Authors: Julian May
She later admitted that she had loved me almost as soon as she first saw me lying senseless in a rock shelter on the Desolation Coast, at the point of death after having rashly used the Subtle Gateway sigil to transport me and my companions and all our gear to the place where Maudrayne and Dyfrig were imprisoned. Induna realized at once that my mortal illness was the result of Beaconfolk sorcery. The terrible beings of the Sky Realm were feeding on my pain, and no groundling remedy could heal me.
So she shared with me a small portion of her own soul, in a manner that only northland shamans are capable of. It left her diminished even as it cured me. Later, she performed the same mystical operation once again, shortly before I decided to renounce my fealty to King Conrig. Her selfless acts of generosity did not immediately inspire my love. On the contrary, I was left with vague feelings of discomfort and
indebtedness that only melted away during the long months when we worked together and began to really know one another.
I was amazed when it finally occurred to me that life without her would be unthinkable. The emotion I felt toward Induna at that time was no overwhelming passion: I was then, as I am now, a man plagued by an aloof and calculating nature. But she was my best friend, my teacher, and my comforter, and if I did not yet love her as wholeheartedly as she loved me, I still wanted none other for my wife.
We were solemnly betrothed according to Tarnian custom, and planned to marry in the summer of 1134, in Blossom Moon, when I was one-and-twenty years of age and Induna was eighteen. But the Cathran warship arrived in the waters off Deep Creek Cove three weeks before that, and our happy plans came to nothing.
Commanded by Tinnis Catclaw, the same debonair but unscupulous Lord Constable who had agreed to murder Princess Maudrayne on Conrig's orders, the vessel carried a coven of mercenary Didionite wizards. Six of the disguised magickers came stealthily ashore and combined their talents to overpower Induna and Maris while they were beyond our home's magical defenses, visiting the byre of a local smallholder to attend the difficult birth of a foal. I myself had been working with them, until I was sent back to the manor-house to fetch a special physick to soothe the suffering mare. I was there when the wizards announced their ultimatum.
I was ordered to row out to the warship lurking just beyond the cove's northern headland and surrender to the Lord Constable, who carried the Sovereign's warrant for my arrest... or else scry my womenfolk as they were burnt alive in a tarnblaze holocaust that would leave behind nothing but a heap of charred bones.
The horrific tarnblaze chymical was impervious to any sorcerous intervention I might have attempted, nor had I any hope of reaching Induna and Maris before it could be ignited. I had no choice but to comply.
I left the place that had become my only true home and allowed myself to be shackled and hauled aboard the Cathran man o' war. Lord Catclaw awaited me on deck, an oddly apologetic expression on his handsome countenance and his long blond hair tied in a tail. Two armed seamen gripped me. He ordered a third to slice off my clothing and footgear with a keen varg sword, using great caution. When I stood stark naked, the constable smiled in satisfaction as he saw the moonstone sigil called Concealer hanging on a thin chain around my neck. Properly conjured, it would render me invisible. Conrig knew about it, of course. I had used it in his service.
'Don't think to call upon your devilish Beaconfolk amulet,' Catclaw warned me, 'or I'll have this fellow here bespeak the other wizards on shore to ignite the tarnblaze.' He beckoned to a black-robed magicker standing nearby, who held a golden goblet and a pair of nippers. 'You! Get the sigil off him. I've been told it cannot be conjured unless it's next to his skin. Be very careful not to handle it yourself, except with the cup and tool. The High King himself has warned me of its perils.'
The wizard eased the translucent small pendant into the goblet, then severed its chain. Had he touched the moonstone with his own bare flesh, he would have been hideously burned. Concealer was bonded to me, and no one else could use it or even handle it with impunity.
'Where is the second sigil?' Catclaw demanded. 'The one called Subtle Gateway, which transports a person instantly from place to place? I have been commanded by the King's Grace to seize both amulets from you and bring them back to him.'
In spite of all my warnings, sigil sorcery obviously still held an unhealthy fascination for Conrig.
I responded in a near-whisper, which was all I was capable of without betraying myself. 'I threw the thing into deep water months ago. His Grace knows full well how much I abominate moonstone magic. Concealer is a minor sort that causes only insignificant discomfort to the user, but Gateway was one of the so-called Great Stones. Conjuring it induced an appalling agony and put my very soul in peril to the pain-eating Beaconfolk. When I rescued Princess Maudrayne and completed my mission, I had no more need of it. I was glad to get rid of the thing.'
