Mistress of the Night

CHAPTER 13

It was time to go. The sun would be rising. Moonshadow Hall would be stirring. Did Selune's faithful need to know what had happened in that cramped little room? The last dark depths of the High Moonmistress's madness?

Feena eased Dhauna's frail body out of her embrace and laid her on the torn linens that covered the floor, turning her on her side and drawing her cooling limbs up into a childlike huddle. She clenched her teeth as she stood Dhauna's body told the comforting lie of a peaceful death, a mercy to ease the mourning of the faithful.

The truth would be a terrible, secret burden for her to carry alone.

Feena bolted the iron-banded door behind herself. It was reasonable to assume the spell oi moonlight that had lit the infirmary had ended with Dhauna's death. There would be no reason for anyone to guess she had been back to Moonshadow Hall.

Outside the infirmary, she paused. The sounds of a new day were drifting through the halls of the temple. She might still be able to slip out before too many of the remaining priestess and acolytes were up and about. Against the savory scents of Idruth's kitchen, however, she was suddenly aware of the foul smell that clung to her robe. She stank of urine and death. There would be a fresh robe in her former chamber, but in the extra minutes it would take her to retrieve it, there was also a greater chance of getting caught.

Her fists clenched with a sudden need to be rid of the tainted garment.

She turned and darted down a dark corridor. The mossy pillar in the kitchen garden wasn't the only secret she remembered from her playful days as a novice and an acolyte. Exploring Moonshadow Hall's unused passages and dusty storerooms was a rite for every child entering the temple. Beyond the infirmary, a steep, narrow ramp led up to the second floor and a series of dim rooms that smelled of mice. Beyond those rooms was an abandoned library, walls lined with empty shelves. Beyond that was a long, curved passage with dust so thick on the floor it held the footprints of countless novicesand one stealthy priestess. Feena walked quickly, the hem of her robe stirring up little clouds of dust in her wake. At the end of the curved passage was a narrow door. Feena thrust against it. Hinges squealed.

She stepped out beneath the ramp leading up to the archives. Leaving the narrow door ajar, she trotted past the ramp and peered down the long corridor that connected the clergy's quarters. The morning sounds of the novices' and acolytes' dormitories echoed from its distant end.

Just ahead, sunlight burned a bright path across the dim corridor.

Feena trotted up to Dhauna's chambers and peered inside. The broken door remained where Mifano had left it, leaning against a wall. Someone had pulled open the heavy curtains that hung over the big window, though. Morning light streamed in. On Dhauna's desk, the ancient tome that recorded the fall of the New Moon Pact shone in the sunlight, white leather gleaming like a lie. Feena looked away and darted past.

Her former chamber was only a short way along the corridor. Its door stood open as well, though the curtains remained drawn. The torn strips she had used to bind Jhezzail were scattered on the floor. Feena stripped off her fouled robe and kicked it under the bed, then opened the wardrobe. A clean robe hung insideright next to the silver-embroidered gown she had worn to Ammanas Aumleagarr's garden party. She brushed the moon-pale silk regretfully before tearing her hand away. Swiftly donning the robe, she stepped back into the corridor and ran for the ramp that led down to the temple's ground floor.

A shadow fell across it from below. Someone was coming up.

Feena pulled away quickly. Could she hide in her chamber? No. With the door open, anyone passing could see insideand soon the novices and acolytes would be pouring past on their way to breakfast. Closing a door that had stood open all night would only draw attention.

But there was a chamber nearby that had been deliberately placed so that no one passed it. Feena scrambled silently back down the corridor and ducked into the brilliance of Dhauna's chamber. Holding her breath, she strained her ears to catch the steps of whoever was climbing

The wail that tore across the courtyard outside struck her like a blow.

"She's dead! Mother Dhauna is dead!"

Someone had visited the infirmary. For a heartbeat there was silence, then chaos erupted as the news spread Feena could hear shouts and screams from the dormitories, cries and exclamations from the few priestesses who had remained in the temple. She could imagine the confusion amid the heat of the kitchensthe New Moon Beneficence would suddenly become a funeral feast. For a moment, all of her own grief threatened to come crashing back yet again. Memories of Mother Dhauna in better times, wise and gentle before madness claimed her…

Feena squeezed her eyes shut and sagged back against a wall.

"No," she snarled under her breath. "Enough." No more tears. Not now.

She reached up and clenched her hand around Selune's medallion, gripping it so hard that the edges of the holy symbol bit into her flesh.

Bright Lady of Night, she prayed in silent anger, how could you let this happen to someone who loved you?

