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eleven
Nightmares
had begun to poison Snudge's sleep even before the prince's retinue left Castle
Vanguard, and they had persisted during the journey back to
First
he found himself reliving his encounter with the Mosslander spy, saw that
ravaged face materialize out of invisibility and assume an expression of false
friendship, stubby teeth exposed in a parody of a smile. Then the hawk-orange
eyes turned to orbs of onyx blazing with malignant talent. The boy once again
felt a profound cold spreading through his body and steely thumbs throttling
the life out of him. At the brink of death, he finally took fumbling hold of
his dagger and slammed it deep into the enemy's heart.
And
heard the sorcerer's windspoken cry of desperation: Beynor!
Snudge
never saw the spy die, for that was the signal for the dream to change, for
another person to appear, one he had never seen when wide awake.
The man
was gauntly attractive and quite tall, perhaps no older than Snudge himself,
although there was nothing youthful about his masterful bearing and narrow,
pinched countenance. He wore sumptuous clothing edged with fur. His head was
bare, and his hair was as pale and glistening as thistledown. At first, the
young man in the dream appeared to be standing inside various richly furnished
rooms, often backed by a window showing a night sky.
In
later dreams, Snudge saw him poised in the bow of a great ship, with his hair blown
nearly horizontal in a strong wind, which he seemed not to notice. Sails
swelled and crackled above him and spray crashed rail-high as the stem ofthe
vessel split the water at speed. Beyond lay an expanse of dark ocean,
incongruously unruffled, a few drifting icebergs, and a sky strewn with
brilliant stars.
Whether
in strange mansions or on shipboard, the young man always held the same
conversation with Snudge. His bloodless lips spoke without audible sound.
Throw
it into the sea, Deveron Austrey!
"What?"
Get rid
of it as soon as you can. Throw it away!
"What?
Throw away what?"
That
which is mine. Go down to the docks in
"Who
are you? What are you talking about?"
You
know what I'm talking about. You stole it from my servant Iscannon after you
killed him. You keep it well hidden. You search through books taken from the
library of the Royal Alchymist, hoping to unlock its secret. You never will.
All you'll discover is a horror worse than death.
"Are
you the one called Beynor? The Conjure-Prince of Moss?"
I am.
And the thing you stole is mine to command—not yours.
"That's
not what the arcane books say. Any talented person—"
So you
admit you have the sigil! Stupid cullion—how dare you aspire to know the
Beaconfolk? Haven't your clumsy researches taught you what you're playing with?
The Lights are older than mankind, older than the Salka, older even than the
dry land's rising from the sea. The Coldlight Army could destroy us all on a
mere whim.
"But
they haven't destroyed you, have they? And they didn't protect your spy from my
dagger. Perhaps you're lying to me, Prince Beynor . . . I wonder if I should
ask your sister Ullanoth about the Beaconfolk. And about the sigil.
Lowborn
fool! Whore's kitling! Stinking heap of dogpuke! Do you think you can bandy
words with me? Throw the moonstone into the sea! Do it tonight!
"No.
And you can't force me to do it, or you would have done so already. Go to
hell."
You're
the one who will experience hell, Deveron Austrey. Now feel the leastpunishment
the Lights can inflict on ignorant meddlers: BI THO SILSHUA!
Prince
Beynor vanished, leaving only a dream-sky with countless stars and that oddly
calm northern sea. Snudge felt a gruesome chill again, like the one the
sorcerer-spy had inflicted on him, starting at his extremities and flooding
slowly toward his body's core, sucking warmth and life from his flesh and
entrails and brain. His suffering was appalling—but even worse was the sense of
overwhelming fear and foreboding that took hold of him. Somehow, he realized
that he had not even begun to experience the fullness of agony. But he would,
and very soon, because the torturers were coming for him out of that glittering
black sky.
Lights.
