LITMIR.BIZ

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and unable to renew her denunciation, and I was shielded by sorcery and refused to testify. Since there were no other witnesses against Conrig who had status under Cathran law, he won his case easily.

      The Sealords of Tarn cursed all lawyers and grudgingly continued to pay the heavy taxes imposed by the Sovereignty. The wealthy Lords of the Southern Shore did the same, thwarted in their attempt to put Duke Feribor Blackhorse, their ringleader, on the Cathran throne in place of Conrig.

      In the devastated little kingdom of Moss, far from the tranquil cottage on the edge of the Western Ocean where I dwelt with Induna and her mother, the Salka hunkered down in the lands they had overrun and pondered the next big step in the reconquest of ‘their’ island. They owned numbers of minor moonstone sigils which they had already successfully used as weapons, and hatched plans to obtain others that were more potent. Conjure-Queen Ullanoth, who had ruled Moss before the Salka invasion, was believed by most people to have perished through imprudent use of her sigils. Her scheming younger brother Beynor had dropped out of sight after quarreling with the victorious monsters, his former secret allies. No one knew (or cared) what had become of him.

      With the security of the Sovereignty now his primary concern, Conrig garrisoned troops at crucial points along the Dismal Heights from Rainy Pass to Riptide Bay, supposedly making a land invasion of Didion by the Salka impossible. At the same time the formidable Joint Fleet of the Sovereignty, equipped with tarnblaze cannons, patrolled the waters off the island’s eastern coast in a show of strength designed to keep the amphibians in check. In spite of the blockade, the monsters made several waterborne forays against coastal settlements of Didion and Cathra. But finally, in a single decisive battle, the Salka stronghold in the Dawntide Isles was completely destroyed by the Sovereignty, and an interval of peace settled over High Blenholme.

      As for myself, Induna and her mother Maris, a much-admired shaman in Tarn’s coastal Stormlands, had invited me to stay with them indefinitely in order to learn the healer’s art, since I no longer had any taste for spying. Using part of the fortune she had inherited from her late grandsire, the renegade wizard Blind Bozuk, Induna purchased a fine manorhouse and lands that lay in a pleasant place called Deep Creek Cove, backed by grasslands. For my sake the manor was fortified with ingenious magical defenses. Rumors persisted that High King Conrig still thought I was even more of a threat to his Iron Crown than Maudrayne had ever been. Induna and I both feared he’d eventually send someone to eliminate me, and we resolved to be ready.

      Maris was a kind person endowed with singular wisdom, who helped me to a deeper understanding of my uncanny abilities. (Up until then, I had been entirely self-taught in magic.) She also gave me valuable advice concerning the two moonstone sigils, Concealer and Subtle Gateway, that were still in my possession. I yearned to cast those soul-destroying tools of the Beaconfolk into the deep sea so I’d never again be tempted to use them; but Maris counseled against it. In one of her trances, she’d had a puzzling vision concerning me and the stones and an enigmatic black creature bound with sapphire chains who dwelt beneath the icecap of the Barren Lands. Maris had no notion of the dark thing’s identity – although I had! – but she was certain that my destiny involved both the creature and the two sigils. When Induna added her pleas to those of her mother, I finally agreed to keep the moonstones.

      Induna…

      She later admitted that she had loved me almost as soon as she first saw me lying senseless in a rock shelter on the Desolation Coast, at the point of death after having rashly used the Subtle Gateway sigil to transport me and my companions and all our gear to the place where Maudrayne and Dyfrig were imprisoned. Induna realized at once that my mortal illness was the result of Beaconfolk sorcery. The terrible beings of the Sky Realm were feeding on my pain, and no groundling remedy could heal me.

      So she shared with me a small portion of her own soul, in a manner that only northland shamans are capable of. It left her diminished even as it cured me. Later, she performed the same mystical operation once again, shortly before I decided to renounce my fealty to King Conrig. Her selfless acts of generosity did not immediately inspire my love. On the contrary, I was left with vague feelings of discomfort and indebtedness that only melted away during the long months when we worked together and began to really know one another.