I was lying. But Catclaw was not about to find that out until I learned what he planned to do with me - along with Induna and Maris.
One of the ship's officers stepped forward. 'Shall we go ashore and search for the stone in his house, my lord?'
'Why bother?' I told the Lord Constable. 'The sigils are worthless to the High King, whether he realizes it or not. When I die - and I presume my fate is sealed - any sigil owned by me becomes inactive: a worthless piece of rock. I learned how to use them only by a lucky accident. No one knows how to bond them to a new owner save the Salka who made them in the first place. Once, Queen Ullanoth of Moss and her lunatic brother Beynor also knew the secret. But she's dead and he has disappeared.'
Tinnis Catclaw frowned and appeared to be considering the matter.
Emboldened, I asked the all-important question. 'Do you now intend to kill my betrothed and her mother as well as me?'
The constable waved a dismissive hand. 'The threat was only a bluff, a ploy to bring about your capture. Not even the Sovereign would dare harm a well-known shaman-healer such as Maris of Barking Sands, nor her daughter - who is an anointed Sealady of Tarn, albeit one of minimal rank. Such
deeds might provoke the touchy Tarnian leaders beyond endurance. At this moment the girl and her mother are harmlessly sleeping off their enchantment, lying in the straw beside a mare and her newborn colt. The hireling wizards have followed my orders and scattered to the four winds. All they care about is how they'll spend their bags of Cathran gold.'
I sighed in relief. The only persons that I had ever taken to my heart would be safe now from Conrig's revenge . . . but only if I abandoned them.
'How do you intend to dispose of me?' I asked.
Catclaw pulled himself up in a dignified huff. 'Your just punishment will be meted out strictly according to Cathran law. Once this warship rides the high seas, you'll be tried for treason. Your disavowal of fealty meets the legal criterion. As Lord Constable, I have the judicial authority to order your summary execution. You'll hang from a yardarm.'
'But do you solemnly swear to me that Induna and Maris will be spared?'
'I've already said so,' Catclaw retorted testily, 'and I'm a man of honor.'
'Oh, yes?' I hissed. 'Did Princess Maudrayne find you honorable?'
His face drained of color. He gave a sharp command to the seamen who held and surrounded me.
All
of you - move away from the prisoner! Draw your swords and stand ready, but step back. Farther yet! If he stirs, slay him where he stands.'
The astonished men retreated a good eight feet away. Catclaw stood very close to me and his voice would have been inaudible to the others.
'Since you are to die within the hour, I'll tell you how I dealt with Princess Maude. I was indeed commanded to kill her. I confess that I wrote her suicide note. It stated that she could not bear to live if she would never be allowed to see her son Dyfrig again, as the High King had decreed. I offered
her poison . . . but gave her instead a potion that rendered her senseless and slowed her heart. She lay cold and still as a dead woman on the deck of my frigate, which was docked at Donorvale Quay, ready to return to Cathra with the boy. The Tarnian authorities bore witness to the sudden and tragic demise of the princess. Her body was placed in a lead coffin and kept in my own cabin, covered with a blanket of roses, until it could be buried at sea. This was High King Conrig's command, following my own suggestion. Poor little Dyfrig was devastated by his mother's suicide and could not bear to watch the ceremony. But the coffin my crew consigned to the depths of the Western Ocean was empty'
I nearly choked upon that which I held inside my cheek. 'Alive?' I gasped.
'She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever known,' Tinnis Catclaw said. 'Conrig Ironcrown cast her off when it seemed she could not bear him a son. He declared her an archenemy of the Sovereignty and commanded her death. But I had long loved her from afar. I still do - even though I am now able to visit her only on rare occasions in my hunting lodge north of Swan Lake, where she willingly remains hidden for the sake of Prince Dyfrig. Maude is a proud and spirited soul. But she is . . . kind to me. And kings do not live forever.'
'Great God,' I murmured. 'You are as much a traitor as I.'
He smiled. 'And yet, I don't believe you'll use your wind-speech to reveal my secret before you die.'
