’m reconsidering our adversarial relationship, and I suggest you do so as well. It would be mutually profitable if we were allies instead of enemies.
“I doubt it.”
Let me explain. I know about the book you stole.
“I didn’t steal any book.”
You’re the only one who could have taken it. No one else would have dared enter the Royal Alchymist’s sanctum. No one else in Cala Palace has a use for the ancient book he kept hidden there.
“Hah! So you admit you aren’t certain I have it! You weren’t windwatching me.”
No one can windwatch you, Deveron Austrey. This is why you’re such a danger— and such a potential asset. I knew someone must have taken Iscannon s sigil. No sigil, alive or dead, can be perceived by a windwatcher, but persons possessing them usually give themselves away by their actions. Since neither the prince nor his brother Stergos seemed to have Iscannon’s stone, that left you—the strangely unwatchable servant boy. A sight of you was flashed to me by Iscannon even as he died.
“And you snuck into my dreams.”
I have that ability. It was a source of great distress to my dear sister until she learned how to shut me out. I even used it on my father, to sway his poor mad mind.
“Will you stop beating about the bush and tell me what you want?”
All in good time. Would it surprise you to know that Vra-Kilian, the Royal Alchymist of Cathra, is my creature? He discovered that the small magical book was gone almost as soon as he returned to Cala Palace. He had no notion of who might have taken it while he was away on the pilgrimage.
“So Kilian’s the traitor! Thanks for the information. I’ll tell Prince Conrig right away. He’s suspected the alchymist for some time.”
Don’t talk like a fool. There’s no way Conrig can prove his uncle’s treachery. Your word on the matter is worth less than a fart in a beermug.
“Elegantly put, my prince.”
I’m not a prince any more. My father Linndal died—may the Moon shine kindly on his spirit—and he named me his successor and debarred my sister Ullanoth from the throne. I’m Conjure-King Beynor now! The news will be windspoken all over High Blenholme by tomorrow.
“Congratulations. But why bother telling me?”
You can be very valuable to me, and vice versa. My sigil and the book that you stole from the Royal Alchymist—
“How many times must I say that I don’t have anything that belongs to you. And nothing that Kilian has a true claim on, either.”
He believes otherwise… and he knows that you’re the thief. I told him so. He’ll be coming for you unless you agree to serve me. He’ll slice off your body’s flesh by inches, you upstart horse-lackey, and toast the bloody collops and force-feed them to you, unless I call him off.
“Do you know what I think? I think you’re lying again. If you’d told Vra-Kilian that I have his book, he’d be here in the dormitorium with his henchmen trying to drag me out of bed. And I’d be screaming for my master, Prince Conrig, and eleven hopping-mad armigers would be whacking at wizards and raising a ruckus that’d lift off the palace roof.”
You think you’re clever, Deveron Austrey, but—
“Stop trying to bluff! You’re not absolutely certain that I have the book and the sigil, and you don’t know where I might have hidden them. Vra-Kilian and his magickers will never find the things… and they’ll never find me if I decide to hide. Cala Palace is enormous! I can windwatch Kilian, but he and his ”windbags can’t scry me, any more than you can. If necessary, I’ll stay out of reach in Conrig’s apartments until his force leaves for—for the north coun
try. I’m the Prince Heritor’s liege man, damn your eyes, not a paltry servant!“
Very well. You win.
“… What’s that supposed to mean?”
I have no intention of setting the Royal Alchymist on you. I’m actually extremely disappointed in him. I’ve decided to offer you his job—together with the rewards that go with it.
“What!”
Become my secret retainer, Deveron Austrey. Conrig Wincantor gave you a sword and a suit of armor and some flimsy promises of manorlands when you’re twenty. I’ll give you power and riches beyond imagining, and do it right now.
“Until I ‘disappoint’ you, Conjure-King! Then you’ll toss me to the monsters.”
Your skepticism is understandable. So I’ll give you a demonstration of my good faith and regal generosity. I’ll instruct you how to activate your sigil of invisibility, with no strings attached. As a free gift.
“I don’t believe you. You’ll trick me. Destroy me!”
Why should I bother? I’m trying to make friends. To win you over. You can find the proper words right there in your stolen book, under the picture of Concealer, but they’re useless because you can’t say them correctly.
“If I had the book, that’d be true.”
Don’t be tedious. Now: you must always keep this kind of sigil against your flesh for it to work. To be unseen, say or whisper: BI DO FYSINEK. To be visible again, say: BI FYSINEK. If you want the magical cover to extend about four ells around you—to shield other people, for instance—say: FASH AH. To make the cover shrink again: KRUFAH. It’s all quite simple. Say the words, Deveron.
“Bi do fysinek. Bi fysinek. Fash ah. Kruf ah.”
No no no! Don’t use your disgusting Cathran drawl. Roar the words! Speak deeply as I did, breathing roughly.
“BI DO FYSINEK. BI FYSINEK. FASH AH. KRUF AH.”
Perfect. What a great memory you have! Now there’s a bit more to learn, and I’ll admit that this is the rather sticky part. Concealer is dead, because it was conjured to Iscannon, and he’s dead. To make it live again, you must—um—introduce yourself to the Lights as the new owner. The safest way to do this is with a long incantation written there in your book, but you’d never remember how to say it all, so you’ll have to do things another way.