Dark of the Moon

by P. C. Hodgell

  He sat down at the head of the table, folded his hands, and waited.

  For a moment, the assembled lords stared at him. By now, they all probably knew something about what had happened at Tentir; but none, least of all Caineron, had expected the Highlord to tackle it so directly. Ardeth took his seat at Torisen's right, casting a look of barely concealed horror across the table at Jaran. Danior also sat down, with an air of defiance; and Demoth of the Coman, hastily; and Brandan, because it was only proper. The Edirr twins exchanged questioning glances and a sudden grin. One sat, one stood, cancelling out each other. That left Caineron with the elegant Randir and Korey of the Comen, glowering from a corner.

  "Well, my lord?" Torisen prompted.

  Caineron gave him a sour look. He had really convinced himself that the Highlord had gone over the edge and was affronted to find him so calm, so . . . rational. But then even madness had its cunning, and so did he. He began to pace back and forth, hastily reshaping his argument.

  "This murder was the culmination of an old quarrel and not altogether unexpected. Lord Knorth never liked my son."

  "Who did?" muttered Danior, and was hushed by Ardeth.

  "He has even hinted that Nusair tried to assassinate him, once with a snake and once (Ancestors preserve us) with a wall."

  "So that was what happened at Tiglon," said Essien, the seated twin, with a solemnity undercut by a flash of pure mischief.

  "We always wondered," said the standing Essiar, in the same tone.

  Caineron gave them both a furious glare. Then, forcibly composing himself, he went on to describe the argument at Tentir, and the subsequent finding of Nusair's naked, mutilated body with the gold coin jammed into his mouth.

  "That certainly sounds like the work of a madman," said Brandan thoughtfully, "or of someone feigning madness to implicate the Highlord—your pardon, Torisen—but in itself it hardly proves anything one way or the other."

  "And so perishes your case, my lord," said Danior with a laugh.

  "Not yet, not quite yet. I have one final proof, and rather a convincing one at that. You shouldn't have been so quick to stake your honor, my dear Knorth, for now you are foresworn and dishonored. Not only did you slay my son, but you were seen doing it. Ha! Now I've shaken you at last, haven't I?"

  "Bewildered is more the word for it. How could anyone see me do something I never did?"

  "Seen by whom, Caldane?" interposed Randir. "If not by you, you can only repeat what you are told, not vouch for the truth of it. You had better bring forward your witness."

  Caineron demurred at first, then let himself be persuaded. Watching him, Torisen thought: He and Randir have rehearsed this. Whatever Caineron's nasty surprise is, he can hardly wait to spring it.

  "Very well," said the lord of Restormir at last, with obviously feigned reluctance. "It would have been kinder to spare the boy, but apparently I can't. Donkerri, come here!"

  Donkerri slunk out of the shadows, looking utterly miserable.

  "Knorth, I take it you don't question my grandson's truthfulness?"

  "I never have had cause to—before."

  "Very well, then. Boy, tell them what you saw."

  Donkerri gulped. "I-I saw . . ."

  "Louder, boy, louder."

  "I s-saw Torisen, Lord Knorth, kill my father."

  Even Ardeth looked shocked. They all had an instinct for the truth, and this boy seemed to be telling it.

  Torisen leaned forward. "Donkerri, how did I kill him?"

  "W-with a knife in the back . . ."

  Caineron looked up, startled.

  "And then Commandant Harn tore his arm off, a-and then I-I fainted."

  "This is very odd," said Brandan. "Caldane showed me Nusair's body this morning. I didn't see his back, but the poor lad certainly had both arms."

  Torisen fought a terrible desire to burst out laughing. "Caineron, d-do you mean that you set this boy to spy on me and then didn't even listen to his full report?"

  Caldane shook his head as if to drive off some buzzing insect. "This is nonsense. The fool is thinking of his cousin. Surely that damned berserker hasn't taken up dismembering Cainerons for a hobby."

  "He hasn't."

  The voice came from behind Torisen. Kindrie stood in the shadows by the spiral stair, a long slender bundle in his arms.

  "What are you doing here?" Caineron barked at him. "I told you to stay at Tentir!"

  "The bond between us broke the night before last," said the young Shanir in a completely colorless voice. "You know that."

  He came forward into the jeweled light of the windows, moving as if no part of him wanted to bend. As he leaned forward stiffly to put his burden on the table, both Torisen and Ardeth saw lines of blood suddenly appear on the back of his white shirt. Ardeth unwrapped the bundle.

  "Is this the limb that you saw torn off?" he asked Donkerri.

  "Yes!" said the boy. A look of great uneasiness flickered across his face. "Yes . . ."

  Essien, ever curious, lifted the arm at the wrist. It dangled bonelessly in his grasp like a dead snake. He dropped it hastily.

  "My God! What is this thing?"

  "That, my lords of the Council, is the arm of a changer," said Torisen. "Rather more substantial than the stuff of songs, isn't it, Caldane? I suspect that this is the hand that killed your son. It certainly is the one that I fought in the fire-timber hall at Tentir where the creature lured me in your son's likeness and where Harn ripped its arm off. That must have been the battle that your grandson witnessed. I took part in no other."

