THE TWELVE MOONS RHYME SUNG BY CATHRAN CHILDREN
Snow Moon, Storm Moon, winter fast. Wind Moon, Green Moon, spring at
last. Milk
and Blossom follow after,
Then comes
Thunder, God's own laughter. Corn and Harvest bring their
boon, But Hunters curse the Boreal Moon. Last of all the Ice Moon drear
Doth bring the end of Blenholme's
year.
Each of my successors may pose to me
one Question before singing the Deathsong, and I will answer true.
—Bazekoy, Emperor of the World
In obedience to a
command from the throne commuting my death sentence, the Lord Chancellor of
Blencathra banished me to the continent two years ago, with an adequate stipend
that will continue so long as I keep my mouth shut. left unsaid was what would
happen if I did not. Cutting off my pension would doubtless be the least of it;
and I fear it's only a matter of time before my silence is ensured by more
economical means.
Well, if I'm caught, so let it
be. I value my life, as every man does, but there's also a great fatigue having
nothing to do with bodily weariness that tempts me to lease my grip and allow
all the burdens to fall away.
But not yet, I think. Not
quite yet.
For prudence's sake, every morning
I perform a shortsighted windsearch encompassing a dozen leagues or so round
about my dwelling. I've not yet found anything or anyone suspicious. The one
minor sigil I managed to take away with me from the palace at Cala Blenholme
remains under my bed in a locked lizard-wood box. It's called Night Preserver,
one of the non-hurting sort, hardly worthy the Lights' notice, primed for
defense against assassins dispatching me in my sleep. But a truly competent
cut-throat would have little difficulty getting at me during waking hours, so
of late I have had to review my situation and decide whether or not I want to
retain control of it, or surrender at last.
Surrender is such a seductive
option when one is very old.
My years number four score and
one, and I'll certainly die soon of some-thing, whether it be the infirmities
of age or foul play. But shall I go unregarded and unsung, in the manner that I
lived most of my life . . . or is there a more amusing option?
The gold of my royal pension
has bought me a comfortable house in southern Foraile along the River Daravara,
five rooms furnished well, with a peg-legged manservant to cook and keep the
place from getting too squalid. This is a pleas-ant land, warm throughout most
of the year and kind to old scars and bone breaks, where the breezes blow soft
and musk-fragrant, and folk having arcane talents such as mine are so rare as
to be the stuff of peasant legends. But I never before lived a tranquil life,
and perhaps my attempt to do so now lies at the root of my present mental
unease. Tranquillity, to one of my stripe, is boring. No one is so pitiable as
a derring-doer put out to pasture, no one so frustrated as a tired old spy
without an audience to impress with his cleverness.
When I first arrived in this
over-placid exile, I spent some time each day over-seeing my old haunts,
especially
The diversion was a dangerous
one, for I am no longer the peerless scryer I used to be, and my own unique
talent shielding me from other windwatchers is fading fast, like the other
arcane abilities I inherited, all unknowing, from my strange ancestor. If
Cathran magickers should catch me spying on the palace, my blood would surely
be forfeit. I had to ask myself if this rather tepid species of fun was worth
the risk. At length, I decided that it was not.
But the pleasures left to me
are so few! I am too frail of body to ride or hunt or even explore the tame
jungle surrounding my house. My traitor stomach rebels at rich food. Expensive
wines and liquors only put me to sleep without gladdening my spirit. And not
even the cleverest bawd from the local house of joy seems able to rekindle the
sweet fire in my nethers. There's really only one source of delight left to me
now.
Mischief.
The telling of secrets.
The tearing away of masks.
Why provoke trouble in
piddling small ways, when one has the potential to bring on a grand firestorm
that will rock a kingdom? Why not stir my sluggish passions by reliving the old
dangerous life I loved?
Sitting here on my shaded
porch above the languid tropical river, with only indifferent birds and my
grouchy housecarl Borve to take note of my labors,
I shall write it all down. At the end, if God
wills that I finish, I'll return to the island and publish the story myself. It
will be supremely gratifying to revel in the ensuing scandal. Why should I care
then if my reward is the sharp blade belonging to an agent of the Cathran
throne, cutting my scrawny throat?
Highborn or low, the people of
High Blenholme would all know who I am at last.
I was born in Chronicle Year
1112, in the Cathran capital city that was called simply Cala in the days
preceding the Sovereignty. My name is Deveron Austrey. Although rumor had it in
latter days that I was the by-blow of some wizard, the truth is that my father
was a harnessmaker in the palace stables, as was his father before him. This
would have been my work as well, had not fate decreed otherwise. My mother was
a laundress, and my memories of her are scant, for she died in childbirth when
I was five, taking her unbreathing babe with her. Apparently, neither my
parents showed any evidence of arcane talent. My own didn't evidence itself
until I began crossing the threshold of manhood, and I was slow to recognize it
for what it was.
My father perished of wildfire
fever when I was eleven years old, so I became apprenticed to my grandsire,
irascible and half-blind, but still one of the most ingenious leather-workers
in the royal household. I had not a tenth of his artistic skill, but I labored
dutifully at my trade, urged on by the occasional smack on the ear, one more
among scores of insignificant crafters in the stables, until an alert head
groom took note of an odd thing.
