Prophet of Moonshae

18

As usual, dawn was an obscure moment in the dark, gray hours of early morning, yet Deirdre sensed it was just at that moment she awakened. She knew that somewhere, above the leaden clouds and beyond the icy, stinging rain, the sun had just crested the eastern horizon. Languorously she stretched, the events of the previous night coming back to her bit by exhilarating bit.

The oath of worship! The memory of that experience awed and moved her as much as had the ceremony itself. Now, as she met her first day following that pledging, she felt as though she had moved in a few hours from a child to some stage far beyond adulthood. The power pulsing within her animated Deirdre's body, compelling her to full alertness, tingling her nerves with suppressed tension.

And the oath had only been the first part, for then there had been Malawar. He had taken her to her bed, and for the first time, he had remained with her through the night.

She sat up in the bed and looked at the form beside her, covered by the heavy quilt. A smile played with her lips as she recalled the forbidden delight, the glorious culmination of their love. Now he still slumbered, and she cherished her private moment of joy.

Gently, tenderly, she reached out and pulled the coverlet away, longing for just a glimpse of his straw-colored hair, his fine-chiseled features. The quilt flipped away-and Deirdre gagged in shock.

Biting back her scream of terror, she threw herself from the bed, pulling the covers with her and wrapping them around her nakedness as she backed toward a corner of the room. The thing that had lain beside her stirred and then sat up-slowly, and stiffly, as befitted the wrinkled figure, withered and wizened with age.

Cold eyes, as dark as the Abyss, stared out at Deirdre from lined sockets. A bald pate of blotched skin covered the man's scalp, and his ears lay back against his skull as if they were too tired to support themselves. His mouth was almost lipless, his cheeks and chin creased with a multitude of lines.

It was a man, she knew, but a man who was extremely, impossibly old.

"Where is Malawar?" she demanded, finding her voice.

"My dear," cackled the ancient shape through toothless gums. "I'm disappointed you do not recognize me."

"No!" Deirdre moaned, unaware that she slumped against the corner of her room and slowly sank to the floor. "You-you're not! It's impossible!"

But even as she spoke, she knew that she lied to herself. How else had he come to sleep and awaken beside her?

The stooping figure rose stiffly from the bed and pulled Malawar's robe over his scrawny form. "Must serve the needs of dignity," he noted, with an obscene edge to his laugh.

Suddenly Deirdre's stomach heaved in revolt. She turned away from the grotesque form and vomited onto the floor, retching until she could barely breathe.

"I hope you're quite finished," announced the now-hooded priest, his tone acid, "because we have a lot of work to do."

But Deirdre could not bring herself to rise. Instead, she turned toward the window, curling herself into a protective ball. The world swam around her, and then it felt as though she was swallowed up by blackness.

King Sythissal drove his finned legion with all the brutal authority of his command, yet he knew that the sahuagin could never match the pace of the flying dracolich. Still, the fish-men slipped through the sea a hundred feet below the surface to avoid the turbulence of the storm.

Yet by the time the Army of Kressilacc reached the coast of Alaron, the sea battle was over. The ravenous sahuagin discovered, much to their delight, the wreck of the Vulture. The bodies of her crew served as splendid sustenance in restoring the creatures' stamina.

Beyond this wreck loomed rainswept Alaron. Here Sythissal would not go. Too often in the past his warriors had ventured upon land, only to meet with gory disaster before they could reach the protective refuge of the sea.

Instead, the sahuagin turned back from the battle, swimming to their deep home in Kressilacc. His forces intact, the King of the Deep would await a more opportune time to work the will of Talos.

"Hey! That's not fair!"

Pryat Wentfeld started backward, interrupted in the casting of his spell. He had attempted to summon an air elemental in order to set the creature against Hanrald and quickly end this duel between the brother knights. But now this high-pitched voice from nowhere distracted him, and the spell was wasted.

"Who speaks?" he demanded. "Show yourself or face the vengeance of Helm!"

"It's not fair, I told you!"

The priest gaped in astonishment, for the speaker was a tiny dragon, bright blue and hovering on wings that belonged more appropriately to a great butterfly.

"How dare you destroy my spell!" snarled the pryat, lunging toward the creature, who instantly blinked out of sight as the man stumbled through the place he had been.

