The Stone of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  “You hear? It’s she—the girl Lorelyn, the source of the heresy! She was named in the letters you received. We must take her now, and the priest too,” snapped the man called Hyron.

  Damion approached the monks, but Abbot Hill stared at the ground. “I am sorry, Damion,” he said.

  “This is Damion Athariel?” The Patriarch’s eyes were cold. “Come aside with me. I wish to speak with you.”

  Reluctant, Damion obeyed. They walked a few paces apart from the others through the firelit ruins.

  “It grieves me, my son, to see you thus attired,” observed Patriarch Winter. “You know, of course, that you have committed a grave offense in donning layman’s garb without leave, let alone taking up a weapon.”

  Damion looked down at the sword-belt, still around his waist. “I—” he began, but the Patriarch cut him off.

  “I have read the letters you left in your room, asking that you be released from your priestly vows. I am glad that you at least had the honor to set your holy vocation aside before engaging in this dubious affair—no, do not interrupt me—unlike the monks who committed their offenses while still wearing the cloth of their order. When I first heard of your role in bringing the scroll here to Maurainia, I believed you meant no harm and had merely been used by others. No, do not interrupt! You may yet be pardoned. You have been beguiled, perhaps, by this young woman, this Lorelyn, into joining her and her coven—”

  “I’ve no part in any of it, Your Reverence, I will swear to that under any oath! And neither has Lorelyn. We were both held captive here, in the dungeons of the ruin, and helped each other escape. I was planning to return her to the Sisters—”

  “It is too late for that now, I fear,” said the older man, shaking his head. “A heresy such as this one is like a contagion, hard to fight once it has taken hold in people’s minds, and apt to spread to others. If Lorelyn returns to the convent she may pass the heresy on to the other girls. As for you, your vocation is beyond hope, though perhaps your soul is not.”

  “My soul!” Suddenly Damion was angry. “What about those Zimbouran men you’re riding with, who worship Valdur?”

  “They do nothing of the kind. They have renounced their heathen god, and turned to our faith.”

  “Have they? That aide of yours, that Hyron man—I’ve seen him before. I found him prying about the library, asking after the scroll. You might ask him why he wanted it!”

  The Patriarch was unruffled. “To remove its evil influence from your midst, of course. Medalar Hyron is a good man: I have come to trust him completely.”

  “He’s a spy!” Damion almost shouted. “A spy for King Khalazar.”

  Patriarch Winter flushed, then composed himself with an effort, resuming his grave expression. “Do not raise your voice, my son, or presume to contradict me. You are not yet released from your vows, including the vow of obedience. I will give you one last chance to redeem yourself. Help me to stamp out this heresy before it goes any further. Reveal to me the location of this coven’s hiding place, and of the scroll of false scriptures that you gave them.”

  Damion looked back at the armed Zimbourans, saw that they wore expressions of smug satisfaction. “What will you . . . do to them?” he asked.

  “What must be done. It is not only that they look to this young woman for salvation, rather than to the Faith. They have committed serious crimes, which they will have to answer for.”

  Damion hesitated. The Modrian followers deserved punishment, but to his knowledge Ana’s people had hurt no one, and to reveal the hiding place of the one group was to betray the other. Might they be unjustly blamed and punished for the crimes of others?

  After waiting a few moments the Patriarch shrugged, an eloquent gesture. “I have given you every chance, but you seem determined to condemn yourself. Say no more, then; what you speak here may be used against you at your trial.”

  “Trial?” echoed Damion. “You can’t mean . . . not an Inquisition?”

  “Don’t be foolish. This is a matter for the secular authorities, and to them you will all be delivered.”

  “But all that nonsense about demons—it belongs to the Dark Age!”

  “These village folk still live in the Dark Age,” replied the older man. His voice had altered, become almost confiding. “Superstition cannot always be quelled with reason. You may think it nonsense, but it is real to them. These people came to me believing that I can deliver them from their fears, and I must be seen to do so, even if that requires some pretense on my part. I owe them no less.”

  Damion looked at the bland-faced man before him, chilled. At last he understood. He, Ana, Lorelyn, the monks, and the Nemerei were all to be used by this man as his Zimbouran “converts” had been used, to serve his own end of self-advancement. No argument Damion might make could sway him. His plans were already laid.