  "I don't believe—" Caineron burst out angrily, but managed to stop himself just short of offering the Highlord a mortal insult. "Damnit, why didn't you tell me any of this before?"

  "When did you give any of us a chance?" Kindrie answered in that same dead voice.

  "A changer," said Danior wonderingly. "After all these years. But why? What was it after?"

  Torisen stepped away from the table, away from the living Shanir and the arm of the dead one. "It meant to kill me," he said, "or, failing that, to entangle me in a blood feud with Caineron as his son's supposed murderer."

  "But again, why?" said Brandan, picking up the question. "And why now?"

  "I can only think of one reason: to keep the Host from marching. Laugh if you wish, my lord Caineron, but consider this: For the first time in centuries, the Horde moves north; simultaneously, a changer tries to kill or discredit the one man who can rally the Host to march south. Now, maybe this really is a coincidence. Maybe something else is brewing that we know nothing about . . ." He thought of the changer spitting at the Master's name. ". . . but can we take the chance? Caldane, you asked me at Tentir if I had anything to substantiate my fears. Well, now I've got that." He pointed at the arm.

  "And we mustn't forget the Southern Host," said Ardeth, leaning forward with a new ring of urgency in his voice. "It would be madness for King Krothen to order a pitched battle, but he might. We must support our own people, even if—Ancestors forbid—that only means gathering their bones for the pyre."

  "Then too," said Randir, examining his nails, "I understand that Prince Odalian of Karkinaroth has asked for help."

  Torisen looked at him sharply, surprised. "Not from me he hasn't. Caldane?"

  "Yes, yes," said Caineron, giving his sometime ally a nasty look. "A messenger arrived late last night. Odalian asked me as the father of his consort to present his request to the High Council. He says that he's calling in all his troop levies and asks that the Host meet him at Hurlen just above the Cataracts."

  "Well, surely that settles it," said Ardeth. "You can't refuse to help your own son-in-law."

  "Oh yes, I can," said Caineron, looking mulish. "There was no mutual defense clause in the marriage contract. I told him it wasn't necessary."

  "Names of God," Torisen said, disgusted. "To get the best bargain by sleight-of-mouth—is that all honor means now?"

  Caineron drew himself up sharply, his lip curling with scorn.
"Another lecture, my young lord? You always seem to be telling me where my duty lies, you who weren't even born when I took over my house after your father had reduced it to bloody shambles in the White Hills. You can trust me to safeguard my own honor—"

  "And to pay your servants their back wages."

  Caineron started at the sound of Kindrie's inflectionless voice. "You damned spook!" he burst out. "Will you get out of here?"

  "Perhaps you should leave, Kindrie," said Ardeth in a silken tone. "My lord Caineron seems to find your presence disturbing . . . for some reason." His sharp blue eyes met the Shanir's faded ones. Kindrie gave a ghost of a nod and began to turn, giving Caineron his first glimpse of the Shanir's back.

  "Now, now, let's not be hasty," he said with considerable haste. "Stay, man, stay. A broken bond shouldn't break friendship as well."

  What about a broken skin, wondered Torisen. If the others saw that bloodstained shirt, Caineron would be explaining his honorable system of "back wages" from now until the coming of the Tyr-ridan.

  "My lords," he said, "it seems that you have a choice of three reasons to let the Host march. First, to support the Southern Host. As my lord Ardeth says, these are our people; we can't simply abandon them. Second, to support Prince Odalian who is, after all, the closest thing to an ally that the Kencyrath has left on Rathillien. And third, to support your poor, lunatic of a Highlord, who still believes that the Horde is about to march down our collective throats. Take your choice of reason, but in all the names of God, let's not waste any more time. Now, do we march or don't we? Ardeth?"

  "Yes."

  "Randir?"

  "Yes, regrettably."

  "Brandan? Edirr? Danior?"

  "Yes."

  "Yes."

  "Yes."

  "Coman . . . damn, I forgot. Demoth, the Coman is yours, for the time being at least. I'll make a final determination later."

  "Yes, lord," said Demoth, sulkily. He had expected full confirmation.

  "Jaran?"

  A rasping snore answered him.

  "Jedrak?" The old lord's great-great-grandson shook him gently, without result. "I'm sorry, my lord. When he drifts off like this, he may be gone for hours or even days." Caineron gave a crack of laughter. "However," said the young man calmly, ignoring the interruption, "I am authorized to speak for him."

  "And?"

  "I vote 'yes.' What else?"

  "Well, Caldane," said Ardeth, "it seems you decide the matter after all; your vote against our eight. What do you say?"

  Caineron glowered at him. His plans all awry, he looked ready to bid defiance to them all out of sheer ill-humor. At that moment, Burr entered the hall. Caineron turned on him, snarling, but the Kendar's expression made him hesitate.

  "Burr, what is it?" Torisen demanded.

  "News, my lord. The Southern Host has engaged the vanguard of the Horde."

  "Oh my God. With what result?"

  "None as yet, when the messenger was sent out. But he says it looked bad, very bad."

