Ironcrown Moon (10 page)

Sovereignty would be plunged into chaotic war, making it easy for your own army to seize the advantage.“

“It sounds like a clever scheme, if somewhat convoluted.” The Conservator of Wisdom spoke
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wistfully. “But history has shown that our fighters have not the physical agility nor the military competence to withstand human beings on land. This is why most of us have remained in the Dawntide Isles for these many centuries, only venturing to attack the groundlings on rare occasions, from the sea… and why the Salka who still dwell in Blenholme’s Little Fen and the northern estuaries inhabited by humans live furtive, inconspicuous lives.”

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Beynor said, “The high sorcery of the

Known

Potency will make you superior to any weapon humanity can wield, be it natural or supernatural.”

“Tell us how this can be,” said the First Judge. He uncorked a flask and poured a viscous fluid into a gold cup, sniffed it, and took a tentative lap. His tongue was purple, and nearly the length of Beynor’s forearm.

The young sorcerer strode to the golden tripod and cupped his hands beneath the inactive sigil.

“Look upon it, Eminences! Apparently naught but a finely carved little stone ribbon, twisted to resemble a figure eight. But a finger slid along its surface discovers that the thing has but a single side and a single edge! A twofold wonder…”

“Do not touch the Potency!” the Supreme Warrior bellowed. “Never touch it again!” Beynor froze but did not flinch. After a moment, he let his hands fall to his sides and withdrew from the tripod, smiling.

“Continue,” said Master Kalawnn, with a reproachful glance at his colleague.

Beynor nodded. “Properly conjured, this small object defies the Beacon-folk’s control of their own sorcery.

It forces them to yield up arcane power through moonstone sigils without causing pain to the conjurer

. The mere touch of the living Potency liberates any other active sigil from the Lights’ control, as well as from the control of the former owner. A liberated sigil retains its efficacy, without exacting the former pain-price. Think what this might mean to wielders of minor-sigil weaponry such as flame-stones and stunners.”

“Incredible!” Kalawnn exclaimed.

“Not at all, Master. I’ve also discovered that the Potency can instantly activate dead sigils without the usual agonizing ritual, whether the

Lights will it or nill it. You Salka might also use the Potency to safely empower newly fashioned Great Stones. Just imagine what ten

Weathermakers could do to Conrig’s army and navy! Or even one Destroyer…”

“At the present time, we are unable to make new sigils,” Kalawnn admitted, shaking his ponderous head. “All that we have left are those minor stones brought to the isles by the refugees fleeing Bazekoy.”

Beynor kept a lid on his elation with difficulty. The chief sorcerer of the Salka had confirmed what Beynor and Kilian had previously only deduced to be true: the monsters would already have used Great Stones as weapons against humanity if they had owned any.

“Still,” Beynor said, “the Potency can be a great boon to you. Even the lesser sigils conjure more powerful sorcery than talented humans are capable of. King Conrig’s alchymists and warriors will flee in terror before your conquering magic!”

The Supreme Warrior gave a skeptical grunt. “That remains to be seen. In my opinion, if we have only minor stones to assist us, humans might retain a strong advantage—especially on land—as they did in Bazekoy’s day. Even our Great Stones did not deter his warriors for long.

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They slew the sigils’ owners from afar with their arrows, then were able to smash the dead stones before we could retrieve and reactivate them. Only three Great Stones ever came to the Dawntides, those that Rothbannon took away from us. They eventually were handed down to you. In your incredible stupidity, you misused them, and now only this Unknown Potency is left.”

“A more prudent course is open to us,” the Conservator of Wisdom said.

“As Kalawnn observed, we lack the ability to make new Great Stones at the present time

. But that situation could change.”

Beynor forced himself to speak nonchalantly in the face of this shocker. “And how might that come to pass, Eminence? Nothing I’ve studied so far in your archives tells of the origin of moonstone sigils.”

The Conservator turned to the Master Shaman. “Colleague, please explain matters to this groundling protege of yours. My voice grows weary.”