Horses were uncommonly docile
when I fitted them out in harness. Even the most fractious destrier gentled
when I took him in hand, and before long I was one called to saddle up the
huge, evil-tempered stallions trained to fight in tourneys with hooves and
teeth, as well as the mettlesome coursers preferred by
Prince Conrig and his
high-spirited young band of Heart Companions. gift with horses was really a
species of wild talent, the first to manifest itself. The second talent to
bloom was nearly the death of me.
When Prince Conrig was an
unbelted youth of nineteen, not knowing what else he was, and I was twelve,
still working with leather but also filling in as an undergroom, I had occasion
to lead His Grace's skittish horse to him before a hunt. He spoke to me kindly,
and after looking him in the eye I dared to answer with what I thought was an
innocent observation.
Horrified by what I told him
so casually, the prince thought at first to have me killed. (And told this
freely to me later, as he swore me to secrecy with a formidable oath.) But
even then I possessed a glib tongue and a winning manner, and after close
questioning and deep thought, Conrig realized that I could be supremely useful
to him in a singular way. So he made me his fourth footman, in time dubbing me
Snudge because of my artful sneakiness, and thus my later patrons also styled
me.
My crabby grandsire, deprived
of a useful dogsbody by my promotion to the royal household, predicted that
nothing good would come of me aspiring beyond my God-given place. He died a few
months later, by which time I had completely forgotten his dire prophecy.
Whether it was true or not I leave to the judgment of those who read this tale
of mine.
I was Royal Intelligencer
throughout most of my life. I fought and fled and skulked and snooped and
committed red murder and magical mayhem in the service of King Conrig Ironcrown
and his three remarkable sons. I was condemned and reprieved by another of
that family, who continues to rule peaceably enough in the wake of the
Sovereignty's dissolution.
I was perhaps the most humble
of their arcanely talented servants, but so insidious and necessary that I
witnessed—and even secretly helped to bring about—many a regal triumph and
defeat. That was in times long past, four thou-sand leagues to the north, on an
island where sorcery was once taken for granted and inhuman presences still
share the world with mankind.
Continental readers unfamiliar
with my former home may appreciate a brief description of it, and they would
also do well to consult a map as the story unfolds. Others may skip directly to
the first part of the tale, here following.
High Blenholme, an island in
the Boreal Sea, is a rugged, roughly oblong land-mass with a broad
northwesterly extension. It is about four hundred leagues in width and measures
roughly six hundred leagues from north to south. Blenholme means "moon
island" in the old Forailean tongue. At that northern latitude, a trick of
the eye makes the heavenly orb seem much larger than normal at certain times of
the year, and so the moon enjoys a prominent place in local religion and
folklore.
What with the wildness of the
waters surrounding the island, the reefs and frowning precipices that guard its
approaches, and the Salka, Green Men, Small
Lights, and Beaconfolk
who haunted the place in prehistoric times, High Blenholme was shunned by
Continental explorers and would-be settlers until the mighty invasion fleet of
Bazekoy the Great sailed into Gala Bay, and he himself planted his standard at
the mouth of the River Brent. That portentous event marked Year 1 of the
Blenholme Chronicle.
The emperor's heavily armed,
disciplined forces drove the sluggish Salka monsters beyond the central
mountain ranges and the Green Men into the Elderwold. The Small Lights were
only a minor threat to humankind and learned the virtue of staying
inconspicuous, while the mighty Beaconfolk unaccountably gave no resistance at
all to the invasion. Perhaps they were in the mood for fresh amusements!
Bazekoy named the fertile
southern part of the island Blencathra ("moon garden"), and it soon
attracted hordes of farmers, herders, and hunters from the teeming mainland.
The discovery of iron ore in the west and rich copper deposits along the River
Liat led Bazekoy to establish mining and smelting operations, and even facilities
for manufacturing weapons and armor to further his continental conquests. By
the time of the emperor's death in Chronicle Year 62, Blencathra was a thriving
province, exporting not only metals but also grain and many other kinds of
valued goods to Foraile, Stippen, and Andradh, and even to other nations more
distant.
After Bazekoy's incompetent
successors allowed his empire to disintegrate, Cathra became an independent
kingdom—although still attractive to continuing waves of immigrants from the
politically turbulent Continent. Over the next thou-sand years the entire
island was gradually taken over by humankind and most of the surviving Salka
forced into the fens or the dreary Dawntide Isles far to the east.
Geography divides Blenholme
naturally into four realms; but Cathra, south of the dividing range, has always
remained the richest, most populous, and most fortunate.
The second kingdom to be
established was Blendidion ("moon forest") in the north-central part
of the island, more austere of clime and having soil mostly thin and poor. It
was settled in the mid-500s by rude barbarian adventurers from Stippen, who
subdued the scattered Cathran settlements, then married into them. The vigorous
newcomers exploited Didion's vast woodlands and established their fortunes
through forestry products and shipbuilding. The land also possessed valuable
furs and deposits of tin, which it exported to Cathra as well as to the
Continent. In time, it became a prosperous, loosely knit nation of quarreling
dukedoms and isolated robber-baronies owing reluctant fealty to the Didionite
monarch at Holt Mallburn.