Slow-moving
blobs of silvery-green, scarlet, and gold, accompanied by a faint hissing
crackle, rose up from the horizon. The glowing patches expanded, brightened,
became sweeping colored beams and enormous rippling bands and pale bursts of
unearthly radiance that finally coalesced into iridescent shapes resembling
monstrous living creatures. The Great Lights filled the sky with their
brightness and engulfed him, bringing the most atrocious pain he had ever experienced.
Whispery laughter mocked him and reveled in his agony as he writhed and tried
to scream, and shrank away to a frost-coated nubbin of misery, trapped amidst
cracked and shattered bones.
He woke
up as always, unable to move, rigid on his palliasse in the chamber where he
and the elevem other privileged armigers of the prince's cohort slept. He had
flung aside the bedcoverings and lay naked to the cold predawn wind blowing in
from
It hung
around his neck on a cord. He never took it off and politely refused to let the
other boys examine it closely, saying it was a sacred talisman given him by his
late grandfather. The bully Mero Elwick had tried to rip it away one day in the
washroom, but Snudge had kneed him in the crotch and left him gagging and
cursing, and no one had bothered him about it since.
The
square of semi-precious gemstone was carved with the circumpolar constellations
and odd asymmetrical shapes Snudge could not put a name to. It never glowed or
manifested any magic. In the time he had spent in Cala Palace since returning
from Castle Vanguard, with Vra-Kilian fortuitously absent on the king's
pilgrimage and none of his assistant wizards clever enough to catch him in the
act, the boy had rifled the Royal Alchymist's collection of arcane volumes at
every opportunity, seeking information about sigils, about the insubstantial
beings who empowered them, and about the sorcerers who dared to use such
perilous magical instruments. Before retiring each evening, he would report to
Prince Conrig the things he had learned—little enough that was useful, but a
good deal that scared the wits out of him and made the prince frown with
concern.
"I
know most of your time is now taken up with-learning the knightly arts,"
Conrig had said, "but keep searching the Alchymical Library whenever you
can. I must know more about the Beaconfolk and the royal conjurors of Moss and
the sorcerers of the Glaumerie Guild before we invade Didion."
So
Snudge obeyed, and each night dreamed the dream, and woke paralyzed in the
freezing twilight before sunup.
After a
few minutes he would be able to move again. He'd rewind himself tightly in
blankets and feather-tick until he stopped shivering. Then—he never told any of
this to Prince Conrig—he prowled the wind in search of any hint that Beynor's
dream-visitation and awful words were anything but the product of his own imagination.
The search for awareness-threads was invariably fruitless. No one ever seemed
to be scrying the part of the palace where he lay—not that they would have been
able to oversee him! And no one tried to bespeak him from afar.
As
Snudge's body warmed, his talented concentration invariably flagged. No matter
how hard he tried to stay art, sleep always claimed him again. Dream-less, he
would lie without moving until the rising-bell tolled.
On the
morning of the day that the dream changed, the armigers broke their fast with
big bowls of oat-and-walnut porridge sweetened with willowherb honey. There
were cannikins of small ale to drink, and tasty blobs of yellow cheese-curd and
new-crop apples for those who still felt hungry. Snudge usually did.
After
the meal, which was all they would get to eat until dinner, the boys trooped
off to the palace tiltyard to practice warfare with swords, lance, or
morningstar--the latter being a spiked iron ball attached to a wooden handle by
a chain, particularly deadly when wielded by a rider against multiple
opponents on foot. All of the squires except Snudge believed that they would
soon be marching northward to Beorbrook Hold, where they and the Heart
Companions they served would join the earl marshal's forces in guarding
A few
knights were honing their skills in the yard that day. Two Heart Companions,
Count Feribor and Count Tayman, fully armored, were tilting in the lists with
softwood lances, attended by their squires, Mero and Saundar. But most of the
student fighters were armigers—not only of Prince Conrig's cohort but also
those who served knights of the royal household. The boys in their short,
colored surcoats made a fine display as they charged the quintains on horseback
or dueled each other with blunted swords, while trainers looked on and criticized.