"I didn't destroy your spell!" The now invisible dragon was indignant. "I just made it more interesting!"

Staring in shock, which quickly blossomed into mind-numbing horror, the cleric saw that the diminutive dragon spoke the truth: The spell had in fact already begun to work.

The summoning and control of an elemental by a spell-caster is a two-stage procedure, and it is always dangerous. These beings, representing the fundamental forces of air, water, earth, and fire, are called only reluctantly from their respective home planes. Vengeful and mighty, they constantly seek a way to release themselves from the bondage of their sorcerous masters.

Once summoned, the caster must maintain careful concentration in order to shape its unwieldy slave to the controller's will. Pryat Wentfeld had successfully concluded the summoning portion of his enchantment, but Newt had distracted him at the very moment when he should have been asserting his control over the invoked being.

In the case of this air elemental, it had been dragged summarily from a windy display of exuberance with hundreds of its kin, the usual pastime of the creatures on their home realm in the Inner Planes. Now, alone, confused, and compelled to enter a hateful world of unpleasant solidity, it reacted with forceful resistance. Then it suddenly found itself freed of its summoner's will.

The full vengeance of the air elemental swirled into the vale. Immediately it saw the two knights bashing at each other, the hounds and the men-at-arms all awaiting the outcome. It sensed the druid staked to the pole, and even the pilgrims who watched the fight from above. But most of all, the air elemental detected the cowering cleric-the one who had forced the creature to come here but now held no power over it. The tenuous form became a howling vortex, swirling upward into a funnel-shaped cloud of destruction. Furiously the mighty wind surged toward the cleric, casting limbs of trees and piles of wood chips into hailstorms of splinters.

Wentfeld screamed and raised his holy symbol, a medallion depicting Helm's ever-vigilant eye, in a desperate attempt to ward off the monster. When this failed to deter its advance, he ducked away from the whirlwind and scrambled toward the imagined shelter of a cluster of cedar logs.

Danrak, like the others, stared in astonishment at the airy form. Only after a few moments did he notice another figure in front of him, but then he grunted through his gag when he saw that the tiny blue dragon had returned.

Newt, for his part, scowled at the druid. "What is it? If you've got something to say, spit it out! Can't you talk?"

Danrak strained against his bonds, furious with the dragon's failure to understand.

"Oh-ropes!" the creature said, seeing his arms flex. "Well, why didn't you say so! I untied Tristan once when he had to fight a monster but he couldn't because he was all tied up. He was grateful, too. He gave me some cheese to eat. As much as I wanted!"

Danrak sputtered, chewing on the rancid cloth. The guards forgot their duties as they nervously watched the elemental, which now tossed cedar limbs aside like matchsticks in an attempt to reach its desperate victim.

"Say, should I untie you? You're all bug-eyed. . does that mean yes?"

Newt dove behind Danrak and started chewing on the ropes that bound him. Beside the Moonwell itself, the two knights continued to hack at each other. Hanrald bled from a gash on his ear, and Gwyeth's breastplate and helmet bore several slashes and dents. Still, neither had seriously injured his foe.

The younger knight struck his brother a ringing blow to his helm, twisting Gwyeth's visor across his face and blocking his vision. Cursing, the brutal warrior pulled the iron headpiece away as Hanrald held his blows until his brother could once again see.

"Fool!" Gwyeth spat, sneering. "You should have taken me when you could!"

"I shall take you," replied Hanrald calmly, "but it will in a fair fight."

Their blows became less frequent, their gasps of breath more strained. Steel rang against steel as each stumbled over the rough ground, struggling to remain standing. On wobbling legs, the two men struggled against exhaustion.

"Surrender your blade, bastard of my mother's house!" demanded Gwyeth, lunging at his brother.

"Better a bastard," retorted Hanrald, with a desperate twist to the side, "than a traitor!"

Still the hounds held Gwyeth's men at bay, and Danrak, aided by the desperate nibbling of Newt upon his bonds, slowly worked his way free of his bonds.

The night seemed endless to the forlorn crew of the Gullwing, who battled tirelessly to keep the graceful vessel afloat. But the damage was severe, and whereas the sea could maintain its pressure for hours and days, the muscles of the humans aboard the ship could only labor for so long. Inevitably the sea must prevail.