Her arm tensed. The chain of the medallion strained against her neck. One tug would tear the holy symbol free

She forced her hand open and let it fall back to her side. Rejecting Selune wouldn't change what had happened. She opened her eyes. Her gaze fell on the white book on Dhauna's desk.

Was that how the New Moon Pact had felt as their sisters and brothers turned on them? Had they questioned Selune, too?

Out in the courtyard, chaos was giving way to order as elder clergy took charge of the situation. Feena couldn't hear running or shouting anymore, but her chance to slip out of Moonshadow Hall unnoticed had passed. Whoever stood sentry at the gate would be alert. She would need to find a place to hide and wait for the right time to make her escape. She forced herself away from the wall and started to turn to the doorthen stopped and turned back to the white book.

One good thing had come of Dhauna's madness, hadn't it? The New Moon Pact, condemned by jealousy and lost for centuries, had been rediscovered. Feena lifted her chin, stepped forward, and scooped up the massive tome.

If nothing else, she was going to have time to read.

By our authority in assembly, these are the heretics who shall face Selune's own judgment:

Tyver Thomdrove, called the Peacemaker, of Berdusk.

Niree Swifthands of Elmwood.

Brant Hallower of Candlekeep.

Qualise Domo of Turmish.

Rode of the Farsea Marches (died in capture).

Enshu Venerun ofChondath (died in capture).

By our authority, a bounty is also placed on any servants and close associates of them, and on the wolf called Halftail, companion of Niree Swifthands. They are cast out of Selune's grace in body and in soul. May Selune's face turn away so that their souls walk in darkness until the end of time.

Feena's head jerked. She blinked sleep from her eyes, sat back, and stretched. A night spent walking and running without rest was trying hard to catch up with her and her chosen hiding place wasn't helping. Moonshadow Hall's archives had seemed like an ideal refuge: all but abandoned, no windows to give away the small magical light she conjured, a table and chair at which to read, easy concealment among the tall shelves in case someone should happen to come by…

Then again, there was a reason no one came to the archives, wasn't there? She had to fight against the muffling quiet just to keep herself alert, and with no windows there was also no way of marking the passage of time.

She stared down at the list of the names againthe last members of the New Moon Pact. More than anything else in the great white book, those names called to her. Not that there was much else in it that had more than the faintest ring of truth. The pact had been tried by people who disdained them. Great deeds, hallowed traditions… those hadn't been important in the face of charges of foul heresy.

Selune's priests and priestesses and done more than suppress the New Moon Pact six hundred years ago. They had killed its history. Their own history. Feena clenched her teeth. There had to be something, some additional scrap of legend. She turned a page and bent back to the book.

Something shifted in the shadows.

She froze, watching the darkness, but nothing moved.

But there had been something. Feena rose slowly, her heart beating faster. Her lips pulled back from her teeth One hand sought the paperweight she had cast her light onto. She lifted it and waited.

When the shadows shifted again, she hurled it.

Illumination streaked across bookshelves and scroll racks, sliced through shadowsbut revealed nothing. The glowing paperweight arced across empty space until it hit a wall and bounced to the floor. Crack. Clatter. Rrrollll…

For a moment, the archives were silent again. Then sound tickled Feena's ear, a sound that grew and condensed like mist on leaves. Whispers. She could almost make out wordsalmost, but not quite. And behind the words was some forcesomething dark and alive-something ancient. The hair on her neck rose.

I know this, Feena realized. Moonmaiden's grace, this is Dhauna's dream!

The light of the paperweight vanished like a torch plunged into water. She hurled herself to the side out of instinct and felt a cold breeze as the sound of whispers rushed past. She gasped, shaken. If it was a dream, it was like nothing she'd ever felt before.

"Wake up, Feena," she told herself. "Wake up!"

Nothing happened.

In the darkness, whispers surged like waves on the sea. Dhauna had described feeling as if the whispers were going to overcome her, that whatever ancient force lurked behind them would consume her. The whispers shivered through Feena, tugging on her body and her spirit. Fear wrenched her heart.

The shadows shifted again. Feena dodged once more.

Whispers whirled and tore at her. If the force behind them expected her to flee as Dhauna had, though, it was wrong.

Feena came to her feet howling with a wolfs voice.

It had to be a dream. Her human form flowed into her hybrid wolf-woman shape with barely a thought. She leaped into the darkness, tearing at it ferociously. Her claws shredded through the shadow. Feena tumbled free and snarled triumphantly. For a moment, the whispers stretched thin, like strained voicesthen rushed back in a thunderous roar.

Feena's snarl died. She threw herself away but the dark thunder slammed into a bookcase behind her. The shelf exploded into splinters and tatters of paper. Flying wood pierced her like a tiny arrows, spattering pain against her hide. Feena yelped in sudden alarm. The forcewhatever it might have beenwas too powerful. She couldn't fight it face to face. She needed to get away.

