Prophet of Moonshae

19

Slowly Deirdre opened her eyes. At first she saw nothing but dark, foreboding clouds, hanging so low in the sky that they seemed to press downward against Caer Callidyrr. Then she realized that she stared at them through her bedroom window, and finally the memory of the true Malawar came flooding back to her, and she wished that unconsciousness would claim her again.

Instead, the opposite occurred. Malawar himself-or the thing that had disguised itself as Malawar-approached Deirdre's slumping form. His withered face crinkled into an expression of amusement, an effect resembling a grotesquely grinning skull.

"You have flattered this old priest with your affections," he chortled, drool flecking from his narrow lips. " 'Tis not often that one as old as I samples the pleasures of such a temptling!"

The princess gagged in horror and struck out at him, but his veined hand easily caught her wrist and held it in a tense and wiry grip.

"Come," Malawar hissed in a voice like the dry rasp of a file against coarse wood. "Our master summons us!"

"No!" she moaned, turning her head to the side, away from the horrible visage. But there was no escape to be found there, save perhaps a desperate and fatal leap from the high window. Even in her anguish, Deirdre gave that possibility no consideration.

"You have no choice." The withered creature spoke, his voice deep and rumbling. "You have taken the vow." A sneer curled the tight lips, and the hellishly dark eyes flared with an eagerness that Deirdre knew was hunger.

She tried to resist but felt her muscles drawn by a summons that came from beyond her mind. Unwillingly she turned back to the hideous priest. She wanted to struggle and pull away from him, but her own mind would not respond.

"Now," Malawar snapped, obviously losing patience with his recalcitrant recruit, "you will perform the magic that will remove us from here."

"Me? How?" Deirdre asked. She felt her willpower return to her own control.

"That's better," crooned the superannuated priest. "You will find that Talos bends you to his will only when you yourself are reluctant to meet the terms of your vow."

Deirdre remained silent.

"You will take us to Caer Blackstone," continued Malawar. "There the earl will join us as we proceed to our final destination."

"Which is where?" she asked sullenly. Now she regarded the priest in a different light. She knew that she did have power-perhaps not as great nor as subtle as Malawar's, but true might nevertheless. The use of her power, she began to understand, would not be only his to control.

"The Fairheight Moonwell, of course," he said with a bare-gummed grin. "Where this resurgence of the Ffolk's goddess shall be destroyed for once and all!"

The goddess of the Ffolk? Deirdre winced at the phrase, for she was of the Ffolk, and the Mother had once been her goddess as well. But then a grim rage possessed her. She knew that she had chosen a different path, a different god. As fury gnawed at her soul, she understood one of the names of Talos-the Raging One.

That is how I shall know you, she vowed, a silent statement between herself and her god. And that is how my enemies shall know me!

"Hurry!" growled the priest, scowling at her like a glowering mask of death.

"What makes you think I have the power to take us there?" she asked.

"I know you have the power!" Malawar continued to cackle. "For I taught you myself!"

"Why don't you perform the magic?" demanded the princess.

"There is the difference between us, my child. I am a cleric of Talos, and my powers are those of the priesthood. You, however, have demonstrated an astounding aptitude for sorcery, a prodigy such as I have never encountered."

"I don't know how to do this magic-I don't understand!" she protested.

But he took her soft hands in his own bony claws and stared into her liquid eyes, and she understood.

The baying hounds, led by Warlock, raced to meet the armored riders coming down the slope, but the dogs couldn't slow the progress of the dark knights. Snarling, the pack attacked savagely, only to meet the swords and lances of the riders and the sharp hooves of the war-horses. Many of the moorhounds fell, mortally wounded, and the others backed away, licking their wounds.

The men of Gwyeth's company, leaderless and demoralized, stood in a group near the trail. The horsemen turned toward them, trampling through the few dogs foolish enough to continue the harassment, pressing their steeds into a lumbering charge.

"This isn't my fight!" growled Backar, the unfortunate sergeant who had led the first expedition and had witnessed the problems of the second in all their unnatural horror. Now he faced a charging company of horsemen with his supply of fortitude exhausted. "It's back to the cantrev for me!"

The hefty axemen ran for the trail leading from the Moonwell. The rest of the band needed only this example of leadership before they were quick to follow.

