Ironcrown Moon (59 page)

“Yes.” She was unperturbed. “And I can but hope they will be the proper ones to give succor to your friend. Perhaps you had better describe his ailment in detail as we walk along. As I said, I am yet an apprentice, but my studies are far advanced. Perhaps I can help.”

They started along the cliff-top path. Gavlok gave a halting description of Snudge’s symptoms without saying how the illness came upon him. When she inquired whether the sick man might have eaten tainted food or some poisonous plant, or if he had suffered a blow to the head, Gavlok denied it.

“So your friend Deveron is the only one among you who is ill,” she summarized, “and all of you ate the same meals, and he did not sample any strange mushrooms or berries, nor suffer an injury to the skull. And he is a man of twenty years who has always enjoyed excellent health.”

“Aye, mistress.” Gavlok’s reply was uneasy.

“Such persons may be suddenly laid low in the way you describe, without obvious cause,” she said. “But this happens only rarely, perhaps due to the abrupt failure of some vital body part that was overfragile from birth with no one the wiser. If this is the case with your friend, I regret to say that his outlook is very grave indeed, and I probably can do nothing to cure him… But there is one other thing that might be wrong, and for this I might have remedy.”

“What?” Radd asked.

She paused on the path, her calm gaze sweeping over them. “You must be honest. Is it possible that your friend Deveron is bewitched?”

Gavlok’s face had gone ashen, but he pressed his lips together and shook his head, intending to keep the secret of the sigils as he had solemnly promised. But Radd had no such scruples when his leader’s life was at stake, and the success of his mission as well.

“Mistress, you may have hit on it,” the Swordsman said. “Deveron is a petty trickster, able to perform only a few simple conjurations. He attempted a more serious piece of magic, and it was after this that he fell into the mortal swoon.”

“Ah,” said Induna. “I would not be surprised to hear that a hedge-wizard of Didion was so afflicted. But I had thought that all Cathrans possessed of talent were forced to join the Mystic Order of Zeth.”

“In most cases, they are,” Gavlok admitted. “But Deveron’s magical abilities are so very slight that no one in authority took note of them.

He reveals them only to his closest friends. We refrain from exposing him, since a free spirit such as he would pine away in a life that was both regimented and celibate, such as the Zeth Brothers must embrace.”

“I can only be thankful that Tarnian shamans are not treated that way,” Induna murmured. “This Deveron sounds like an interesting young man. With all my heart, I pray that I can restore his health.”

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Three hours later, she and her companions arrived at the ravine. She said not a word about the nonexistent “boat” the men were supposed

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May, Julian - Boreal Moon 2 - Ironcrown Moon to have arrived in, nor did she comment on the unusual quality of their weapons and equipment. After a brief examination of the sick man’s face, without removing his body coverings, she asked for as many candles as they possessed, and had them lit and placed round about Snudge’s pallet. Then she commanded the five to leave her alone with the patient. When they had withdrawn as far away as possible, while keeping to the shelter of the ledge, she turned down the blankets and opened Snudge’s shirt.

“By the Icebound Sisters!” she gasped, lifting the golden chain with its softly glowing amulets away from his bare flesh. “So that’s it!”

She eased the chain over his head, being careful not to touch the stones herself, and laid them aside on the dry dust of the shelter floor.

For an instant, the internal light of the one shaped like a tiny door flashed a brighter, baleful green. Then it was as dim as before.

Induna sat back on her heels, thinking furiously. She knew what the amulets were: moonstone sigils of the Coldlight Army. She’d even seen one once, years ago, a quaintly carved translucent octagon that her mother Maris, who was also a healer shaman, had found washed up on the Barking Sands after a tremendous winter storm. That sigil possessed no glowing heart; it was not alive, as were the stones of her patient. Mum was deeply afraid of the moonstone she had found, and when Induna timidly suggested that they give it to Eldpapa, Maris had slapped her shocked little daughter and screamed that she must never, never tell Bozuk of the thing’s existence.