“Thousands of years ago,” Kalawnn said, “our people discovered that a certain precious mineral had the power to conjure the magic of the Coldlight Army. The mineral was never abundant, and obtaining it was a difficult and dangerous business. With the passing of time and the changing climate, the two sources of the mineral, known as the Moon Crags, became inaccessible to our people. Indeed, the very

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May, Julian - Boreal Moon 2 - Ironcrown Moon location of the smaller crag has been lost—we know only that it lies atop a mountain—while the larger crag is situated deep within the Barren Lands of the far north, in a place now colder and more inhospitable than it was in ages past.”

The Conservator said to Beynor, “If the Unknown Potency does indeed have the power you describe, we might undertake a special effort to reach the Barren Lands Moon Crag once again.

It might take a number of years to accomplish the task. But if we fashioned powerful new Great Stones and activated them through the Potency, then our victory against humanity would be certain rather than problematic.

The Lights would have no way of betraying us, as they did so perfidiously when Bazekoy first threatened our homeland.”

The other Eminences murmured in agreement. Beynor stood like a statue, fighting the nausea swelling inside him. He’d been so certain that they were ready to acquiesce to his scheme—and now this!

Well, there remained one bargaining tool that could mend the situation. Mentioning it now might lead the Eminences to suspect—rightly enough— that he was planning treachery after the action in Didion; but he had to risk it.

“It’s understandable that you feel you must hold off reclaiming your heritage until you obtain Great Stones,” he said carefully. “However, I might point out that there are three other Great Stones already in existence that could be used to further the Salka cause without delay.

In my opinion, these sigils alone would enable you to secure a strong initial foothold on High Blenholme while your valiant shamans simultaneously undertake the Moon Crag quest.”

Kalawnn said, “I presume you refer to those owned by your sister, Conjure-Queen Ullanoth, which supposedly came to her as a gift from your dead mother, along with four minor stones.”

“Hmm. I’d forgotten about those,” the Conservator said. “The young witch was said to have found them hidden among the roots of a swamp tree, after being guided by a dream.”

“That’s so,” Beynor said. “The important sigils are called Sender, Weather-maker, and Subtle Loophole. My sister rarely uses their high sorcery these days, since she has accumulated an enormous pain-debt employing them in the service of her lover, King Conrig.”

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“She uses them against us!” Ugusawnn snarled. “In our failed attack last year, the Conjure-Queen employed her Loophole sigil to see us coming, and smote our landing force with a great storm conjured by Weathermaker. After that, even with the queen disabled by pain, human ships attacked these very isles. Our fighters were crushed like fishlice!”

“I’m aware that recent Salka assaults against Moss were repelled.” Beynor gave the Supreme Warrior an apologetic shrug. “Forgive me, Eminence, for saying that the actions were poorly planned, using insufficient numbers of warriors who relied upon brute strength rather than appropriate magic.”

The huge eyes of Ugusawnn gleamed like baleful rubies. He bared his crystalline teeth at Beynor, and each was twice as long as a man’s hand. “Do you know a better way to fight the Conjure-Queen and her allies?”

“Suppose your forces were equipped with numbers of Concealers and Interpenetrators. I know your people possess such minor stones, as well as many others, but they are reluctant to use them because of the price. Liberated by the Potency, these sigils can assure victory! If you mount a stealthy attack on Royal Fenguard from the upstream side, using my special knowledge of the castle’s defenses in that area, you could penetrate the fortress walls and move about under cover of invisibility. Queen Ullanoth’s Great Stones would be yours before she or her ally King Conrig realized what was happening… because, with the Potency, you would not have to kill the queen before taking her Great Stones for yourselves.”

The First Judge was aghast. “What are you saying?”

“As you are aware, Eminence, a living sigil will ordinarily burn or even kill an unauthorized person who ventures to seize it. Even if the bonded owner is separated from the sigils, the owner can often command it from a distance— perhaps causing great harm or mischief.

But a moonstone liberated by the Potency is severed from its former owner at once. Recall what I said: a liberated stone becomes rebonded painlessly to the Potency wielder without the usual lengthy and painful ritual.”