The horsemen looked for other foes. Hanrald and Danrak stood at the shore of the well, while the pilgrims had retreated to the crest of the valley. The knight raised his sword and started along the shore of the pond, the druid beside him. The two of them, on foot, stood before the steady advance of twenty-five heavily armored riders. The horsemen came at a walk, straight toward the pair.

"Hey-here's more of them! And these have horses!" A third ally popped into view on the knight's other shoulder as Newt buzzed forward, eager for a little more excitement. '"But don't you think it's still kind of unfair?"

"Indeed I do," Hanrald remarked wryly. He stopped and raised his sword, staring at the leading rider, a huge black-armored man with a longsword and great metal shield. "Halt!" cried the third son of Blackstone.

Ignoring the command, the rider spurred his horse to a trot. His company followed, and the ground in the vale rumbled under the heavy impact of hooves.

"He said halt!" Newt snapped, darting ahead of his two compatriots. "That means you're supposed to stop!"

As the dragon spoke, a massive chasm appeared in the earth before the startled riders. Horses screamed and kicked, rearing back in the moment before their forehooves plunged into blackness.

"Sorcery!" cried one of the mounted warriors.

"Around it, then!" shouted another, spurring his horse toward the edge of the chasm, coming around the corner and breaking into a charge toward Hanrald and his companions.

But the knight of Blackstone stepped forward and raised his sword. He felt supremely confident now-the power of the goddess flowed within him. As the charger lumbered forward, Hanrald suddenly dodged to the side. The rider tried to pull his horse around, but the knight saw a potentially fatal gap in the man's armor.

Hanrald thrust for that opening, between the breastplate and armored back. The sliver of steel that was his blade sliced into flesh. With a shriek of agony, the mortally injured rider tumbled from his saddle. Hanrald seized the reins, pulling the steed to a halt by sheer strength. The rest of the riders raced toward him, intent on following the fallen warrior, as the knight swung into the saddle.

"Go this way!" shouted Newt, gleefully flying past. As the faerie dragon darted toward the yawning gap, the chasm suddenly vanished, as Hanrald had suspected it might.

Instantly the mounted knight urged his horse across solid ground. Hanrald's charge carried him into the last two riders of the long file, who like the rest of their company, had been riding along the edge of a barrier that no longer existed. The knight's sword cleaved the head from one, while the other's horse tumbled, throwing its armored rider to the jagged, rock-strewn ground with bone-crushing force.

Cries of consternation and rage burst from the mounted company as they whirled, trying to close with the lone knight. Exploiting his momentum, Hanrald rode full into the midst of them, hacking to his right and left. Shieldless, he relied upon quickness and audacity for protection, and as he fought, these traits served him better than steel plate.

The mass of horsemen milled and lunged about as one after another they tried to strike at the swordsman, only to find that Hanrald had broken away. One hulking rider wearing black plate slashed at the Blackstone knight, striking a ringing blow against his chest and then evading Hanrald's return thrust. The man bellowed commands at his fellows.

Moments later, Hanrald burst from the other side of the band, but his seconds of savagery had left no fewer than five more of the riders groaning or bleeding on the ground. He spurred his horse along the shore, back toward the druid.

Danrak, meanwhile, drew another of his talismans, a tiny piece of charcoal that had been coated with phosphorus, from his pouch. The druid ran toward the fight, watching as Hanrald evaded his enemies by leading them on a long, curving ride around the fringe of the well. Half the attackers broke off, reversing direction, charging around the opposite side of the circular pool so that Hanrald would be caught in a deadly pincer.

The latter group, some ten riders, thundered past Danrak, ignoring the unarmored and apparently unarmed footman. As the first horse reached Danrak, however, the druid threw the coated coal onto the ground, directly in the mount's path.

Immediately red tongues of flame exploded upward from the earth, searing the legs and belly of the first horse and then surging higher, a fiery wall of death in the path of the following riders. Fingers of hissing, murderous heat lunged outward, grasping for and seizing the unfortunate men and horses, whose momentum carried them inevitably into the inferno. Hideous screams, from riders and mounts alike, rang through the vale of the Moonwell, but only for a moment.

Then the flames towered higher, a wall of fire touching the shore of the pool and extending away from the water for fifty feet. Grotesque shapes, charred black and outlined in flame, marked the places where the horses and their warlike riders had perished.

