Ironcrown Moon (5 page)

“But how?” Stergos demanded. “Our wretched uncle was deprived of all talent by the iron gammadion before being confined to Zeth

Abbey. Kilian is unable to speak on the wind himself, nor can he receive any windspoken communication from another. And no humans dare set foot on the Dawntide Isles, so there can have been no written message from Beynor delivered to the abbey.”

“My brother may have been cursed by the Lights and stripped of his sigils,” Ullanoth said, “but he still retains the strong natural talents he was born with. One of those is the ability to invade dreams. When we were young children, he used to torment me until I learned to shut him out.

Fortunately, that defensive ability comes readily to those who are adept at the arcane arts.”

The king nodded thoughtfully, remembering that Snudge had also told him once of being harassed by Beynor while sleeping. “So you believe your brother communicates with Kilian through dreams?”

“Zeth Abbey is well shielded from windsearching, but I have been able to follow Beynor’s mental footsteps, as it were, to that place many times. I doubt there is any other person residing in the abbey who would be of interest to him.”

“Beynor and Kilian!” Conrig mused. “What common cause could the two exiles share nowadays? And yet they did conspire against me as I prepared to invade Didion…”

Ullanoth had learned some years ago that both villains shared knowledge of a mysterious hidden
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trove of sigils. But she was unaware that the king already knew of its existence.

“I shall have to warn Abbas Noachil about this at once,” Stergos said. “He’s very old and ill, but he can order the Brethren to take special precautions against Kilian’s escape.”

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May, Julian - Boreal Moon 2 - Ironcrown Moon

“That would be prudent.” Ullanoth turned to Conrig. “Unfortunately, Beynor has also attempted to invade the dreams of some person residing here in Gala Palace. I learned of this only two days ago, as I scried him on the parapet of the Salka island fortress and followed his windtrace. I don’t know who his intended target was, only that the dreamer successfully repelled Beynor’s effort.”

“God’s Teeth!” Conrig exclaimed. “Could the bastard have been trying to enter my dreams?”

“Were you aware of any such assault?” Ullanoth asked. When Conrig admitted he could recall no such thing, she smiled. “Then you’re very likely safe. Your talent, meager though it is, would probably have alerted your sleeping mind to any attempt at forcible entry. Were you an untalented person, however, it’s possible he might have invaded you without your being aware of what was happening.”

“This is a troubling piece of news,” Stergos said. “If Beynor’s target was not the High King, then who might it have been?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Dream-invasion is an uncommon talent. Certain members of Moss’s Glaumerie Guild have used it in the past to gather information from the minds of ordinary folk, or as a means of subtly coercing dreamers into some activity. More often than not, the invasion fails of its objective unless the dreamer is predisposed to cooperate, is very young, or has impaired willpower.”

“Will you continue to oversee Beynor’s footprints on the wind,” Conrig besought her, “and warn us if he attempts some wicked ploy among the residents of Gala Palace? I would deem it a great favor.”

“You ask the impossible. My surveillance of my brother is sporadic at best because I am so drained of strength. I only undertake it to protect myself and my kingdom from his evil designs.”

“Then what can we do?” Conrig asked.

“Nothing except be on guard.” Ullanoth took her cloak from Conrig’s hands and wrapped it about her once again. “It’s time for me to leave you. I dare not let my Sending remain here any longer, for I feel myself growing very weak. Be assured that I’ll notify Vra-Stergos promptly if I should discover anything that you should know.”

“Thank you for examining the unborn babe, my dearest queen.” Conrig made a formal inclination of his head. “I regret that your pain will be endured to no good outcome.”

She touched his cheek. “We are with one another so seldom now that I welcome the opportunity to be here—even if it can only be in a brief Sending. Consider a voyage to Moss this summer.

You can easily contrive an excuse.”

“It’s a wonderful idea. You’ll be hearing from me.” He bent over her hand again, and a moment later she disappeared.

Aghast, Stergos whispered, “Surely you would not go to her!”

Conrig’s smile was grim. “No more than I would dive headlong into the steaming crater of Mornash volcano. But let her have hope.”