Only Snudge, the youngest and rawest student, and Vra-Stergos's armiger Gavlok
Whitfell—slow-moving, gangling, and cursed with too much intelligence and
imagination to enjoy simulated mortal combat—earned serious reprimands from the
Palace Master-at-Arms, Sir Hale Brackenfield, who circulated about the yard
keeping a close eye on the action.
Easygoing
Gavlok saw his own lack of fighting expertise as a great joke. His principal
duties were to fetch and carry for the Doctor Arcanorum and serve him when he
traveled. Guarding his master against physical attack, while also part of an
armiger's responsibility, was a minor charge for Gavlock. In spite of having a
rather timid, fussy personality, Vra-Stergos was quite capable of fending off
common villains with the protective magic of the Mystic Order of Zeth.
Snudge
took his own shortcomings more seriously. Not long after returning to
"You'll
recover on the march to the north country," Conrig had told the boy with a
heartless laugh. "Do us both proud! Remember you're a prince's man now,
with a new blazon and honor all your own."
In a
stretch of the Cathran custom of battlefield dubbing of commoners who performed
deeds of great prowess, the footman Deveron Austry had been declared worthy of
knighthood for signal service rendered to the Prince Heritor. (Details were not
forthcoming.) The ceremony was brief, attended only by Vra-Stergos, the Heart
Companions, and their squires. Snudge swore fealty to Con-rig as his liege
lord, and the prince gifted him with a sword, a handsome suit of light armor, a
silver drinking cup, and enough money to kit him out decently for his new
duties. The knight's belt and the associated grant of lands in fee would not be
bestowed until Snudge reached the age of twenty and was legally adult, but he
was now an armiger, entitled to be invested with personal armorial bearings.
The choice was Snudge's own.
After
much thought, he chose a silver owl gardant on a sable field for his
coat-of-arms. As a result, he'd had to put up with jeering hoots from the other
boys, endless jokes about mouse-catching, and a plump rat, cooked to a turn,
served up with a flourish at breakfast one morn by a solemn-faced kitchen lad,
while the other armigers fell about laughing.
Snudge
had done his utmost to absorb the crash course of knightly training. His
performance at quintain was respectable enough, because he could influence
horses with his talent. He'd gallop at full tilt toward the pivoting dummy on
its post and usually managed to hit it squarely with lance or morningstar. Even
if he was off center, his control of his mount was so adroit that the
treacherous back-swing of the dummy never knocked him out of the saddle.
But
swordplay was another kettle of fish. Sir Hale let him learn the basic
longsword moves practicing with amiable Gavlok; but after two weeks of
slow-motion thrust and parry, Snudge had been passed on to stocky, blackhaired
Belamil Langsands, the best swordsman among the armigers, to learn use of the
curved varg sword that had been bestowed upon him at his dubbing. The lighter
blade was more deadly against skilled warriors when fighting afoot.
Belamil's
varg could whirl like a silver windmill and change direction faster than a
spooked trout. Even worse, he sang lustily as he fought—for Snudge's benefit
the ditty of choice was "The Wise Old Owl"—and rewarded the boy's
mistakes by whacking him stoutly with the flat of his varg while caroling the
refrain: "To-whit to-whooo!" Even wearing chain mail and a padded
jerkin, Snudge ended up bruised from neck to knee after a week of this
tutelage. His ego was even more seriously damaged by the universal applause
that accompanied Belamil's punishments.
"I'll
never be any good with swords," Snudge moaned to Gavlok, as the young fighters
paused to rest and quench their thirst with deep drafts of cider.
"It
takes time," the lanky squire said, smiling. "At least you've got a
certain natural flair. I don't! I'll never be anything better than a bumbling
hacker. I plan to ask Lord Stergos for a protective charm before we start out
for the north."
"Who
says I've got a natural flair?" Snudge asked in disbelief.
"Belamil.
He's actually quite pleased at the way you're coming along with the varg."
"You're
joking! He laughs at me. He's never given me the least word of encouragement or
praise:'
"That's
the way it works, young Deveron. Now don't get all puffed up, or tell Belamil
that I spoke out of turn."