      I was amazed when it finally occurred to me that life without her would be unthinkable. The emotion I felt toward Induna at that time was no overwhelming passion: I was then, as I am now, a man plagued by an aloof and calculating nature. But she was my best friend, my teacher, and my comforter, and if I did not yet love her as wholeheartedly as she loved me, I still wanted none other for my wife.

      We were solemnly betrothed according to Tarnian custom, and planned to marry in the summer of 1134, in Blossom Moon, when I was one-and-twenty years of age and Induna was eighteen. But the Cathran warship arrived in the waters off Deep Creek Cove three weeks before that, and our happy plans came to nothing.

      Commanded by Tinnis Catclaw, the same debonair but unscupulous Lord Constable who had agreed to murder Princess Maudrayne on Conrig’s orders, the vessel carried a coven of mercenary Didionite wizards. Six of the disguised magickers came stealthily ashore and combined their talents to overpower Induna and Maris while they were beyond our home’s magical defenses, visiting the byre of a local small-holder to attend the difficult birth of a foal. I myself had been working with them, until I was sent back to the manorhouse to fetch a special physick to soothe the suffering mare. I was there when the wizards announced their ultimatum.

      I was ordered to row out to the warship lurking just beyond the cove’s northern headland and surrender to the Lord Constable, who carried the Sovereign’s warrant for my arrest…or else scry my womenfolk as they were burnt alive in a tarnblaze holocaust that would leave behind nothing but a heap of charred bones.

      The horrific tarnblaze chymical was impervious to any sorcerous intervention I might have attempted, nor had I any hope of reaching Induna and Maris before it could be ignited. I had no choice but to comply.

      I left the place that had become my only true home and allowed myself to be shackled and hauled aboard the Cathran man o’ war. Lord Catclaw awaited me on deck, an oddly apologetic expression on his handsome countenance and his long blond hair tied in a tail. Two armed seamen gripped me. He ordered a third to slice off my clothing and footgear with a keen varg sword, using great caution. When I stood stark naked, the constable smiled in satisfaction as he saw the moonstone sigil called Concealer hanging on a thin chain around my neck. Properly conjured, it would render me invisible. Conrig knew about it, of course. I had used it in his service.

      ‘Don’t think to call upon your devilish Beaconfolk amulet,’ Catclaw warned me, ‘or I’ll have this fellow here bespeak the other wizards on shore to ignite the tarnblaze.’ He beckoned to a black-robed magicker standing nearby, who held a golden goblet and a pair of nippers. ‘You! Get the sigil off him. I’ve been told it cannot be conjured unless it’s next to his skin. Be very careful not to handle it yourself, except with the cup and tool. The High King himself has warned me of its perils.’

      The wizard eased the translucent small pendant into the goblet, then severed its chain. Had he touched the moonstone with his own bare flesh, he would have been hideously burned. Concealer was bonded to me, and no one else could use it or even handle it with impunity.

      ‘Where is the second sigil?’ Catclaw demanded. ‘The one called Subtle Gateway, which transports a person instantly from place to place? I have been commanded by the King’s Grace to seize both amulets from you and bring them back to him.’

      In spite of all my warnings, sigil sorcery obviously still held an unhealthy fascination for Conrig.

      I responded in a near-whisper, which was all I was capable of without betraying myself. ‘I threw the thing into deep water months ago. His Grace knows full well how much I abominate moonstone magic. Concealer is a minor sort that causes only insignificant discomfort to the user, but Gateway was one of the so-called Great Stones. Conjuring it induced an appalling agony and put my very soul in peril to the pain-eating Beaconfolk. When I rescued Princess Maudrayne and completed my mission, I had no more need of it. I was glad to get rid of the thing.’

      I was lying. But Catclaw was not about to find

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