'No,' I agreed. It was the farthest thing from my mind. 'Conduct your trial, my lord. Prepare the rope. But I ask a favor, as one turncoat to another. Dress me in decent clothing beforehand, restore my knight's belt and purse, and forgo shackles. I swear I'll behave with dignity. And as I go to my death, let your wizard stand a few ells away holding the chalice with my sigil. It would give me a melancholy comfort to have it near me.'
He agreed.
Later, while the great ship sliced the waves on its southerly course, and those members of the crew who were not on watch gathered in solemn ranks to witness my dispatch, I mounted the improvised scaffold unfettered.
'Do you have any last words?' the Lord Constable asked me.
'My lord, I bear you and the King's Grace no malice,' I told him. Tell Conrig that. And now, farewell.'
He stepped back to accommodate the hangman. I lifted my arm and cried out, 'Concealer - to me!'
The sigil flew out of the cup and into my waiting hand. A roar of surprise rose from the astounded crew. But before a man of them could move, I intoned the brief spell that conjured the tiny door-shaped carving called Subtle Gateway, hardly larger than a thumbnail, which had been concealed in my mouth since I quit the manorhouse.
Agony smote me like a thunderclap. I knew that it was going to last for a long time, disabling me profoundly -perhaps even fatally - and this time there'd be no respite vouchsafed by Induna. The Great Lights would eat their fill of my pain without hindrance.
But if I survived, I'd open my eyes in the southernmost region of the continental nation of Andradh, over two thousand leagues away, far beyond the reach of Conrig Ironcrown, Sovereign of High Blenholme Island, and perhaps even beyond that of the Beaconfolk themselves.
* * *
I did survive.
And dwelt in Andradh among the Wave-Harriers for the next sixteen years, until Induna came knocking on my door and, against all odds, convinced me to become the Royal Intelligencer once again.
CHAPTER
ONE
It was a kind of daydream that overcame High King Conrig Wincantor at inconvenient moments, snatching him from the real world into a fantastic . . . elsewhere. Without warning, he would find himself in a cramped chamber, dimly lit and stifling, surrounded on all sides by a hostile mob.
The adversaries howled and darted at him like malignant phantoms, clutching at his crown - his priceless Iron Crown. They reached out with hands and claws and tentacles, howling curses and filthy insults, trying to rip the symbol of Sovereignty away from him, saying he had no right to it.
‘I
do!' he bellowed. 'It's mine. I earned it and defended it. Leave be! Go away!'
He fought them with all his mortal strength and with all his secret uncanny talent as well, smiting with his longsword and smashing and blasting the foe with magical bombards. Some of the raging attackers were human, persons that he'd loved who gave only hatred and malice in return; some enemies were rebellious vassals flouting his rightful authority; some were dim-witted grotesques trying to pull down the great edifice he'd built, in a pathetic extirpation motivated only by envy and spite.
Enemies all!
He'd fought them for years. He'd never surrender.
‘I
won't give in!' he cried, holding tight to the crown. 'I'll rule this island and rule the world.’
‘No,' they roared. 'Never!’
‘Yes! I shall conquer. I shall!'
Always, as those last defiant words rang out, the frantic tugging weakened, yielding to his superior strength. The grasping tangle of limbs fell away from the prize, leaving him in sole possession. He crowned himself anew with the dark metal circlet and felt the old joy ignite within him, banishing all doubt and fear. Thwarted, the mass of enemies melted away, while his shout of triumph echoed in a vault of sunlit clouds.
'My foes are many, but I crush them all. I bow to no power in the Sky or the Ground Realm. I reign. I rule!'
It was the simple truth ... So why didn't his enemies understand that and let him be? Why did they keep returning over and over to trouble him with these unquiet waking dreams?
Why?
It was maddening.
Orrion Wincantor, Prince Heritor of Cathra and unwilling bridegroom-elect, felt a need to stop and take stock of the situation before climbing any farther. He dropped behind his older brother, Vra-Bramlow, and his twin, Prince Corodon, and paused to catch his breath and stare up at the looming bulk of Demon Seat in morose silence.
Why did I let Bram and Coro talk me into this? he asked himself. Scaling a mountain in order to perform forbidden sorcery! The notion was idiotic . . . and damned dangerous as well. Coro might easily have broken his leg when he lost his footing and took a tumble back at the torrent, and he
himself was rock-bruised and aching. But they'd nearly reached the top now, and it was probably too late to suggest they turn back without seeming to be craven.