The Royal Alchymist spoke anxiously. “You know what Kilian must be after.”

“I know. But the Darasilo Trove can’t be easy to get at, else our uncle would have had his minions seize it years ago… or you and Snudge would have located the bloody thing yourselves.”

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“But—”

“Brother, we’ll consider the matter tomorrow, when Snudge returns. He knows more about that cache of sigils than anyone else we can trust. For now, I think you and I should carry Risalla to her bed. Then you must bespeak Snudge ordering his return and warn Abbas Noachil to put Kilian and his three cronies into close confinement. Meanwhile, I’ll seek out Earl Marshal Parlian in the gardens and ask his opinion of this fine mess. One thing is certain: I was much mistaken in telling my Royal Intelligencer that this would be a peaceful summer.”

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May, Julian - Boreal Moon 2 - Ironcrown Moon

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Stergos had given all of the Brothers in the palace permission to set aside their usual duties and enjoy the Solstice entertainments. So he was surprised to find three red-robed figures standing outside the great door that led to the Alchymical Library, engaged in earnest conversation. He vaguely recognized them as visiting scholars, associates of Prior Waringlow, who had come down from Zeth Abbey several months earlier to do research on some historical project or other.

“Why are you tarrying inside the palace on such a beautiful night?” he asked them, unfastening a large iron key from the ring he wore on his belt. To reach his own rooms, he had to pass through the library.

The Brothers bowed in respectful unison. One of them said, “We had hoped to do some studying, Lord Stergos, but found the library locked. Perhaps you’ll admit us—”

“Nonsense! Go listen to the music and have a cup of wine. Your work can wait.”

“Certainly, my lord.”

Stergos watched them go, trying to recall their names. But thoughts of what he must say and must not say in the upcoming wind-conversation with Vra-Mattis, the novice Brother assigned to Snudge, distracted him, and he gave up the effort as he fitted the key into its massive lock.

two

Drumming. Drumming. Drumming.

Dom dom t’pat-a-pat pom… dom

.

The sound coming from the little hut beyond the byre was soft but still audible in every room of the arctic steading’s main house, repeating the same simple percussive figure, continuing hour after hour for nearly two days, longer than ever before. Sometimes the beat would falter, the timing spoiled because of inattention or the fatigue of the drummer’s aged wrists and fingers; but after a painful pause the rhythmic sound always began again.

Dobnelu the sea-hag was having a particularly difficult time crossing the barrier this time. She could not recall how many false starts she’d made. Even a single mistake in the three thousand measured patterns of drumming meant going back to the beginning, but it was unthinkable that she abandon the effort. Not even her dire premonition about the woman and the boy who were her special charges must tempt her to give up. Red Ansel Pikan and Thalassa Dru were waiting beneath the ice. Needing her.

And so was the One Denied the Sky.

Dobnelu could only join them in the starless world by means of the drum-trance, a ritual not especially difficult for Tarnian shamans in the prime of life, but an excruciating ordeal for a woman whose years numbered over fourscore and ten.

Dom dom t’pat-a-pat pom… dom.

Eyes shut tightly against the brightness of Midsummer Eve, resolutely gripping the bone
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drumsticks in her gnarled hands, Dobnelu the sea-hag forced herself to go on.

==========

The maidservant Rusgann and the boy were somehow able to sleep through the maddening sound of the drumming, but Maudrayne

Northkeep always remained conscious of it, even when she slipped into and out of a troubled half doze. In disjointed prayers, she begged for an end to the infernal noise.

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At last, as always, the end did come. The drumbeats ceased abruptly after a single climactic DOM

. There was a sudden silence, broken only by the bleating of a goat in the meadow. The hag had succeeded in opening the door to that other place again. She’d entered and so left her prisoners free of her supervision for at least a day, perhaps even two.

Maudrayne pushed aside the opaque curtain of her cupboard-bed and descended on the stepstool, naked except for the ornate golden necklace with the three great opals that she never took off, her uncle Sernin’s precious wedding gift that she had worn on the night she cast herself into the sea. The air in the shuttered little room was fresh and pleasantly cool, thanks to the sod roof of Dobnelu’s sturdily built home. Outside, under the endless midsummer daylight, it was probably rather warm. Perfect for what she had planned.