"I
won't," said Snudge humbly. "But thank you for telling me. I've been
feeling
pretty rotten about letting Prince Conrig down. I know the rest of the armigers
think I'm just a jumped-up servant—"
"Some
do. Most of us don't know what to make of you." Gavlok grinned.
"You're a strange one. You keep to yourself too much. You creep away,
going God knows where after dinner instead of joining the rest of us for games
and other fun."
Snudge
hesitated. "I have certain tasks to do for the prince:'
"Snooping
and sneaking?" The other boy's eyes sparkled, taking some of the sting out
of his words. But he was in earnest.
"I
can't talk about it, Gavlok I'm sorry." Snudge looked away. Some sort of
commotion was going on at the far end of the tilting yard, near the passageway
leading into the main block of the palace.
"Did
you really save Prince Conrig's life?" The question was offhand.
"They say an assassin got into Castle Vanguard and you found him out. But
I know you never strayed from the repository tower until the day after the
great secret meeting, any more than Belamil and Saundar and Mero and I did. We
were always together:'
"No
we weren't. The lot of you slept too much." Snudge's attention was on the
increasing activity across the yard. Even Feribor and Tayman had abandoned
their jousting to join the crowd.
"You
left the tower when the rest of us were asleep? But there were guards ..:"
"And secret passages," said Snudge absently. "What d'you suppose
is going on over there? Maybe we'd better go and see:'
"So
you skulked about Castle Vanguard stealthily," Gavlok prompted, "and
discovered the assassin, and alerted the guard."
"No:'
Snudge turned and fixed the older boy with a calm look. "I stabbed the
bastard in the heart:'
"God's
Teeth!" Gavlok blurted.
"And
that's all I'm going to say about it. Tell the other armigers if you like. I
don't suppose it matters now. But warn them that I don't want to discuss the
matter. It was the most awful moment of my life . . . And now please excuse me.
I've got to find out what the excitement is about."
Most of
the squires and their trainers were gathered around a small figure wearing
rich court dress, who was jumping up and down in manic glee and exclaiming,
"Tonight! Tonight! Papa and Mummy are coming back tonight!"
He was
Prince Tancoron the Simple, second-born son of King Olmigon, seven-and-twenty
years of age, but having the stature and mentality of a ten-year-old. He had
bright blue eyes that were too wide set and oddly slanted, a button nose, and
beardless cheeks. His sunny, unspoiled nature had made him a favorite of almost
everyone in
"Tonight!
They're coming tonight! I heard Con say so. An outrider brought the news. Maybe
we'll have a party!" Beaming, he looked up at the Master-at-Arms.
"Will we have a party, Sir Hale?"
"I
think not, Your Grace," Brackenfield said in a patient voice. "Your
royal father the king is not well. When he comes home, he'll have to rest. But
we can gather in the forecourt to welcome him, and perhaps there will be a
party later."
The
simpleton's face fell. "But I thought Papa went away to get better. He
told me he'd ask the emperor's ghost to help him."
Count
Feribor's laugh was full of cruel condescension. "Ghosts are not very good
doctors, Prince Tanny. Actually, they're rather frightful things! The king
didn't really expect Emperor Bazekoy's spirit to make him well. He wanted the
emperor to give him uncanny advice. Advice about the kingdom. Every king of
Cathra may ask the emperor's spirit one important Question."
Tancoron
nodded gravely. "What if the Question is, `How can I get well?"
Mero,
Count Feribor's squire, gave a snort of contempt. Others in the crowd murmured
uneasily, afraid of what might be coming. Count Tayman said, "Feri, I
don't think you should—"
"Oh,
your father the king would never ask a silly thing like that, Prince
Tanny." Feribor was still in full armor, except for the tilting helm,
which was held by Mero. His saturnine face was streaked with sweat and his dark
eyes held a gleam of expectant mirth. But his next words were spoken with great
gentleness. "You see, only a dying king may ask Emperor Bazekoy a
Question."