Alicia bailed until her arms grew leaden, until her back creaked and ached like an old woman's, and still the water rose. The bow of the longship had been punctured by the onslaught, and though the firbolg Yak and the northmen Wultha and Knaff the Elder waded into the foaming leaks and stuffed rags and cork plugs into the worst of them, the rolling swell placed additional stress on the vessel.

Finally, as dawn colored the gray sky with its own grim cast, the princess collapsed. Brandon hoisted her from the watery hull and held her exhausted form by the shoulders.

"Here, now-you must rest!" he ordered her, and she was too tired to rebuke him.

"But the ship!" she said, shaking her head. Her rust-colored hair hung in an unruly mat across her face, and she pulled it aside to look at him.

"You've done as much as any sailor-more than most," he assured her. "Others can take over for a time. You'll do none of us any good if you work yourself to death!"

"No!" she cried, suddenly frantic. She took him by the arms and stared into his face. "I have to-don't you see?"

"I see one who has worked herself to exhaustion. Here, sit for a moment." Gently he guided her to a bench, and she slumped there, feeling all the fatigue he described. A feeling of utter hopelessness and dejection sapped her.

"Is there any hope? Of saving the ship, I mean?" she asked.

Brandon appeared to think before answering, but she saw the answer in the pain reflected in his eyes. "The hope we have is that we can reach the shore of Olafstaad before she goes down."

In the stern, Tavish didn't hear the conversation between the prince and princess. Indeed, she knew little at this point beyond the blistering pain that wracked her fingers and the cramps that threatened to stiffen her arms into locked positions around her harp.

Yet she had strummed the night through, and now, with the coming of dawn, she once again wanted to raise her voice in song. The magical harp had given strength to the northmen for many hours; indeed, it seemed likely that they never would have kept the Gullwing afloat without her.

"Lady bard!" cried Yak, straining to hold a plank against the hull while two sailors lashed and nailed it into place. "Give us a song to make us laugh!"

Tavish chuckled, albeit hoarsely. "I know just the one! It's called the 'Ballad of the Murderous Maid,' " she announced, strumming the first chords.

" 'A farmer saw a maiden; he took her as his wife. She didn't know her pots and pans but surely liked her knife!' "

Tavish bounced through the chorus, the pain in her fingers forgotten.

" 'The maiden, she was willin', the menfolks she dismayed, for it was her taste for killin' to which this maiden made!' " She sang heartily.

" 'The wedding night was cloudy as the couple rode away, and when they fin'ly found him, he was smilin' in the hay! His britches, they were missin', and his tunic and his bibs, but not his bride's stiletto: That was stickin' from his ribs!' "

Tavish played and sang more loudly, her pain forgotten. The music drowned out the noise of the pounding seas, ringing above the grunting and cursing of stone sore, staggering men. As the rude song unfolded, the bailers bent to their tasks with renewed energy, while the oarsmen labored to keep the stricken vessel nosed into the wind, grinning despite their weariness at the raunchy lyrics.

For a time, it seemed that new life had come to the Gullwing, and indeed the prow forced its way through the swells proudly once again. The song ran through many verses, for the maid had lived a long and productive life, and all through the choruses and notes, each time the sea swelled before them, the longship rose to meet each looming crest, foaming its way through the dark, frothing caps.

And when the song of Tavish finally faded away, the sound of the combers had changed, becoming deeper, somehow more substantial. In the bow, Alicia instinctively looked at Brandon and saw him listening carefully to the sound.

"That's surf pounding against the rocks," he said after a moment. "We'll make our landfall, perhaps more quickly than we desire."

"Headlands!" The booming cry came from Knaff, who gripped the tiller firmly on the raised deck at the stern. The old man pointed over the bow. "A rocky bluff, dead ahead!"

Brandon leaped upward, seizing the cracked remains of the figurehead and staring over the rolling swells into the mask of gray. "Starboard helm!" he cried.

Immediately the Gullwing veered to the right. Then, with shocking quickness, Alicia saw a dark mass of rock looming high above them. Waves bashed against it, exploding in chill clouds of spray. In the gray mist, they hadn't see the menace until they were upon it.

"Row! Row for your lives!" cried the northman prince. The Gullwing leaped ahead, carving a sharp curve through the storm-tossed sea. Perhaps if she had been a whole ship, she would have made it.