  As they walked back to the others Damion sought, and met, the eyes of Abbot Hill. The old man looked worried and miserable. “Your Reverence—can’t we—”

  “Silence, monk!” said Norvyn Winter in a loud and carrying voice. “You and your prior have allowed these Nemerei witches to practice their black arts and persecute the good people of this region. Only a corrupt shepherd permits wolves to roam near his flock. You were also the keepers of the scroll that was the source of the heresy. Come back to the Academy with me now, and show to me the lurking-place of the witches.”

  The half-Zimbouran man made a signal to Jomar to follow him: apparently he did not as yet suspect any treachery on the part of his slave. Jomar obeyed with his head lowered, not looking toward Damion and the others: his eyes had returned to black extinguished embers. Hyron drew a rolled-up document from his saddlebag, which he waved in front of Damion with a smirk. “This is a letter from the Supreme Patriarch himself, signed and sealed by him, to the effect that the Brothers of the Holy Order of Saint Athariel stand accused of violating their vows by consorting with witches. The coven leader, Ana, must be punished for her crimes against man and God, and with her all of her followers, as well as her demonic familiars which have possessed the bodies of a gray cat and a wolf . . .” Damion could see in his mind the shaky handwriting of the senile old man. What other tales had Norvyn Winter told him? “The possessed animals must be destroyed, and a rite of exorcism must be performed on the ruin to rid it of its ghost. But Ana’s sentence will be lessened should she provide a full confession and reveal the names of all her coven-members. Signed, His Eminence Pious IX, Supreme Patriarch of—”

  At that same moment there was an eerie yowl, and Damion turned to see the cat Greymalkin perched on the firelit battlement above like a gargoyle, glaring down at the crowd. At least a dozen other cats were ranged alongside her. Their eyes reflected the glow of the torches to uncanny effect.

  “The demons! The demons!” someone screamed.

  Wolf slipped away from Ana and charged into the crowd, snapping and snarling at those who threatened his mistress. Panic broke out as people began to flee in several directions. But the Patriarch, the monks, and the Zimbourans remained where they were, as did Ana and the young people gathered round her.

  “You, Abbot and Prior, come with me,” said Winter again. “I will get to the bottom of this conspiracy of yours if it is the last thing I do. Hyron, you are in charge of the accused witches. Take them to the city and place them in prison. I will deal with them when my work here is finished.” He and the two monks began to walk back toward the Academy, leaving Ana and the others with the Zimbourans.

  “You will come with us now,” the man Hyron said. He and the other men moved their horses to hem the prisoners in.

  “No!” Lorelyn shouted. “I haven’t done anything wrong! None of us has.”

  Hyron made no reply but laid a hand upon his sword-hilt. Desperate, Damion stood in front of Lorelyn and drew his own sword. As the men dismounted and advanced upon him, he swung the weapon at them in a whistling arc, and they halted in surprise. Evidently they had expected no resistance. He had li
ttle hope of winning against such odds, but at least he could hold off the moment of capture as long as possible. He swung the sword again, and as he heard the blade cleave the air it went like wine to his head. He was not powerless. He would not give way without a fight—

  “Stop it, you fool,” growled Jomar morosely. “Can’t you see you’re outnumbered?”

  “Disarm him,” ordered Hyron. Three of the men came on with swords drawn. Damion stood irresolute for an instant, his blood still surging fiercely in his veins. Then as the men moved to ring him he lowered his blade. Contemptuous, the lead man swung his own weapon and struck the sword from Damion’s grip.

  Ana stepped forward into the circle of men, laid a hand upon Damion’s arm. It rested there light as a leaf, yet the touch stilled him. Ana turned and confronted Hyron. “There is no need for violence. We will come with you.”

  There was another yowl from above, and Greymalkin leaped down from her perch, ran over to Ana, and sprang up into her arms.

  “Her familiar!” shouted one of the Zimbourans, raising his sword.

  Hyron snorted. “You fool. You did not believe that nonsense their dotard of a high priest wrote? It is a mangy old cat, nothing more. Now, you prisoners: move!”