Later, Mum had gone off secretly in a small boat to visit the terrible sea-hag Dobnelu, and had given the sigil to her. When Maris returned, she explained to Induna that the moonstone was a thing accurst and supremely perilous—not only to humankind, but also to Green Men and Salka and Morass Worms and Small Lights. Only the sea-hag and a few other great shamans such as Ansel Pikan had the power to dispose of them safely. As for using their sorcery—

Maris told her daughter the story of Rothbannon of Moss, and how he tricked the Salka monsters into giving up the legendary Seven

Stones, and how he alone had managed to use them without harming himself or losing his soul.

Then Maris related the histories of

Rothbannon’s royal successors, who were not quite so lucky, ending with the gruesome fate of Queen Taspiroth, who had managed to offend the Great Lights and was cast into the Hell of Ice.

Young Induna had suffered nightmares from those tales until her mother laid on her an ameliorating spell.

As a young woman and an apprentice shaman herself, Induna learned about the fate of Taspiroth’s insane husband Linndal and the rivalry between their son Beynor and daughter Ullanoth. But like the other low-status wonderworkers of Tarn, she had believed the Mosslanders were the only humans to use sigil magic.

So what was this young Cathran adventurer doing with two of them?

Did he intend using them to take Princess Maudrayne and her son away from Ansel Pikan, the almighty High Shaman, who evidently didn’t even know that Deveron and the others were here?

Induna came close to the unconscious man and studied his countenance. He was good-looking in an unexceptional way, pallid and blue-lipped and with dark circles about his eyes from the arcane illness. It was not a face belonging to a person who had surrendered his soul to evil—nor even come dangerously close to doing it, as
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Eldpapa had. She touched his clammy brow and he stiffened. His eyes flew open.

They were black, the pupils so distended that the color of the irises could not be perceived.

After a moment, he relaxed again and his eyes closed. He let out a long, sighing breath. His heartbeat, which had been irregular, overslow, and weak, quickened minutely as he partook of a small portion of her vitality.

“Tell me who you are, Deveron. Tell me what you are!”

Her insight, which was one of the keenest aspects of her talent, now informed her that he was one who sought the good and tried to shun wickedness, but was sometimes torn between duty and conscience. He was, her perception assured her, a ranking agent of the Sovereign of Blenholme, Conrig Wincantor. But he also served another, much greater cause.

What cause might that be?

But there was no answer to that, save the one that might come from his own lips, were he to be healed.

“Shall I cure you, then, Deveron?” she whispered. “Shall I share with you my own most treasured gift, of which I possess only a limited amount, in order to learn your story? Is it possible, after all, that you’ve sought out this beleaguered princess and her child without evil intent, even though you possess two moonstones that take power from the Great Lights?”

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The thought came to her unbidden: Was he a rescuer rather than an abductor?

Induna had been deeply confused by the implications of Bozuk’s messages, those she had relayed over the wind to the Sovereign. She was unable to decide whether Maudrayne was victim or villainess or political pawn. Conrig Wincantor, on the other hand, was beyond doubt a ruthless man with a heart of stone. All of Tarn knew he’d cruelly cast this once-cherished wife of his aside because she seemed unable to have children. He’d deceived his people about his secret talent.

But he’d also unified the four nations of the island and saved them from being invaded by Continental opportunists eager to take advantage of the late Wolf’s Breath disaster.

Induna felt she had two clear choices. She could obey Eldpapa and keep these men away from the mother and child until Duke Feribor seized them, or she could try to get to the bottom of this strange situation and do what was right and just.

Once again, she placed her hand on the unconscious young man’s fore-head. “Will you tell me the whole truth of it if I remove your pain and heal your tortured body?”

She waited, and after a long time, the answer came.

Yes.

==========

He knew that the price exacted by Gateway would be terrible, but never expected that it would overwhelm him so completely. For one thing, the agony was part of his sleep, a condition so contrary to the natural order of things— when unconsciousness always brought relief from suffering—that his mind screamed at the injustice of it.