There
were gasps from the armigers. The prince uttered a forlorn little wail.
"Papa is dying?"
"Didn't
they tell you?" Feribor Blackhorse was all solicitude. "Well, maybe
they were afraid it would make you cry. And princes should never be crybabies."
"Damn
you, Feri!" muttered Count Tayman. But no one else dared say a word
against the queen's nephew, who only played his little games when Conrig or
other members of the royal family were not present.
"I—I
don't want to be a crybaby." Tancoron's face was dark with woe. Tears
brimmed in his blue eyes. "But I don't want my papa to die. Papa!
Papa!" With desperate strength, the small man pushed his way through the
crowd of appalled fighters and dashed away into the passage leading to the
palace.
"Poor
lackwit," said Feribor cheerfully. "Well, he brought good news, at
any rate, didn't he, lads? With the king back and giving his royal permission,
we'll be off to fight the starving Diddlies in no time at all! . . . Come on,
Tayman. Let's have one more joust before we call it a day."
After
the evening meal, at about the eighth hour, Snudge hastened to the tower where
the Royal Alchymist had his quarters. If the king's cavalcade was due before
midnight, as Prince Conrig had announced during dinner, then this would be the
last safe opportunity get at Vra-Kilian's books before his return.
Two
young novice wizards had guard duty outside the door of the Alchymical
Library, which connected to Kilian's private chambers. They sat at flanking
desks equipped with oil lamps, copying out manuscripts. The library door was
slightly ajar, as was usual during the daylight and evening hours, when
Kilian's many assistants might need to consult the volumes of arcana or
collections of magical paraphernalia in their master's outer offices. Above the
doorframe hung a brass bell of peculiar form, with a clapper attached to a
cord. If it was rung, every alchymist and windvoice in the palace would come
running.
Snudge
took off his house shoes and left them in a dark alcove, then cast his
windsight about to make sure no one else was working in the library or
approaching. The coast was clear, and the guardian novices hadn't noticed him.
It was time to hide. Taking a deep breath, he concentrated his talent upon the
two heads bent over leaves of parchment, commanding them not to look up. Quill
pens continued to scratch industriously. The boy left the alcove and walked
boldly up to the novices in his stocking feet, went through the door, and
closed it without a sound. Neither of the men paid any attention to him.
Strictly
speaking, Snudge's method of "hiding" had nothing to do with genuine
invisibility. It was rather a way of distracting the minds of others, so that
people had no desire to look at him and never noticed his presence. The trick
didn't always work, especially with the adept, who were sensitive to mental meddling.
Even ordinary folk might penetrate his spell if he made noise or tried the
trick when there were more than two or three persons about in broad daylight.
Tonight
he was home free again! So—one last chance to search out the sigil's secret,
and better be quick about it. He'd long since examined the books on the open
shelves and knew they contained nothing very useful. The volumes that remained
to be investigated were inside the Royal Alchymist's private rooms, located at
the far end of the library. He'd been in there before, taking advantage of
Vra-Kilian's absence.
It was
laughably easy to pick the lock, slip inside, and refasten the door behind him.
His talent ignited the tapers of a silver candelabrum standing on a table,
which he took up to illuminate his way.
The
achymist's sitting room gave onto his bedchamber and the inner sanctum, the
latter being secured with two complex locks, which Snudge spent some time opening.
That small room, where the most important books and magical apparatus were
kept, was a windowless place having a single worktable and a tier of shelves
holding curious contraptions, some protected by glass covers. Against the wall
on the right stood four magnificently carved oaken cabinets equipped with
elaborate locks—and indwelling magical spells to prevent windsnoopers from
discerning their contents. Snudge had already opened and scrutinized the
contents of two of them. Several of the ancient volumes inside had provided him
with general information on the Beaconfolk and the Glaumerie Guild of Moss,
facts that he had dutifully shared with Prince Conrig; but there had been no
details about the sigils' function, only emphatic warnings against using them.