Meanwhile, Hanrald whirled his own horse about, charging full into the faces of the riders who still pursued him on the far side of the pool, including the huge black-armored man who seemed to command them. Again Hanrald rode into his enemies, hacking and bashing, ducking away from each return thrust. Another man fell, stabbed in the throat, before Hanrald broke free. A thundering gallop carried him back to Newt and Danrak, while the surviving horsemen halted in confusion, staring in awestruck horror at the fiery pyre where their companions had perished.

Their captain berated them, but they cast nervous glances at the charred shapes of their comrades. The riders remained reluctant to ride against the supernaturally aided Hanrald.

The taut equilibrium was broken, not by the renewed charge of the riders but by a darkness that dimmed even the gray light of the cloudy day. The humans looked upward, while the horses shrilled in fear.

"Hey, look!" Newt shouted as he looked upward, oblivious to Hanrald's and Danrak's horror. "Here comes a big dragon!"

"It might be worth a try," Keane said, his tone skeptical.

"What's that?" asked Alicia, marching with numb stoicism behind the mage and Tavish. The latter pair had been engaged in a long, quiet conversation.

"Tavish wonders if the power of her harp might enhance my teleportation spell," Keane explained. "It's a powerful artifact, certainly, and that power has aided us before. But this is something new, and I can't tell you if it's going to work."

Brandon, at the head of the ragged column, halted the march and joined the discussion. "We've got to try," he argued. "Look at us-after six hours, we've lost ten men who couldn't continue because of their wounds, and the rest of us, if we reach the Moonwell after four days of hiking, won't be in any shape for a fight."

"There's something else to consider, too," Tavish observed quietly. "I doubt that, even by tomorrow, there'll be anything left to save."

"All right," Keane agreed. "Weave your music, bard lady, and I'll prepare to cast my spell."

"If-if it fails," Alicia said tentatively, "what will happen?"

"Most likely I'll teleport there myself and the rest of you will stay right here," Keane explained.

"Can you come right back, then?" inquired the princess.

The mage shook his head. "The spell is gone when cast. I would have to get back to Callidyrr and restudy my spellbook before I could teleport again."

Despite the risk of dividing the party, they realized that they had to try. Yak found a cluster of rocks that concealed a sheltered grotto where they could all gather with at least minimal protection from the weather. Here, Keane and Tavish prepared to work the enchantment.

Their ragged group numbered fewer than fifteen now, still including Wultha, Knaff the Elder, the firbolg Yak, and the three Ffolk. Gathering in a rough circle around Tavish and Keane, they waited with rapt attention.

Tavish handed the Staff of the White Well to Alicia. The bard raised her harp, and for a moment, her fingers caressed the strings without drawing sound. Then she touched a high, trilling chord, and slowly allowed her fingers to descend through a series of bright notes.

Next the bard held that chord, strumming her fingers faster than the watchers could see. The music expanded, swelling into a powerful cocoon, building to a crescendo and stretching the listeners' nerves taut.

When it seemed that Tavish couldn't possibly sustain the pressure of sound for another moment, Keane closed his eyes in concentration. He reached out and took Alicia's and Brandon's hands, and the others joined their hands around the great circle.

Then Keane barked a word, so short and abrupt that Alicia didn't even hear what he said. She blinked reflexively.

When the princess opened her eyes, Keane-and only Keane-was gone.

"This is the Circle of Transport," said the decrepit Malawar, showing Deirdre a ring of gold about a foot in diameter. "It is mine, but it can only be activated by a sorcerer-or sorceress!" He cackled at his addendum.

The princess stared at him. In the hours of this darkest of mornings, her emotions had run a gauntlet from guilt, to disgust, then to anger and self-loathing at her previous naivete. Finally she had returned to anger. Grimly determined not to let her fury show, she waited with taut attention for the priest to explain.

"How does it work?" she asked finally, hating him.

He showed her, and they both grasped portions of the ring with both of their hands. "You will take us to the hall of Caer Blackstone," he concluded.

Deirdre nodded, then gasped as a whirlwind of pressure swirled around her. Quickly she realized that the gale was a storm in sound only, since no wind gusted past her skin or disturbed her hair.

Yet in the next instant, she recognized the dark-beamed ceiling and the array of stuffed animal heads that were the prominent features of the Earl of Fairheight's Great Hall.

"By the gods!" sputtered the earl, leaping to his feet in astonishment, knocking his chair backward, and dropping the half-eaten remains of a pork haunch to the table. A nearby maidservant dropped a crystal tray, and the crash of ceramic rang through the hall with shocking violence.