The Lights laughed at his resentment, and fed.

In all his short life he’d had little experience of excruciating pain. The debt owed for his few uses of the minor Concealer sigil had been insignificant. He’d suffered far worse while enduring toothache and a broken arm when he was a child. The more eldritch tortures of Iscannon and his master, Beynor, had introduced him briefly to the horrors of the icy sky-world inhabited by the Lights; and the price he recently paid in order to activate Gateway had been severe but easily forgotten—as though the Lights didn’t want to frighten off a fresh victim with juicy potential.

This pain was very different, being both physical and mental, combining bodily hurt with the
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wrenching terror of nightmares. It was relentless and all-consuming, and Snudge was certain it was going to be the death of him.

He accepted this for a fact; and the fury and despair he felt, knowing that his loyal companions would soon find themselves abandoned in the shambles of his failed mission, gave a fresh dimension to his misery. His only prayer was that he would die soon. He saw the way to eternal peace, strove with all his willpower to follow it, but was denied.

Live on

! the Lights said, laughing, for as long as we choose. And suffer

.

Then he saw her, coming towards him in the bright abyss of woe: a young woman with curling red-gold hair, slender and spare of stature, with a round face that shone confident and serene.

Was she only a fever-dream, a device to magnify his torture? She asked him many questions, but he hung mute in hideous Light, unable to reply.

Finally, she said, Will you tell me the truth of it if I remove your pain and heal your tortured body

?

He forced the word from his numbed mind:

YES

!

The Lights howled their frustration, drawing away from him as the woman approached. He saw her reach into her own heart and take out a pearl-colored thing like a girl-doll or a tiny statue, no larger than a finger-joint. As she did this, her own body shimmered like an image reflected in water and was diminished in some subtle manner. She reached out to him, smiling, and pressed the pearly homuncule into his own breast. He saw its minute arms and head move before it disappeared, and knew that the thing was alive. She had taken part of her own soul’s substance and donated it freely to him.

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The pain vanished. The wrathful Lights vanished. His ordeal ended.

The Source said, Now let me tell you the rest of it, so you know what is at stake when you put your proposal to Maudrayne, and so that she knows it, too

.

He listened. And then he opened his eyes.

==========

Induna’s transfer of vital energy effected a perfect cure. Snudge was instantly restored to consciousness and his damaged body was rendered whole again. For all that, he was like a fine clock or other delicate mechanism new-made, which must not be allowed to work at full capacity until its parts are tuned and lubricated.

He would have risen at once from his pallet, but she forbade it, as she also forbade him to speak. First he must drink little but often from a decoction of warm water infused with centaury, melissa, rosehip, and honey. Then, every hour, all throughout the rest of that day and all night long, he must sup a few spoonfuls of thin oatmeal gruel. The next morn, she allowed his squire Valdos to wash his body and dress him in fresh clothes. After dismissing the squire, she herself anointed his limbs and back with a mild monkshood liniment to invigorate the muscles, then felt for the pulse in his neck.

“It’s good and strong,” she pronounced, “but to be safe, we’ll physick you with a modicum of foxglove.” She let fall two drops of liquid from a glass phial into a cup of water and had him drink it down. “Now, Sir Deveron Austrey, Knight Banneret and Royal Intelligencer, you may
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sit up at last and speak if you wish, for you are very nearly as whole as you were before undertaking your rash experiment with sigil sorcery.”

Snudge’s voice was at first hoarse and weak, but he grinned at her as he said, “You’re a benevolent tyrant, Induna of Barking Sands, but I

thank you heartily for healing me. May I ask you some questions?”

She nodded. “And I’ll answer—provided you also respond to mine.”

Gavlok and the armiger Valdos, their faces shining with relief, had been helping as they could during the final hour of Snudge’s treatment and still hovered near. Induna now turned to them with kindly firmness. “Please allow Sir Deveron and me to speak privately.”