  "Pereden," said Ardeth under his breath, almost in a moan. "Damn you, Krothen, God curse and damn you . . ." The next moment he was on his feet, confronting Caineron as fierce and bright as drawn steel. "You will vote now, my lord, and you will vote 'yes,' or it will be war indeed, your house against mine. Well?"

  "Yes," said Caineron, going back a step. "Yes, of course. This news changes everything. But sweet Trinity, there are barely fifty thousand of us here ready to march. Even if Odalian sends the troops he has promised, what can we do against an enemy three million strong?"

  "There is one place where we can hold them." Torisen went to the far end of the room where the stained-glass map of Rathillien blazed in green and blue and gold. He traced the southward twisting path of the Silver, from the Riverland to a spot where the craftsman had frosted the glass to indicate billowing clouds of spray. "There. The Cataracts. Odalian has the right idea. If the Horde keeps to its present course, it must pass here, up the narrow Mendelin Steps to the top of the falls. There we stop it, or not at all."

  "So it's a race to the Cataracts," said Brandan, regarding the map with a practiced eye. "Roughly two thousand miles for us, and about a fourth that for the Horde, which luckily travels at a near crawl. Just the same, this is going to be very close. When do we start?"

  "Just as soon as we've given Nusair to the pyre. The marching order to Omiroth will be according to whoever is ready first. We'll sort things out there. Any questions? Then let's get at it."

  The lords dispersed, except for Ardeth. Donkerri tried to slip out in his grandfather's shadow, but Caineron turned on him, all his frustrations spilling over.

  "You ill-omened brat, get out of my sight! I never want to see you again!"

  "Grandfather, please . . ."

  Caineron drew himself up to his full height. "I cast you out!" he roared. "Blood and bone, you are no kin of mine." He jerked the hem of his coat out of Donkerri's grasp and stalked away, leaving the boy standing white-faced, staring after him.

  ". . . damn you, boy, for deserting me. I curse you and cast you out. Blood and bone, you are no kin of mine. . . ."

  Torisen flinched at the memory. If a father's dying curse held any power, he was as disowned as Donkerri, or as Kindrie, for that matter. But that had only been a dream. This was real.

  "Burr, take the boy up to my quarters and then fetch a doctor. We've got a casualty up here."

  "Yes, lord." He dropped his voice. "Lord, there was a second message, this one from Randon Larch."

  "My old five-thousand commander. Yes?"

  "She says that King Krothen didn't order the attack. He didn't even order the Southern Host to march out. The whole thing was Pereden's idea."

  . . . squat figures moving among the slain . . . oh, Pereden, you fool, you god-cursed, jealous fool . . .

  "Ardeth isn't to know, not if we can keep it from him. Understood?"

  Burr nodded and left the chamber, taking the stunned boy with him.

  Ardeth had made Kindrie sit in his chair. The Shanir had his head down on the table and seemed to have fainted, for he didn't even twitch as the lord cut away his ruined shirt.

  "I've sent for a physician," said Torisen, coming up to them.

  "That won't be necessary. Look."

  Ardeth had carefully uncovered the Shanir's back. Kindrie was painfully thin, almost emaciated. His ribs showed quite clearly under white, nearly translucent skin, crisscrossed now with the marks of a Karnid corrector's scourge. But even as the two Highborn watched, the bruises seemed to be fading. Then the more serious cuts, which had broken open when Kindrie bent to put down the changer's arm, suddenly closed, the raw edges knitting together into cicatrices.

  Torisen turned abruptly away, feeling sick.

  "Wonderful!" Ardeth said behind him. "A pity we can't all do that, eh? But then it's rare, even for a Shanir. You know, my boy, you owe this young man a great deal. How fortunate that he is no longer bound to Caineron. Now you can repay him properly by taking him into your service."

  Bind himself to a Shanir? He did owe it to Kindrie, and it would be a shameful thing to refuse, but . . . but. . . . He remembered the changer's arm, still lying on the table behind him. Its fingers had seemed to reach out toward Kindrie, as if to touch his white hair. Another Shanir . . .

  "I'm sorry, Adric," he said without turning. "I-I can't. I just can't."

  "Very well," said Ardeth coldly. "Then I will, until you can bring yourself to do your duty."

  Torisen left the hall without a word, without looking back. At Tentir, he had said to Harn, "I can do anything I have to," and that had always been his creed. Now, for the first time, he had failed.

  * * *

  NUSAIR'S PYRE was set in Gothregor's inner ward, with four priests officiating. Several days before, two other of their number had set off for Tai-tastigon to cope with trouble in the temple there, and a seventh had left even more recently with three acolytes for Karkinaroth on a similar mission. No one knew
what was wrong at either temple, only that the balance of power in each had shifted, suddenly, dangerously. But that was priests' business, and no one else paid much attention to it. What they did notice was that at least one of the priests at Gothregor wasn't very adept with the pyric rune because, when it was spoken, not only Nusair burst into flames but also about four hundred chickens being prepared for lunch in the fortress's kitchen. Otherwise, it was a very successful cremation.