Circle Of The Moon Part 29

"What's she doing?" repeated Yellow Hen incredulously. "What are you doing? Didn't you see Six Flower just now? And can't you see-"

She turned wildly back toward the kitchen court, but Pomegranate, looking back as well, knew what she'd see: the yellow mists of dust, the basinless stone wellhead boxed with makeshift boards, the kitchen archways closed with lattices hastily erected against the dust.

And no sign of the burning woman or her pursuer in the tiled pa.s.sageway beyond Tulik.

But something moved in the shadows-maybe only an eddy of dust.

And Pomegranate wasn't sure, but she still thought there was one extra archway leading out of the kitchen court, one that hadn't been there the last time she was here-admittedly several years ago-and, if she remembered the layout of the neighborhood aright, couldn't be there.

Above the howling of the wind she could hear someone singing somewhere in the house.

"Are you part of the plot, too?" Tulik shook his aunt roughly by the arm. "That old faker Ahure was here this morning already. He's the one we have to thank for the teyn all running off, him or whoever's paying him to ruin us! He bribed Nettleflower-oh, yes, I know all about that! I should have known he wouldn't stop at just one!"

He bared his teeth, just the way his grandfather did, Pomegranate thought. He really was turning into the old man.

He looked like an old man, too, in the ghastly twilight of the storm. Hair dirty, face haggard. Had he been old enough to have it, his cheeks would have been stubbled: they were certainly days unwashed. He wore only a sheet wrapped around his waist and his eyes were the eyes of a man who has not slept in so long that sleep and waking merge.

"But I will not be pushed from command of this house," Tulik whispered. "Grandfather is well-he is only tired. I do exactly as he bids me and no one-no one-is taking over our affairs. Hamar! Dzek!" He raised his voice to a shout, and two of the camel drivers came running down the pa.s.sageway behind him. Pomegranate saw their faces, slightly dazed or slightly drunk, beyond clear thought in any case. "Take Yellow Hen to the cellar and see that she stays there out of trouble. This one you can throw into the street."

The men moved to grab Yellow Hen's arms, but Pomegranate caught the skinny woman's elbow, wrenched her from Tulik's grip at the same moment Yellow Hen herself whipped and slashed her arm around to break her nephew's hold. The drivers lunged at them, but Pomegranate struck at them with her stick, called a spell of explosive light to burst in the air between them, but absolutely nothing happened.

Hand in hand, she and Yellow Hen turned and ran.

Tulik yelled, "Stop them! Make sure they're in no condition to make trouble for me again!"

They darted across the kitchen court and through the gate, but it wasn't until they reached the street that Pomegranate was able to call a howling blast of the dust-laden wind to surround their pursuers, to cloak her and Yellow Hen in curtains of dust so thick as to hide them from sight. They flattened, panting, into an alley some distance away, still holding hands to keep from losing each other in the dust and the wind.

"What do we do?" gasped Yellow Hen. "Where's that fat fool of a king when you need him? I have nieces and nephews in that house that I care about. Even that fool prig Tulik, for that matter. Where's Raeshaldis? She went off two nights ago after a teyn that Father claimed was trying to murder him, and hasn't been seen since-that blockheaded sweetheart of hers came the next day and took four camels and went after her."

"We've heard nothing," replied Pomegranate grimly, for she had tried twice in the past two days to contact Raeshaldis, but she had not looked into mirror or crystal to answer her call. "As for us, I think the first thing we'd better do is walk the alleys around the house and see if it's the only place that's affected, or if this-this evil, this sickness-goes beyond its walls."

She tucked her face veil in more firmly into the random knots of her head veil and hair. After many hours of working spells of healing, spells of life, to try to keep Summerchild from slipping away from the precarious borderlands where she now wandered, Pomegranate was deeply weary. Maybe only that lay behind her inability to make spells work within the walls of Chirak Shaldeth's house, she reflected. Neither Moth nor Pebble would be in better shape, she knew. And her instincts told her that whatever was in the house-whatever had drawn parts of it into the halfway world of dream, where the waking world's magic was altered-was strong.

She took a deep breath. "But whatever we find, I think someone needs to stand watch over the place until we can figure out what to do. And I think I'm going to need help."

"Of course my brother will be back." Barun's soldierly spine stiffened in indignation at the merest notion that his uncle might think otherwise. "He has great faith in the G.o.ds-as have I. There has been a great deal of foolish talk lately, but the simple fact is that they will not desert him."

For a time Mohrvine regarded his nephew across the rim of his wine cup, marveling for the thousandth time that his older brother's two sons should so absolutely divide the qualities of their father. Barun was nearly the double of Taras Greatsword, as Mohrvine recalled him in his fiery prime: arrogant, handsome, able to spear a gazelle at a distance of a dozen yards with a single throw and to fight all day, untiring. But he was stupid as a wooden peg. Greatsword's canny intelligence had all gone to his older child, that plump, curly-haired, self-indulgent painted harp strummer.