After putting on her clothes, she tiptoed to the partly open door leading to the large central chamber, the combined kitchen and sitting room where her servingwoman and the boy slept.

The hourglass on the mantelpiece indicated about three in the morning. Little Dyfrig’s nook was wide-open and he sat unclothed on the edge of his bed, watching his mother with solemn, intelligent eyes. Neither Maudrayne nor her son needed much sleep in the summertime: their Tarnian blood saw to that. But Rusgann Moorcock was a southerner, and she’d demonstrated that she could sleep through a tundra-deer stampede. Her cupboard-bed’s curtains were shut.

“No more magic drum,” Dyfrig whispered to his mother. His hair had the same tawny golden color as that of his father, and he also possessed Conrig’s handsome features and unusual dark brown eyes. A moon earlier, the boy had celebrated his fourth birthday.

Maudrayne put a finger to her lips and beckoned him. He slipped to the floor noiselessly and joined her at the kitchen’s single small window. Leather-hinged at the top and held open by a hook and eye fastened to the low ceiling, it was covered with a screen of black gauze to exclude biting midges. Outside, bright sun shone on the meadow and reflected from the island-strewn expanse of Useless Bay beyond the dropoff into the fjord. A distant iceberg with multiple spires, like a dazzling white castle, hovered on the horizon off Cape Wolf.

Maudrayne pointed to the sea-hag’s holy hut at the edge of the steading and spoke softly into the boy’s ear. “Eldmama Nelu has drummed herself into an enchanted sleep again. Her body will stay in the hut for a few days now, while her spirit soars away northward to the icecap of the Barren Lands to talk to the One Denied the Sky and the other witches and wizards. Now that she’s gone, we can leave the farm without her permission and go wherever we please! Would you like to walk along the seashore today and have a treasure hunt?”

He squealed with excitement. “Yes! Yes! Maybe we can find whale bones, or scales from a mirrorfish!”

“Shhh. You’ll wake Rusgann—”

Curtain-rings rattled and the maid’s homely face popped out of her enclosure. “I’m already awake, Your Grace.” A lanky body modestly clad in a homespun shift emerged. “And you know very well we’re forbidden to leave the steading circle without Dobnelu along to protect us from
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danger.”

Ignoring the servant’s admonition, Maudrayne went to the larder, where she gathered rye bread, cheese, a small crock of goose-grease flavored with wild herbs, and some sweet cranberry cakes.

“There’s no danger,” she insisted. “None at all, except from our own misadventure, and we’ll take great care not to lose our footing on the cliff trail or be caught by the rising tide. Now dress yourself, Dyfi.

Visit the backhouse and wash your hands, and we’ll be on our way. We can have a picnic breakfast on the beach.”

The boy threw his clothes on and darted outside with a joyful shout, slamming the door. The maid Rusgann lumbered over to her mistress and stood, fists on hips, scowling in disapproval.

“Your Grace, the spells protecting us extend only to the ring of white stones around this house and the outbuildings. If we venture outside the magic circle, the Beaconfolk could do us harm.

Or some windwatching scoundrel of the king’s might scry us!”

“Do you know what day this is, Rusgann?” Maudrayne was serene and smiling. Her long auburn hair, freshly washed and hanging free as she stubbornly insisted upon wearing it, shone like burnished copper. “This is the Solstice Eve, a very lucky day. No wicked sorcerers or monsters—not even the Coldlight Army—can harm human beings today.”

“Huh! I never heard of such a thing.”

“That’s because you’re Cathran-born. We Tarnians know more about dark magic than you do.

As for windwatchers—none of them know

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May, Julian - Boreal Moon 2 - Ironcrown Moon we’re in this godforsaken spot except Ansel, who brought us here. No one who matters even knows we’re alive! So I say we’re in no danger.

And today my son and I will leave this dreary steading and walk free for hours along the sunny shore without a cranky old witch dogging our heels.”