  They carried Ailia to the tumbrel, which stood abandoned near at hand, and dumped her limp body in it. Ana, still carrying her cat, and Lorelyn were then forced to get in, followed by Damion. The tailboard was closed and fastened. One man went to the dray horse’s head and, laying hold of the harness, began to lead it. The others, including Jomar, remounted and moved off, leading their companion’s horse and also the white palfrey, which the Zimbourans seemed to consider a spoil of war.

  They traveled in dismal silence for what felt like leagues. Presently Damion, who had been watching the road, spoke to their captors. “Where are you taking us?” he demanded. “This isn’t the road into the city!”

  “We go to the sea,” responded Hyron, turning in his saddle and leering at the prisoners.

  Damion stared at him. “The sea! What do you mean? Your orders were to take us to prison.”

  Hyron cawed with laughter. “Prison? You should be so fortunate. No, it is to the king that you are going.”

  “Why would King Stefon—”

  The captain’s lips curved in a thin smile. “King Khalazar. He awaits us in a ship off the coast.”

  Ana stood up and peered over the wooden side of the tumbrel. “Captain,” she said in her quiet voice, “you only need me. To find what you seek, you will need my help. I have what you require here—” She reached into a deep pocket of her dress and pulled out the parchment scroll. There were a few involuntary gasps from the onlooking Zimbourans, and from Damion as well. Hyron gave a shout in Zimbouran, and the procession halted. He rode up to the cart and snatched the parchment from the little gnarled hand.

  “Yes, it is the document you seek,” said the old woman, “the scroll with the sea chart, showing the way to Trynisia. And I know, also, what the chart does not show: the exact spot where the Star Stone lies in the land of Trynisia. Release these young people, and I will be your guide. I will cooperate with you fully.”

  The half-breed spy gave another raucous laugh. “Oh, you’ll cooperate, all right! I’ll see to that, old hag. But your precious Princess”—he gestured to Lorelyn—“comes too. Do you think we of Zimboura don’t know the prophecies as well as you? Khalazar is not going to let his rival out of his sight.” He signed to the man at the dray horse’s head to move forward again.

  “She has nothing to do with any of this, nor has the other girl,” said Ana. She pointed with her cane at the still-unconscious Ailia sprawled on the floor of the tumbrel. “Nor has the priest. They are not of my coven.”

  “You expect me to believe that, witch? They were here, with you. They’ll come with us too—unless you would prefer that we killed them? I see they are of value to you, or you would not try to bargain for their freedom. You will lie to us if it is only your own life at stake, but if their lives depend upon it—that is another story, is it not? For every false turn you take as our guide, for every ‘mistake’ that you pretend to make, we will kill one of them. And if you anger us, we will make you choose which one shall die.”

  The tumbrel rolled on with its armed escort, down a long earthen path that led to the sea. Soon the air reeked of brine, and they moved on sand, which at its sea-wet edge had the gleam of dulled silver. And there among the black rocks there lay, as if cast up out of the depths by the surf, long dark low-hulled boats crewed by silent figures. The Zimbourans dismounted and passed their horses to a couple of men, who stood holding their reins. But the white palfrey’s rough halter of rope was made fast to the stern of one of the boats: it appeared the men intended it to swim out to sea with them. The tumbrel was brought to a halt, and the prisoners were led out of it at sword’s point—all but Ailia, who had not revived and had to be carried—down the beach to the boats. The soldiers and the boatmen exchanged no words. Once they were all aboard, the silent crews began to row—away from the shore, away from Maurainia to the dim horizon where the galleons waited. The captives could see them approaching under sail, looming shapes of shadow under pale canvas, eyed with small red lights.

  AILIA AWAKENED TO A NEW NIGHTMARE. She lay on a hard wooden floor in a cramped and fusty room, so dark that she could see nothing of its interior. Her head had cleared, yet still the room seemed to her to be rocking and swaying to and fro. “Where am I?” she cried aloud, staggering to her feet and feeling about her in the darkness. There was a wooden wall to her left, but it seemed to slant crazily and she could not steady herself.

  “They think we’re witches,” said Lorelyn’s voice from off to her left. “Well, you two are: I’m the Tryna Lia. According to them, that is.”