As it was, the weight of the waterlogged bow, coupled with the drag of splintered planks, slowed her down just enough to doom her. A heaving swell raised them high into the air, and Alicia had a sickening image of a shore lined with massive, brutal rocks.

Then the longship crashed onto the boulders, and the sound of splintering wood and shouting men filled the air. Alicia felt herself tossed upward, and she tried to curl herself into a ball to lessen the inevitable shock of landing. Nevertheless, she crashed into a solid surface of stone with stunning force and lay motionless-still conscious, but unable to move. Icy water doused her, covering her completely as she feared that she would drown. Finally the brine receded, and she gasped and choked as it washed away.

All around her, Alicia heard cries of pain and the groans of the injured, even over the smashing of the waves and the splintering, tearing sounds of the Gullwing's destruction. Crying in agony, she tried to sit up, but collapsed after raising her head an inch off her rocky pillow. Explosions of pain whirled in crimson torture through her mind. She closed her eyes, but that only made the torment worse.

Then, where her body contacted the ground, she felt a strange thing, as if a soothing balm caressed her, washing away her pain. As she lay still, the feeling of warmth spread throughout her body, the rocky ground forming a soft and well-cushioned bed beneath her.

Finally she dared to look around, and her blurred vision slowly cleared. The princess couldn't locate any members of the crew, but she tried to convince herself that that didn't mean they had all perished. She had landed among huge boulders, and they blocked her view to either side.

By the time she had forced herself to a sitting position, relieved that she could do so without pain, several men came into view. Brandon led the group, and they cried out with relief when they saw her.

"Lady Princess!" gasped Brandon, his voice thick. "By the gods, if you had been-"

"I'm not," she said quickly, not wanting him to go on. "Can you help me up? What about the others-Tavish, and Keane, and your crew?"

"Your companions survived," Brandon said, assisting the woman to a grassy knoll above the reach of the waves where the ragged castaways had gathered.

In addition to the three Ffolk, only Yak had survived of the firbolgs, the one called Loinwrap drowning in the wreck. A dozen of Brandon's crew had also perished, leaving the prince with fewer than twoscore warriors. Many had suffered broken limbs or other injuries. Now the healthy members of the band tended the wounds of their comrades while Keane and Wultha went to make a reconnaissance of the area.

"We've landed at the right place, in any event," announced Keane, upon their return. "We found a village that was ransacked by horsemen. No one is alive there now, but the hoof-prints were still visible."

"Going which way?" demanded Brandon, his hand instinctively seizing the hilt of his axe.

"Inland."

"But how can we catch them now?" groaned the prince in sudden and complete dismay. Alicia had never heard him so disheartened. "Even if they continued to follow the coast, without the Gullwing, we couldn't hope to pursue!"

"I know where they went," Tavish said suddenly. "And that dragon, too. It explains why it hasn't attacked us before!"

"Where?" demanded Alicia, Keane, and Brandon.

"The Moonwell-the Fairheight Moonwell! May the goddess forgive my ignorance, I should have seen it days ago!"

Tavish cried, shaking her head in frustration.

"Why would they go there?" demanded the Prince of Gnarhelm.

"The goddess!" Alicia exclaimed. "The power of the Earthmother returns, and these knights go there to destroy the hope that was born!"

"I–I meant to speak of this earlier. Now I regret the fact that I didn't," the bard stated with unaccustomed solemnity. "But I've dreamed of the well each time I sleep these last few days. A power awakens there that offers tremendous hope for the isles, but it's a frail thing and menaced by great danger. I believe that it's imperative we go there, with all speed!"

"I remember your tale of this well, and your description of its location," interjected Brandon, addressing Alicia. "It's at least four days' march from here!"

"But less than that for horsemen or for a flying beast," the mage observed grimly.

"Keane!" Alicia said suddenly. "Do you have some way you could get us to that well quickly?"

"I wish, Princess, that I did," replied the sorcerer with a shake of his head. "I have a spell-teleportation-that will take me there in an instant. But it will not benefit anyone else."

"Isn't there something you can do?" demanded the princess.

"As I said, I can go there myself," he said curtly. "And it may be that we have no other tactic available to us."

"Not good enough," grunted Brandon. He seemed to have shaken off his despair. Once again his voice was commanding and controlled. "You have great power, but alone you could fall to a single arrow, or even a well-thrown rock. No, we must travel together."