It took
Snudge nearly half an hour to open the third enchanted cabinet, using his most
delicate picks. The thing turned out to be packed with sacks of gold coins,
bejeweled rings, and other portable riches that the austere Brothers of Zeth
weren't supposed to concern themselves with. Snudge grunted in disgust,
wondering whether the prince would be interested to know about his uncle's
inappropriate cache of valuables. He never thought of taking any of it for
himself.
The
fourth cabinet was smaller than the others and bound about sturdily with heavy
iron bands. It was not secured by a mortise lockset, as the other three had
been, but had a steel escutcheon with a type of locking device that Snudge had
never seen before. It had no keyhole and thus was immune to his picks. Four
tiny revolving ring-cylinders were set into the plate beside the handle, and
each was etched with a succession of odd characters, like letters of an alien
alphabet. The boy quickly decided that opening the lock would require aligning the
appropriate characters, and there seemed to be a dozen or more on each
cylinder.
Snudge's
knowledge of mathematics was only rudimentary, but he realized that the
potential number of character-combinations was very large.
Hopeless!
Unless .. .
Was
Vra-Kilian as lazy as ordinary mortals? Would he bother spinning the four rings
each time he locked the cabinet, or was he so confident of his magisterial
authority over his underlings that he used a shortcut?
Snudge
turned the lowest cylinder clockwise a single notch to a new character.
Nothing. He turned it counter-clockwise
Click
Yes!
Easing
open the cabinet's weighty door, he choked back a blasphemous exclamation. Most
of the shelves were empty. But the middle one held two wicker baskets full of
sigils.
They
were of various shapes and sizes, thick and thin, densely carved or nearly
plain. Many were perforated and strung on rotting cords, or on golden chains
like the one worn by the dead sorcerer Iscannon. All were carved from
blue-white, translucent mineral. None of them possessed the uncanny foxfire
glow of magical life, but Snudge was still afraid to touch them.
Three
volumes bound in stained, crumbling, pearl-colored leather lay beside the
baskets. Each had a round wafer of moonstone in a golden setting fastened
firmly to its cover. There was no lettering stamped on the books to hint at the
subject matter within. He picked one up and felt the fragile pages shift, as if
they were separating from the binding.
How old
was this collection? Had Vra-Kilian inherited these things from some long-dead
predecessor, and had he kept them hidden, too prudent (or fearful) to invoke
the magic of the Beaconfolk himself?
But if
that was so, why had he left the strange lock ready to open? Had he anticipated
that he might sometime need the cabinet's contents in a hurry?
Snudge
removed the three books and sat on the floor to study them by candlelight. The
two larger ones were in an unknown language, and he set them aside. The third
volume, smaller and more slender than the others, seemed to be written in some
variant of the Cathran tongue; but the inscribed letters were faded and oddly
shaped, and the spelling was strange. Many of the words were incomprehensible,
and he realized that it would take some effort to decipher the book's contents.
He
turned the brittle pages cautiously. There were five short chapters with titles
he could read fairly easily: A [Brief?] Thaumaturgia of the Cold Light Host; A
Catalogus of Sigils; Conjuration and Abolition of the Sigil; Commanding the
Sigil; and, last and most ominously, Vital Precautions for the Thaumaturgist.
"Futter
me!" he whispered, stricken with awe and delight. "Bull's-eye at
last!"
Now
what?
He
didn't dare take any of the stones. Having one of them in his possession was
hard enough to explain to his overcurious peers. But the smallest book could be
concealed easily enough, and perhaps Vra-Kilian wouldn't notice that it was
missing. Snudge reckoned it must hold the secret to activating his own sigil,
if he could only puzzle it out.
Time
had flown, and he had to cover his traces and get out quickly. It had to be
nearly ten, the hour when the guardian novices secured the main library for the
night. He couldn't risk being locked in. Snudge knew well enough that none of
the picks he carried were large enough to open the massive lock on the outer
door. And, of course, the Royal Alchymist himself would be returning to his
rooms shortly after the king's train arrived .. .