A growl answered her unspoken need: Here!

She twisted. A long gray tail was just vanishing into the archive's maze of shelves. A wolfs tail!

Feena hesitated for a heartbeat, then scrambled after it. Behind her, the roaring darkness lashed at the floor where she had stood, gouging long strips out of it.

The moment she plunged in among the stacks, though, the roar seemed to sweep away into the distance. A glance over her shoulder showed what seemed like a corridor of books stretching out behind her until it twisted around a corner. How had she moved so far? She looked back around. The tail she had glimpsed was gone again and not even her wolfs nose could sniff out anything more than dust and crumbling parchment. Had she imagined the other wolf? The whispers were building again, growing in volume as if the dark force had plunged into the maze after her. If it caught her…

She whined desperately, Help!

Here!

She moved forward. Growls guided her through turns and at intersection with other book-lined corridors.

Here! Here!

She followed, though she saw nothing. She had to run to keep upat least until the same flowing transformation as before caught her a second time. Suddenly she was a wolf, loping along easily on four legs.

But as she dashed past one intersection, the whispers surged and shadows boiled out. The darkness had found her. Feena half-turned, ready to meet it, but before she could, a form flashed past heranother wolf, but one as black as the night itself.

It vanished down the cross-corridor. The wolf-voice guiding her gave a short, commanding bark: Keep moving!

Feena moved on. The whispers faded again and after a moment Feena realized that even if she couldn't see or smell the wolf guiding her, she could hear it. Nails clicked in rapid rhythm ahead of herand behind her! Two sets behind her, in fact. Feena twisted her neck to look past her flanks. Two wolves were pacing after her, one light gray and lean, the other white and heavier, with the bright eyes of a young animal.

Her racing heart stuttered. She had never seen these wolves before, yet she knew their names:

Niree Swifthands.

Brant Hallower.

The black wolf that had defended her: Rade.

The voice that called her, the gray tail she'd first glimpsed, was Tyver the Peacemaker.

It was the last of the New Moon Pact, She stumbled, and Niree darted forward and nipped at her legs. Feena jumped forward. The corridor gave one last twist and opened up.

She was back at the reading table. The moon glow of the paperweight had returned, though, and the paperweight itself was sitting on the table once more. The gouged floor and the shattered bookshelf had been restored. Everything was exactly the way it had been.

Except that two womenEnshu Venerun and Qualise Domo, she knew intuitivelyand a man stood waiting for her by the table. Feena slid to a sharp stop, her paws scrabbling against the floor. The man, Tyver in his human form, crouched down to face her. He took her handabruptly she was human againand helped her stand. His grip was cold but firm.

"Have faith and be strong, Feena Archwood," he said, "for Selune is with you."

Feena gasped with sudden certainty. "Dhauna's dreamsthey were real! They were warnings!"

"They are real," said Qualise. "They're your dreams now, High Moonmistress."

"I'm not" Feena began to protest, but her voice froze. The rite had been performed. Dhauna had named her successorand with her death, the mantle of leadership passed on.

Feena swallowed and said, "Moonmaiden grant me strength."

"The strength is in you," said Qualise. "Understand that and you understand much."

She stepped aside so that Feena could see the table. The great white book that detailed the pact's trial was gone. In its place was another, slim and elegant instead of bloated and thick. Feena stared at it in wonder. The new book was bound in fine black leather with Selune's phases set in silver down the center of the cover. Where other representations of the phases began with a crescent and grew through half and gibbous to the full moon's bright disk before returning to a crescent, the black book turned that order inside out. On its cover, the full moon shone at the top, shrinking to gibbous, then to the half moon, then to a crescent. In the center of the cover, a hair-thin ring of silver made an empty circlethe new moon.

Somewhere close, the tide of whispers was growing again. She twisted around. Rade had joined Niree and Brant. All three wolves faced outward, a growling wall of fangs and muscle. Feena spun back to the other members of the vanished pact.

"What is the darkness?" she asked. "Was Dhauna right? Is it heresy? Does Selune really want the New Moon Pact reborn to fight heresy in her faith?"

"Yes and no," said Tyver. "No and yes," said Qualise.

"All things come," said Enshu, "in their proper time." Feena looked at her. She was a stout woman with a strong face crossed by a scar. She reached out thick hands and drew Feena forward, guiding her to the chair beside the table. "Dhauna Myritar tried to move too fast. Now your time is too short."

"I don't understand," Feena gasped.

The whispers pressed in on all sides. The New Moon Pact was pulling together to make a circle around her. A look of urgency crossed Enshu's face.