"Those who can march, at least," Tavish noted, with a look at the dozen or so injured men who were having legs or arms splinted by their companions.

In another hour, a bedraggled band of castaways shivered under a steady rain. The injured had been moved to the village, quartered in as much comfort as possible. Finally those who could walk started across the lowland moor. In minutes, the buildings of the tiny community had vanished into squall and murk.

Surrounded by the storm, the companions marched on.

Larth and his twenty-five mercenaries rode as if all the beasts of the Abyss pursued them. The ponderous war-horses lumbered across the rough country of the highlands, carrying the knights to their mountain goal. The captain allowed them four or five hours of rest during the night, but cursed and kicked them back into the saddle before first light. Fear gripped Larth, a fear such as he had never known. He feared that he would be too late-that he would fail his master.

The thought of facing that softspoken robed figure, the Nameless One, and suffering the brunt of his wrath as penalty for Larth's blunders sent cold daggers of ice into the knight's belly. So he drove himself, and he drove his men.

And they rode through the rain toward the Moonwell.

"Hold thee, beast!" shrilled Pryat Wentfeld, brandishing the Eye of Helm as he crawled from beneath the felled trunk of a massive cedar.

The whirlwind of his air elemental subsided into a great humanoid-shaped being of translucent gas. Now the thing pushed and ripped its way through the huge woodpile in search of the cleric who had summoned it here.

Finally the priest shouted a command word, even as the animated mass of air loomed before him, ready to pull the stout body apart in a cyclonic death swirl, and this time the force of his magic held the beast in check.

The clang of swords against steel still rang from the shore as the two knights battled both each other and ever-increasing exhaustion. But neither could gain the edge that would allow him to win the fight. At the stake, an invisible Newt busily chewed at Danrak's bonds, and slowly the druid tried to work himself free.

"There!" shouted the cleric, his voice shrill with bubbling fright as he tried to control the being from another plane he had summoned. Pryat Wentfeld pointed at the staggering form of Hanrald. "Kill him! Destroy him!"

The air elemental, subject to the pryat's will, swirled toward the battle at the same moment that Danrak finally pulled his hands free. Swiftly he untied his feet, grateful that his guards still gaped at the fight. Then abruptly the druid sprinted toward the well, breaking past the surprised men-at-arms who had ignored their presumably helpless prisoner in lieu of the spectacle of battle around the pond.

Danrak took out a talisman, a round, grape-sized object that he squeezed between his fingers. He saw the whirlwind waver, pausing in its single-minded pursuit of Hanrald. Obviously the cleric had seen the druid, for the elemental now veered toward Danrak.

"Aquais!" cried the druid, popping the tiny vessel, which contained a small amount of pure water. The droplets sprayed into the surface of the Moonwell, and Danrak chanted the rest of his summons: "Portille, condarus equae!"

Instantly a whirling column of water began to rise from the middle of the well, like a living creature formed of glutinous liquid. Foam sprayed from the watery monolith's flanks as it grew more stable and upright. Circles of waves flowed outward in perfect rings until the liquid being began to move. Then it cast a frothy wake in an expanding wedge behind it. Danrak concentrated, pulling the elemental of water from the Moonwell and directing it against the creature from the plane of air. The being swiftly spun toward shore, a moving column of frothing water casting a cloud of spray around it.

As Wentfeld sent his air elemental howling toward the druid, Danrak's own elemental of water surged ashore to meet it. Amid the background of clanging blades, snarling hounds, and frightened observers, the primal forces of gas and liquid clashed in an explosion like a thunderstorm.

The massive form of the dracolich curled sinuously around the mountaintop. For the first time since he had been called to the service of Talos, Gotha knew pain. The wizard's magic had wracked his body and finally driven him to land. Here he lay for a night and a day resting his battered bones.

Gotha spread his wings to the accompaniment of biting pain. Nevertheless, the command of Talos had been compelling, drawing him toward the Moonwell, and finally the monster knew he could no longer delay.

Bellowing in frustration, he coiled his great legs beneath him. Aiming his head like an arrow, Gotha sprang into the air, extending his battered wings but relying on the power of his god to sustain him.

Hanrald staggered, desperately trying to lift the leaden weight of his sword. Finally he did, but not before his brother's blade darted forward, reaching for the perspiring flesh of his face. Once again the ringing of steel echoed from the walls around the Moonwell.