Hastily,
the boy scooped up the two foreign-language books and replaced them on the
shelf. He shut the cabinet and reset the lock combination as he had found it.
Now,
how to carry the other book safely? If he hid it in his clothes or crammed it
into his wallet, the old thing might fall to pieces.
Snudge
sighed. The lining of his brand-new armiger's doublet would have to be
sacrificed. He used his knife to slice out a strip of silk, wrapped the book,
and thrust it under his shirt, where it nestled against the sigil on its long
cord. What next? A few crumbs of pale bookbinding had fallen to the floor. He
moistened a finger, picked them up, and tapped them down his neck.
The
burnt-down candles would have to be replaced. Snudge had found unused ones in
the sitting room's candelabrum when he first broke in. He wasted frantic
minutes searching tabourets and presses until he discovered a box of fresh
candles. The stubs and fallen blobs of beeswax went into his wallet. He scried
the main library to be sure it was unoccupied and went out, locking the door to
the private rooms behind him.
Another
quick windscan showed him the two novices nodding over their work. He heard the
castle chimes begin to strike the tenth hour. The young wizards sighed,
stretched, and grinned at each other as they began putting their work away
inside their desks.
Snudge
concentrated his talent and slipped through the outer door. Neither robed
figure looked up as he moved down the gloomy corridor, retrieved his shoes, and
went away quietly. Behind him, the sound of an enormous iron key grated in its
lock. He hurried toward the wing of the palace where the Prince Heritor's
apartments were, intending to show his master what he'd discovered; but when he
arrived, the lord-in-waiting on duty, whose name was Telifar, turned him away.
"His
Grace is preparing for the arrival of the king," the man said, "as
well as an extraordinary meeting of the Privy Council. You won't be giving him
your usual report tonight, young Deveron. He says to come tomorrow after
breakfast if you've anything important to tell him."
"Very
well, my lord," said Snudge, disappointed. But as he walked toward the
armigers' quarters in the
His
hand stole inside his jerkin, then beneath the shirt where the book was hidden.
He felt the slippery silk wound around it starting to come loose. Codders!
Better stop and wrap it up tightly again lest the book be damaged. He ducked
behind a heavy window-drape and began to unfasten his clothes, then stopped
abruptly as a faint aching pain spread across his chest.
A
greenish light had ignited beneath the white linen of his shirt.
"Oh,
God!" he moaned, tearing open the rest of the buttons. The silk had fallen
away from the book, and the moonstone disk attached to its cover was pressed
against the sigil that hung about his neck. Both pieces of stone were aglow.
Carefully, he lifted the book away, holding it through the silk.
The
disk's light winked out, but that of the sigil continued to shine. The dull
ache persisted as well, and out of the corner of his eye he thought he spied a
quick movement. But he was almost completely enveloped in the drape, concealed
between it and the window, with dark night beyond the panes of thick glass.
When he looked about the constricted space he saw nothing—no fluttering moth,
no drifting bit of lint, no disturbed spiderling creeping on the dusty cloth.
Once
again he detected that elusive movement just beyond his field of vision. And
there was a harsh deep voice, asking a question.
CADAYAN
RUDAY?
Snudge
gave a great start and almost yelped in terror. Then he realized that the words
were being spoken on the wind. But it was no human voice asking the question.
The words meant nothing to him.
CADAYAN
RUDAY?!
The
pain! It was sharper, and the windvoice was louder as well, an invisible giant
bellowing out of an echoing cavern. Getting impatient, too. CADAYANRUDAY?!!!
The
voice was like rolling thunder in his mind. A sudden piercing chest-thrust from
the moonstone, like an icicle's stab, bent him over double. His vision was
beginning to dim and he choked back a scream. The sigil swung on its cord away
from his flesh and the pain ceased abruptly. He clawed at the cord and pulled
the amulet off. It fell to the floor, where it lay with its glow extinguished.
In his
mind, there was only silence.
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