"Leave us!" Malawar barked at the maid, who cast a frightened look at the earl, then ran for the door.

"What is the meaning of this?" demanded Blackstone, still standing. "Who are you?"

"It is I!" The withered cleric spat the word, and the earl stepped backward as if he had been slapped. Recognition mingled with horror in his face.

"How did-?"

"You're coming with us. Now." The venerable priest's words were driven home like nails into soft pine.

"What? You can't-why? Where are you going?"

"To the Moonwell-where one of your sons has failed to perform your instructions!"

"Gwyeth? He failed? But how? Did he-"

"He's dead," snapped Malawar. "Slain by the hand of your third son, who even now threatens to disrupt all of our plans and ambitions."

"Hanrald, a traitor? The bastard! I knew he couldn't be a true Blackstone!" The earl, his voice verging on hysteria, bellowed his anger.

"Take a weapon and let's go!" the priest ordered.

"Yes, of course," the earl declared, his voice dropping grimly. He took a huge dark-bladed battle-axe from the trophy wall, the same axe he had used to slay the prophet.

The three of them seized the golden circlet, and Deirdre's brow wrinkled in concentration. She heard that same cyclone, but this time it didn't distress her. In another moment, the three of them stood among the stumps of the ruined cedars, looking around the battle-scarred vale of the Moonwell.

A wall of fire crackled beside the pond, slowly dying, while several armored horsemen stared at them in shock. As Deirdre's eyes swept upward, she beheld the grotesque image of the dracolich Gotha, perched on a rocky bluff above. Blackstone shouted in alarm, while the princess pressed her hand to her mouth in shock.

"No need to worry," said Malawar, noting the source of their fright. "He, too, is a devoted servant of Talos!"

"Keane!" cried Deirdre, stunned on top of her surprise to see her tutor suddenly materialize before them, about fifty feet away.

"Deirdre! Beware!" shouted the mage.

"He is your worst enemy!" Malawar hissed at her. "You must destroy him-quickly!"

"Keane? No!" she cried, appalled.

"Else he will destroy us and the hopes of our master along with us-you must!"

Keane, his angular face perplexed, stepped toward Deirdre.

Anger surged within the princess, a hot fury directed at Malawar, who would twist all of her being to his own ends if she gave him the chance. She whirled on him, but somehow her rage changed its focus. Reluctantly she looked at Keane. She remembered all of his smug arrogance when, many years ago, she had struggled with her studies. She recalled his stubborn refusal to aid in the development of her powers as a sorceress. The princess didn't feel the looming presence of Talos, but that dark god now used her own indecision as an opportunity to steer her anger and her will.

In that instant, Deirdre knew her path. All her fury exploded to the surface. She raised her hand, invoking the name of her god, and directed the force of her power. Remembering the raving prophet who had come to her in the hall of Callidyrr, she called upon the same deadly magic she had unleashed against him-the Bolt of Talos.

Now that same force erupted against Keane. Waves of crackling magic surged outward as Deirdre's target raised his long arms up to protect his face.

It was no use. The blast picked him up and drove him backward, smashing his lean body to the ground, hissing and popping around him as the magic-user's eyes closed. In moments, he lay still.

Alicia sobbed, the bitter taste of defeat rising like bile in her throat. She leaned on the Staff of the White Well while Tavish held her, the bard's own tears falling on the shoulder of the younger woman. Around them, Yak and the northmen stood in mute, angry frustration. Keane was gone, and it seemed that all hope of success had gone with him.

"To come so close!" Her voice caught as she whispered to Tavish. "And to fail!"

"We haven't failed yet," the bard replied softly. "It's not over."

"But what can we do? "

"We could pray."

Alicia blinked in astonishment. Impatiently she wiped away a tear and thought. "We could, couldn't we? And perhaps now the goddess will hear us!"

"We have to try," agreed the bard. "Hold the staff, my child."

Alicia stood with the Staff of the White Well in her hand, one end of the long shaft resting on the ground. For the first time in days, she felt a sense of joy, a feeling that approached elation. It was so simple, but Tavish was right! She closed her eyes, without trying to articulate her thoughts for the Great Mother, the earth. But she made a pledge to the goddess that she would serve as her own mother had served and offer her life, labor, and love as willingly. And as she pledged, a sense of ultimate tranquility flowed from the ground into her feet and legs, pulsing through the staff she held in her hand, and flowing through her fingers into her wrists and her arms.