Oryn had inherited Greatsword's stubbornness, too, reflected Mohrvine irritably. Stubbornness that saw only a single answer to the perplexing questions facing the realm.

Not entirely of his conscious volition, Mohrvine's hand stole to the velvet purse at his belt, where his mother's folded message lay. All things continue well here. The roses have bloomed, as I know you hoped they would.

The roses have bloomed. He shut his eyes with a shiver of antic.i.p.ation, relief, ecstasy.

They had found spells that would take him through the tests that ringed the kingship in a hedge of peril.

The tests that would slice Oryn to pieces.

"And if the G.o.ds choose otherwise?" asked Mohrvine softly. "Do you think that they will desert him and stand by you?"

Barun's eyes shifted toward the latticework wall that divided this lower chamber of his private pavilion into two. The lattice, as was common for such divisions, was curtained on the other side; Mohrvine could smell the drift of incense and perfume, and guessed that the Emerald Concubine-the woman he had given Barun a few months ago-was there.

Listening.

And silently, by her delicate scent, reminding the king's heir of her presence. Reminding him of the privileges of being king, if he lived to enjoy them.

Barun said, "That is a matter that I leave in the hands of the G.o.ds." He almost sounded as if he believed it.

"And if your brother dies the day after tomorrow," Mohrvine pressed, for he did not seriously believe Oryn would renege on the jubilee, "will you put yourself in the hands of the G.o.ds?"

Barun's big, sword-callused hand toyed with the delicate coconut candy on the inlaid platter between them. Beyond the tight-fitting screens of lattice and gauze, the late afternoon sky was dark with blowing dust, and lamps had been kindled in all the niches of the chamber. Intermittent flashes of lightning illuminated the gloom, and between them, the air p.r.i.c.kled as if perpetually charged for the next explosion. Before leaving his house Mohrvine had ordered all the teyn put under guard. They often tried to run away during storms or wind.

"Surely," said Barun, "these ceremonies . . . these superst.i.tions . . . surely the G.o.ds would not demand adherence to them in all circ.u.mstances. And I'm not certain that a precedent exists for two rites to be held so close together. . . ."

"You're right!" exclaimed Mohrvine, raising his eyebrows like a man suddenly enlightened. "I shall have my secretary inquire into it-Soral Brul, who used to be a Sun Mage, is well acquainted with ancient lore. But surely a precedent can be found for a crowned king to delay the tests of consecration, if the need of the realm is desperate . . . as all must agree that it surely is. Even Lord Akarian cannot argue that."

Barun nodded, visibly relieved. He clearly hadn't the smallest suspicion, Mohrvine reflected contemptuously, that Lord Akarian most certainly would argue that, and would probably step in demanding to take the tests of kingship himself, when Barun backed out. Or would step in did not Mohrvine step neatly before him.

And if Akarian really wanted to make himself a meal for crocodiles, he was perfectly welcome to do so. It would be neater than having him a.s.sa.s.sinated, which Mohrvine knew he would be obliged to do at the earliest possible moment, despite the fact that he would then have to deal with an uprising in the Akarian heartlands around the Lake of the Moon.

With luck it wouldn't be a bad one.

Watching his nephew's face, Mohrvine could see that none of these contingencies troubled him. Barun had been presented with what looked like a solution. Faced with the spectacle of Oryn's death and his own ensuing peril, Barun, Mohrvine guessed, would accept any position-commander of the guards, for instance-that permitted him to go on fighting nomads upon occasion and bulling lovely women and willing youths.

What neither son of Greatsword seemed to have inherited was their father's ambition. And the G.o.ds be thanked for that. If only Oryn . . .

"My lord Barun?" A red-clothed guardsman bowed from the doorway. "A page has arrived from the Summer Pavilion. They beg that you come there as soon as may be." It was unheard-of, of course, even in these unveiled times, for women to directly initiate a visit with a man, though Mohrvine supposed that would be next.

Barun looked discontented. Mohrvine didn't doubt he'd planned to go straight into the Emerald Concubine's chamber next door. "Thank you, Cosk," Barun said. "Send the boy with my message that I will come presently."

Which meant, Mohrvine knew, he'd go tomorrow if he didn't forget.

"Might I accompany you there, nephew?" he inquired, rising and gesturing toward the door. "I long to know how the lady fares."

Barun frowned, put out, but didn't object to being maneuvered.

Probably didn't notice he was being maneuvered, reflected Mohrvine, following the guardsman out to the anteroom of the green-tiled chamber and plucking the colorless military scarves from the arm of a waiting servant.