"By all that's holy and sacred," groaned the younger knight, lifting his sword again. He saw Gwyeth stumble backward, and he lunged forward. "You will yield to me!"

Hanrald smashed his sword downward, driven with all the fading strength of his body, and this time Gwyeth's parry failed, twisting the defending knight's sword from his hand. The weapon clanged to the ground as Gwyeth stared sullenly at Hanrald's blade, which was now held to his throat.

"Very well, Brother," he spat. "I yield."

"The fight is finished," grunted Hanrald with a sigh of relief. Wearily he lowered his sword.

Quickly Gwyeth pulled a dagger from his belt and lunged at his brother. Keen steel flickered toward Hanrald's face, slashing his cheek and narrowly missing his throat.

Staring in astonishment, Hanrald stumbled backward, falling heavily to the ground.

The great moorhound Warlock sprang at Gwyeth as the knight crouched above his brother, sneering. The hound's jaws closed over Gwyeth's face, twisting it to the side. Howling in maddened terror, the man went down as the rest of the snarling pack closed in to pin his armored body to the earth. They tore at his face, ripping away his eyes, his ears, his flesh-and finally his very life.

In the well, the elementals of water and air contested, controlled by the druid and the cleric. Mist swirled upward from the pond in a raging cyclone, howling like a gale and obscuring the entire Moonwell beneath a blanket of fog.

The clash of elements continued to rage within the obscuring cloud, surging waves foaming against the shore, across the meadow, and around the stumps of the felled cedars. Winds circled with growing force in the little valley.

The fog closed completely around the pond. The air became almost liquid, full of spray that soaked and blinded everything in its path. From this concealment, Danrak concentrated his will upon the water elemental, the being the druid himself had summoned. By the force of the goddess, he drove the water elemental away, vanquishing it to the plane of its own kind.

In the confusion of the gale, the water being's departure was not immediately apparent, since the magical creature of air still whirled under the pryat's control. Under the cover of the fog, Danrak crept toward the cleric. Wentfeld, focused upon the whirlwind, didn't notice the druid's stealthy approach.

Danrak pushed the cleric suddenly, knocking the man to the ground. Immediately the cyclone roared toward them, freed once again from the cleric's absolute control.

"Stop!" shrieked the priest, scrambling to his knees.

Danrak stood frozen, shocked at how quickly the raging funnel cloud swept toward them. His talismans … he had no time!

"I banish thee in the name of the goddess!" shouted the druid, standing firm before the cloud. "Go from here and return to your rightful place of being!"

Immediately the magic of his command swept outward, seizing the whirlwind in its arcane grasp. The creature of the plane of air howled as a gap opened in the fabric between the worlds. Pressure, invisible to the humans but compelling to the elemental, sucked the being against this gap.

Then a great vortex of air swept outward, like a finger of black cloud swirling at an impossible speed. It reached out like a solid thing, a tentacle that wrapped around the pryat's leg. The pressure of its suction raised to a howling crescendo, and the cleric's scream was lost in the sound.

Then abruptly silence came to the valley, like a soothing, warming breeze. The elemental and the horrified pryat were gone. Gentle waves lapped in the pond, the fog and mist dissipating as quickly as they had arisen.

"Look! The trees!" gasped one of Gwyeth's men-at-arms, pointing to the stumps of cedars that had already begun to sprout upward.

Hanrald looked around in amazement. Flowers began to blossom before his eyes, and the trampled foliage stretched and extended itself with renewed vitality.

Then his eyes fell upon the heights where, shortly before, he and his hounds had descended to the well. Arrayed there now, he saw, was a line of mounted knights, some two dozen or more in number.

As he watched, they urged their horses down the steep slope. Though they moved at a walk, they brandished lances and swords.

Musings of the Harpist

The Harp of Cymrych Hugh! It has proven itself twice now, in the strength it shared with the Gullwing's oarsmen, allowing them to row tirelessly through the rough seas; and again in the courage it disseminated when the great dragon attacked-courage that allowed men to stand and fight when all mind and muscle turned to jelly in the face of the monstrous threat.

Now a third use occurs to me. It can enhance endurance and courage. Perhaps, with the right resonance, it might enhance magic as well.

I shall have to speak with Keane.