"Some things should never be understood," she snarled and shoved Feena hard back into the chair.

Feena woke to voices. Real voices.

All thought of the dream vanished. Someone was at the door of the archives. Nomore than just someone. Feena caught sour tones. It was Velsinore.

The clergy of Moonshadow Hall had returned. How long had she been asleep? Feena stifled a curse and touched the paperweight, dismissing its glow with a thought. The white book was still on the table, just as it should have been. Feena flipped it closed, then scrambled out of her chair and flung herself silently in among the shelves, sliding deep into their maze. When Velsinore's voice became more than a whisper, Feena stopped and pressed herself down against the floor. The robe billowed loosely around herloose enough to accept a change in form. Narrowing her eyes in concentration, Feena shifted and became a wolf. Sharp ears twitched, listening.

Out in the center of the chamber, Velsinore spoke a prayer and light blossomed.

"Gather them all, sisters!" the tall priestess commanded. "They'll go in the vaults with the others."

Priestesses murmured, and Feena caught the slither of parchment on parchment. They were gathering the scrolls and books Dhauna had left laid out on the table. Someone grunted under a weight. The white book! However flawed the account might be, it was the only record of the New Moon Pact. Feena's ears pressed back and a low growl escaped her.

One of the priestesses gasped in alarm and parchment crackled sharply.

"Velsinore!"

Feena tensed in alarm, but Velsinore only grunted, angry. "Be careful, Chandri! It might be something among them that drove Dhauna and Julith to madness." She grunted again, and said, "Perhaps it's time these archives were purged."

"Velsinore," asked one of the other priestesses timidly, "what will happen to Julith now?"

"Selune will judge her, Tam." Velsinore's voice was calm. Her footsteps retreated. "After the funeral, when the moon is waxing againSelune will judge her."

"What about what the Sharran told her?" bleated Chandri.

Velsinore's footsteps stopped.

For a moment there was silence, then Velsinore said, "Attend to your work, sisters. When Selune waxes, we'll put an end to the Sharran and his kind. Now hurry there's a lot to do."

Her footsteps began again, marching out of the archives. Other footsteps scurried in her wake. After a moment, the archives were silent once more, though Velsinore's light remained.

Feena put her jaw down on her paws and allowed herself a thin growl. Obviously Julith and presumably Keph along with her had been captured, but she wondered what the young man could have said to put Tam and Chandri into such a state of alarm. She whined and slapped her tail on the floor. She needed to get out of the archives and find out what was going on. Feena started rise, to change back into a woman.

Silver flashed in the corner of her eye.

Feena sank back down and peered in at the lowest level of the shelves she crouched beside. Back behind dusty, cracked scrollsthere was something there. Something that shone with silver, but that only a wolfs sharp eyes might see and even then only if the animal was stretched out on the ground. Feena made her transformation, then knelt down again and reached blindly past the scrolls. Her fingers closed on a slim book, its leather binding furred and soft with age. She pulled it out carefully.

The book's cover was black. The silver that decorated it was dull and mostly tarnished, but the hair-thin ring that stood in the center of the cover was still somehow bright.

"Moonmaiden's grace," Feena breathed.

She rose and moved out into the light. Drawing a shallow breath, she opened the cover of the book. Leather that should have crumbled held firm. There was magic at work.

Cramped, heavy script filled the first page. The book bore no title, but it began with a date: Feast of the Moon, the Year of Lost Wayfarers. Feena bit her lip. That was five months after the suppression of the New Moon Pact. Eyes wide, she read:

Feast of the Moon, the Year of Lost Wayfarers. To the one who comes

Hear the tale of the New Moon Pact, destroyed by lies. In Selune's name and by her grace, I make this record. All around me, the tales of the Pact are wiped away day by day. My pack is gone, but by Selune's hand I survive. By her will, I carry its ancient history in my heart. On this day dedicated to the honored dead, I begin my secret record. Bright Lady of Night, grant me the years to finish it.

The priestesses of Moonshadow Hall know me as Asha the Silent. Six months ago, I had a different name and a different form. Until Selune laid her hand upon me, my name was Halftail and I was a wolf.

When the time is right, I pray that you read what Selune granted me human hands and mind to record. I pray that you restore the name and lore of the New Moon Pact, charged by Selune in the earliest nights of the world to watch and defend against the darkest shadows. What time has consumed, not even gods can recall, but know thisthese words were spoken by those who first made pact with the Moonmaiden, just as they were spoken by the last. This is the sacred rite of the New Moon.

Feena closed the book and squeezed her eyes shut. Her dream… the New Moon Pact…

"Oh, Dhauna," Feena murmured. "Bright Lady of the Night, have pity on a tortured spirit."