Tavish was the first to notice. "Look," she said quietly, indicating Alicia's bracers.

The princess had almost forgotten the spiraled rings of silver that she had placed on her forearms in the tomb of Cymrych Hugh. Now she saw that they glowed with a pale blue light, a color like that of a clear sky, half an hour or more after the sun had set.

"The talismans of a druid," Tavish said, her voice calm. "Now they receive the favor of the goddess."

The illumination spread swiftly to the wooden staff that the princess still held in her hand. Then the color spilled onto the ground and swept outward in wide strips of brilliance. They saw other hues-green, yellow, a dark, rich violet. Still more colors exploded overhead, cascading like a fountain: red and orange spilling as cool light, not fire.

The northmen grumbled superstitiously and began to back away. The giant firbolg held up a restraining hand. "Wait," Yak said. "This is goodness."

Indeed, the colors flowed together, swirling on the ground and then spiraling upward, seven clear bands that ranged from red to violet. The gray clouds parted silently, and the bands of color arced into the heavens. Blue sky framed the long lines, and sunlight washed around the group on the ground.

"A rainbow," Alicia breathed reverently. The sun struck the shades with brilliant, incandescent glory, a brightness that would have been painful to the eyes of the watchers had they not been overwhelmed with awe.

"More than a rainbow," Brandon observed, studying the solid-looking surface that rose from the ground, disappearing into the distance. "It looks like a bridge."

"To the Moonwell!" Tavish cried, immediately understanding. She hurried to the foot of the sloping, ramplike rainbow and, without hesitation, placed a foot upon it.

"It's solid!" reported the bard, beginning to climb upward.

"Hey!" cried Tavish, from far above them. Though she had taken but three steps, she was more than a hundred feet in the air.

"It carries her!" shouted Brandon triumphantly. Without further hesitation, he followed the bard, and in moments, the northman, too, was a distant figure.

"By the goddess!" breathed Alicia, as the rest of the party started to climb the miraculous bridge. "We may yet arrive in time!"

In the depths of darkness, High Queen Robyn started, struggling against the cloak of evil that enwrapped her. She felt the power of the goddess like a kiss of warm wind that restored breath to her lungs.

Chaos remained a thick fog, blocking all light and knowledge and memory. Yet now that fog dissipated somewhat. She felt a warmth and brightness beyond the fog, a hope and a promise that she hadn't felt for twenty years.

Slowly, with great determination, Robyn started upward, toward the sun.

"A dragon!" groaned Hanrald, his eyes riveted to the monstrous beast on the knoll above him. The horse he had claimed in the battle danced skittishly beneath him. The surviving riders of the twenty-five were gathered in a tight knot across the pond and seemed to be waiting for something.

The knight looked around and noticed behind him the prostrate form of Keane and, farther away, the trio of Deirdre, Malawar, and his father.

"Hanrald!" cried the Earl of Fairheight. "I command you to lay down your sword and yield the well to me!"

"I cannot," the knight stated simply.

"Treachery!" shouted the earl. "Upon the evil you have already wrought as slayer of your brother!"

"I would have shown him mercy," protested Hanrald, "but he betrayed me-and it was not I that struck the fatal blow!"

"Surrender-now!" demanded the earl.

"I refuse."

"Kill him! Strike him quickly!" Malawar's cracked voice was a rasping hiss in Deirdre's ear. She stared numbly at the knight, her mind still reeling from the knowledge that she had just slain her teacher, a man who trusted her and would have been her friend. "Do it!" shrilled the priest.

"No!" The voice of refusal was a deep rumble, and it came from the knoll above the Moonwell. Gotha, the dracolich, spoke. "The knight is mine!"

Hanrald turned, with no display of fear, to observe the great wyrm. The beast coiled its great legs beneath it, spreading its great skeletal wings to the sides. Crouching, it prepared to spring.

But then a sound like thunder rocked through the vale, and the darkness was split by a bright wash of sunlight. The heavy overcast broke apart above them, revealing an expanse of blue.

And a rainbow streaked down from the sky.

Musings of the Harpist

We cross meadows with a single step, mountain valleys in a few strides! Landscapes spread below us, exposed to the sun as the clouds flee the glory of the Earthmother's rainbow. We feel glorious warmth, we see expanses of forgotten beauty-indeed, it seems that vitality begins to return to the land.

Thus the power of the goddess carried us across moor and mountain to the heart other life-and of our hope.