The Conservator of Wisdom spoke with heavy sarcasm. “It is good that we need have no fear that you might manage to appropriate your sister’s three Great Stones for yourself, Beynor of Moss!”

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“Alas, no, Eminence,” Beynor lied. “The curse of the Beaconfolk places them beyond my reach forever. But not beyond yours.”

“All this sounds like a splendid course of action,” the Supreme Warrior sneered, “but in my opinion it has as many holes as a sponge. It relies too much on this groundling’s help and I don’t trust him. We can’t even be sure he’s told us the truth about the Potency.”

The Master Shaman said mildly, “Beynor is the son of my departed friend, Conjure-King Linndal. He has never given me reason to doubt his friendship toward the Salka people. He returned the Potency to us without condition. We know for a fact that he is incapable of using sigil magic himself. His assessment of the situation in Moss coincides with my own knowledge of Ullanoth’s affairs. I think we should consider the proposal to invade Moss very carefully. That isolated corner of High Blenholme would provide us with a perfect staging area for the main attack upon the rest of the island. Numbers of our people already reside in Moss’s fens and in the swamps along its principal rivers. And I agree with Beynor that the Conjure-Queen’s three important sigils would immediately give us an enormous advantage over human enemies.”

“Then let’s go against Moss right away!” said the First Judge, hoisting high his golden cup for emphasis. “Why muck about with this assassination of the Didionite king? What benefit is that to us?”

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“It gains you my gratitude,” Beynor said in a loud, cold voice. “And it’s a sure method of fatally weakening Conrig’s Sovereignty. If you kill Honigalus, I promise to help activate the Potency immediately afterwards and help you attack Moss. If you refuse me, I won’t share my knowledge with you.”

“I say we should simply put this presumptuous tadpole to the torture,” growled the Supreme Warrior. “He’ll tell us everything we need to know about the Potency inside of an hour. Once our search parties are equipped with lib-crated minor sigils that the Lights can’t meddle with, we’ll locate the Barren Lands Moon Crag in short order. We won’t need this snotty groundling’s help to reconquer Blenholme if we have plenty of new Great Stones. No human force could stand against us!”

“Bazekoy’s did,” the Conservator said bleakly. “Remember that.”

“Because the Lights betrayed us,” the Warrior thundered. “They allowed him to win—perhaps for their own perverse amusement. This time, the situation will be different.”

“Doing things my way would be so much more efficient, Eminences,” urged Beynor. “I can speed your conquest because I’m human. I

know human strategy. I know human weaknesses and strengths. And more than anything in this world, I want to destroy Conrig

Wincantor and my sister Ullanoth.”

A prolonged silence fell over the chamber.

“How strange,” mused the First Judge, as he licked the last mucilaginous drops from his cup,

“that Conjure-Queen Ullanoth should have discovered a hidden cache of sigils so fortuitously—although we know that many such must have been secreted away during our long retreat from Bazekoy’s host. I wonder if other lost Great Stones might be located using her Subtle Loophole, that most puissant tool for windsearching? If we owned a liberated Loophole, then it would be unnecessary for us to launch a long and arduous expedition to the Barren Lands Moon Crag.”

Beynor felt his gorge rise anew at this terrible possibility, which had never occurred to him.

What a catastrophe if the monsters located and took control of Darasilo’s Trove before he could steal it away from Kilian…

But the Conservator’s next words wiped away Beynor’s dismay and kindled fresh hope. “It seems to me that the young sorcerer’s proposal to help us seize the Conjure-Queen’s sigils has considerable merit. We should not reject it lightly.”

“I agree,” said the Master Shaman. “Furthermore, torturing the human as Ugusawnn urges can produce unsatisfactory results. Humans have such frail bodies compared to our own.”

“If I die under the Supreme Warrior’s ministrations before telling you the secret of the Potency,”

Beynor said reasonably, “you will have thrown away any chance of abolishing the pain-yoke of the Lights, or regaining your ancestral island home.”