The windswept northwestern
peninsula of the island was explored late in the Seventh Century by marine
marauders of Andradh who called themselves Wave-Harriers. They discovered gold
nuggets and valuable opals along the pebbled shore of Goodfortune Bay, settled
the area, and defended it successfully against the navies of Cathra and Didion,
which lacked the Harriers' fighting prowess at sea. Later, the Andradhian
incomers discovered the sources of the gold—enormous living volcanoes whose
effusions warmed certain rivers and created temperate valleys in what was
otherwise an arctic wilderness.
The fourth island kingdom,
tiny Moss in the chill northeastern marshes, was born almost by chance in
Chronicle Year 1022. Originally a precarious outpost of Didionite sealhunters,
fishermen, and amber-traders, the fortified
Warned of his impending fate
by friendly Salka shamans, Rothbannon invoked the dreaded Beaconfolk and used
one of the Seven Stones to whistle up a gale that drove the man o' war onto the
Darkling Sands, where all but a handful of the expedition perished. The
self-styled Conjure-King of Blenmoss ("moon swamp") then demonstrated
other of his formidable powers to the awestricken survivors of the shipwreck
and afterwards sent them home to Holt Mallburn in a leaky fishing smack,
carrying a list of non-negotiable demands.
The King of Didion paid
substantial tribute to the terrible Conjure-King for decades; but when
Rothbannon died, his successors proved much less adroit in the art of
extortion, since they were afraid of the perilous Seven Stones and the
Beaconfolk who empowered them. Didion stopped paying tribute, but decided that
reconquering Moss was more trouble than the place was worth. After all, the
Mossbacks would have to sell their sealskins and amber to someone—and the
traders of Didion were always ready to do business.
The four kingdoms of High
Blenholme on occasion squabbled viciously but never went to war—until 1128,
when my tale begins. I was at that time sixteen years of age, and had served
Prince Heritor Conrig as a fledgling snudge and secret talent for four of them.
We were more than master and man, for I alone new what it was that set the
prince apart from ordinary mortals.
Or so I believed.
It was a peculiar time. For
three years, in a manner unprecedented, the volcanos of
here prevailing winds carried
the ash-clouds eastward, casting a pall over the and that invariably resulted
in a failed harvest.
A Wolf's Breath persisting for
three years in a row was a signal calamity, and Didion was finally pushed to
the brink of famine. The mighty Sealords of Tarn also faced ruin, since a great
proportion of their food was imported at high prices, and they had been forced
to abandon most of their goldmining operations until the poisonous exhalations
of the eruptions should cease. Even fertile Cathra produced scarcely two-thirds
of its usual abundant crop of grain. This ., as sufficient to feed its own
people, but left a diminished surplus available for trade. Only sorcery-ridden
Moss, being foggy and poverty-stricken most of the . :me anyhow, seemed to
suffer not a whit from the Wolf's Breath.
Which was suspicious on the
face of it .. .
Many blamed Conjure-King
Linndal of Moss for the misfortune, saying that he was taking vengeance on King
Achardus of Didion for having refused to consider Linndal's daughter Ullanoth
as a fit bride for his second son. Others said that the Tarnians themselves had
triggered the dire event by grubbing too much gold from the bowels of their
mountains, so that hellfire seeped up to fill the empty space and spewed forth
sky-darkening smoke. The Brothers of Zeth in Cathra, being more learned in
science and wishing to instill hope, maintained that the eruptions were a
natural distemper of the earth and would surely cease once the subterranean
integrants regained their equilibrium.
But the eruptions did not
cease.
As catastrophe overwhelmed his
country, Achardus of Didion squandered his assets in a desperate attempt to buy
food and ward off insurrection among his starving subjects. Eventually, the
market for the nation's raw timber, furs, and tin was glutted. Prompted (as was
thought then) by conniving mainland shipbrokers, Didion began building vessels
of war. These found an all-too-ready market on the Continent, where the
powerful nations of Stippen, Foraile, and Andradh nursed expansionist
ambitions.
In Cathra, King Olmigon
Wincantor had taken to his bed with the ailment that would ultimately end his
life. His Privy Council, riven by factional disputes, was at first unwilling to
take effective action, even when Prince Conrig, the able heir to the throne,
forcefully pointed out the potential dangers in the situation. What if the
Wolf's Breath blew for a fourth year—or even a fifth? Starving refugees from
Didion were already attempting to cross the passes into Cathra. If numbers of
them broke through, the rapacious Continental nations, who had long coveted
High Blenholme's natural riches, would probably take advantage of the resulting
chaos and launch an attack on the island.
In order to forestall this
peril, Prince Heritor Conrig presented his father and the Council with an
ingenious plan, which they finally accepted. That the immediate consequences
proved disastrous was not the prince's fault; he was overruled by his
conservative elders in the scheme's implementation. In the wake of the debacle,
he conceived yet another bold stratagem. But this time he determined to carry
it out himself.