  Ailia was relieved at the familiar voice, but could make no sense of what it said. Her legs folded up underneath her and she collapsed in a heap on the rocking floor. “Witches?” she said aloud. “I am dreaming still, I must be. I know I was dreaming before, Lori, about you and Father Damion, and old Ana of all people—”

  “I am sorry, Ailia,” came Ana’s voice out of the dark, “but it is all quite true.”

  Ailia reeled. “Ana—you are here? Then—where—”

  “The Zimbourans have taken us prisoner.”

  “The Zimbourans—?”

  Lorelyn’s voice spoke again. “Oh, of course: you fainted before the villagers arrived, and the Patriarch and—”

  Heavy booted feet thumped across the ceiling, and shouts rang out. The room plunged and rolled, and there was a sound of water slapping and gurgling against the walls.

  “We’re on a ship!” gasped Ailia.

  “A Zimbouran galleon. And by the sound of it,” said Ana’s tranquil voice, “I’d say we are under way.”

  Part Two

  THE STONE

  OF HEAVEN

  11

  “To the World’s End”

  DAMION HAD GROWN USED TO the monotonous motion that at first made him ill. Even the stifling and noisome air no longer sickened him, and the continuous creaking and sighing of stressed wood did not keep him awake. Sometimes he felt as though there had never been anything but this rolling, heaving ship’s interior: the rest of his life receded into a dreamlike realm lost beyond recall. How long had they been at sea? It could not be the eternity it seemed, but it must be weeks—a month at least—since they had first set sail. Yet in all that time the Zimbouran vessel had not made landfall.

  Now once again he awakened to see the same dreary scene that had become his world. There were cabins on the Zimbouran vessel for officers, but no quarters for soldiers or sailors—or for unwilling passengers: only this large open space running the length of the lower deck, that the sailors and soldiers shared. The horses and other livestock were stabled on the same level, and their presence did not improve the atmosphere. Crates and barrels of supplies took up all the rest of the space. Some of the men had slung makeshift hammocks fr
om the beams above; most slept on the floor, using sacks or bundles of rags for pillows. There were no portholes on this level, so night was indistinguishable from day, and Damion could not even guess what part of the Greater Ocean they might be in; though it seemed to him that the air grew ever cooler with the passage of time.

  They were going north, then, into oceans not yet freed of winter ice. Not far away must lie those bleak lands whose thinning forests gave way to treeless barrens, and finally the white wastes where nothing grew. Accounts of doomed arctic expeditions had been found in recovered logs: melancholy tales of men sailing into seas of jagged ice, then escaping onto floes when their ships’ hulls were crushed like nuts between grinding bergs. Those men had learned at terrible cost that nothing was to be found in the far north but eternal and unrelenting winter. Yet all the stories of Trynisia described it as warm and verdant! Were they all going to perish, as the luckless explorers had, on a fool’s errand? The Zimbourans had the sea chart, which they believed showed the fabled island’s position; and they were driven by their God-king and their own unreasoning zeal. No doubt they would persist long past the point where the other explorers had given in—until at last their vessels yielded to the gnawing ice and the cold deeps consumed them.

  Damion stood up, fighting for balance. His captors no longer bound his feet, or even troubled to post a guard. Where could he go? He now had the run of the lower deck, so long as he kept his distance from the sailors. Most were slaves, their bodies bearing the signs of brutal abuse: whip wheals that had left permanent scars, broken noses that had healed askew. Some bore slave-collars of iron, and still-festering wounds showed on their ankles and wrists where shackles and manacles had rubbed the skin raw. Many sported bruises and other injuries that were fresh, apparently inflicted during their duties above decks. They were as much prisoners as Damion and the women were. Even if he could talk to them, he did not speak their language. He had made one attempt, offering his daily ration of soaked biscuit to another man when he himself felt too seasick to eat. A guard with a leather whip descended on them both, screaming in his native tongue and lashing them both about their backs and shoulders. Damion fled, then watched in horror as the other man was flogged, wailing and cowering beneath the blows that tore his already ragged clothing to tatters. The guard stopped only when his victim lost consciousness. Damion’s own untreated wheals throbbed like burns for some time afterwards, preventing sleep and adding to his nausea. He put the guard’s savage attack down to pure malice at first. It only occurred to him later that the officers might fear a mutiny, being so greatly outnumbered by their unwilling thralls.