The roses have bloomed. His mother's code phrase sang like music in his mind. The roses have bloomed.

If he was to be king, he reflected, he would have to win as many of Oryn's Crafty ones over to his side as he could-after allowing the Summer Concubine to die, of course, which she clearly would soon. And that was not going to be easy, especially when it became obvious to the survivors that he'd hidden for himself the spells that would get a king through the consecration and had let Oryn perish.

FORTY-SIX.

With heavy screens over the windows to block out wind and dust, the lower chamber of the Summer Pavilion had the appearance of a cave beneath the earth. The flames of a few lamps glimmered back from the designs worked in gold among the cobalt tiles; the gauze curtains billowed with strange restless animation, like ghosts in the darkness. The girl just rising from a Flower in the Wind salaam-the standard for the wives and daughters of shopkeepers when encountering customers-must be the one Foxfire (and Mohrvine's half-dozen palace spies) called Pebble: a contractor's daughter, Mohrvine recalled. Big-framed and fair-as far as he could tell from blue eyes and the slip of pale skin visible between her veils-with a sweet matter-of-factness in the way she stepped forward.

He was interested to observe that Moth, whom his daughter spoke of as being a spitfire, hung shyly in the background, overawed.

"Lord Prince," Pebble said. "Please forgive us for asking you to come, and I thank you, more than I can say, for coming so quickly. We've heard that there's danger in the city, an evil thing growing in a house in Sleeping Worms Street, a curse. Our partner Pomegranate is there, and she says she thinks there'll be trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Barun's eyes narrowed with suspicion. He clearly, thought Mohrvine, didn't care to have policy dictated to him by a woman who dressed like a servant and salaamed like a shopkeeper's daughter.

"She doesn't know," said Pebble. "Nor even if it's something that can be dealt with materially."

"And what house? Who in the city is dealing in curses?"

"It's the house of Chirak Shaldeth," said Pebble. "His granddaughter told us that-"

"The girl Raeshaldis?" asked Barun sharply. "The one Shaldeth put out of his house? I shouldn't wonder she put a curse on him, but if she-or you-think I'm going to go against one of the most respectable merchants in the city on the say-so of a rebellious granddaughter-"

"It ain't her who put the curse," snapped Moth, stepping forward, her shyness in the presence of the king's family forgotten in her impatience. "Pomegranate is out there now-"

"That frightful old beggar woman?"

Moth made a clear effort to keep hold of her temper-causing Mohrvine a moment's amused speculation on the true purpose of veils in the hiding of women's exasperated expressions when dealing with men. "My lord," she said, "we don't know what's coming down-going on." She corrected her market slang to the vocabulary and accents she'd clearly been taught in some recent deportment cla.s.s. "But there's evil growing, and we think we're going to need your help in dealing with it."

"My dear young lady, before I make any promises about 'help' against the head of the largest merchant house in the city, I'm going to need more than speculations about 'something evil.' Now, I suggest you and your girlfriends find out what's actually going on, and then come to me. My time is not to be wasted in this way."

"Lady Moth." Mohrvine bowed to the two Raven sisters as Barun strode out into the windy gloom. Moth glanced sharply at him again, warned by Summerchild for six months past to expect treachery, no doubt. "Lady Pebble. What do you need? How may I help?"

To her credit-his informant in her master's household had been right when she'd said Moth was the most intelligent person there-the girl didn't react with the suspicion she was clearly feeling. She said, "Pomegranate needs help. One of us-maybe both of us, Pebble and me-needs to go out there, to watch over the place. But Summerchild . . ." Her dark eyes moved toward the screen that concealed the stair.

"No change?" he asked, and she shook her head.

"And no word from Lady Raeshaldis?"

"No. And we tried, just now we tried. We ain't heard nothing from her for three days now. I don't think she's dead-I think we'd know if she snuffed it. But if we can't go to Sleeping Worms Street ourselves, we need at least for there to be guards or something with Pomegranate. There's gonna be trouble, she says, and soon. When it gets dark, she thinks. You know the king would send out men on her say-so."

"I know he would," replied Mohrvine.

Moth hesitated, as if considering the man who stood before her, and how far he could be trusted. Then she asked, "What about your girl Foxfire? If you could send her here it would help, to at least go with me to Sleeping Worms Street or to stay here with Summerchild."

"Unfortunately that isn't possible," said Mohrvine smoothly. The roses have bloomed, whispered in triumph through his mind. But the next moment compa.s.sion touched him, the wary compa.s.sion of a sentimentalist who learned long ago never to give way: a kind of pity for Oryn, who had the love of a remarkable woman, as Mohrvine once had had.

And not too long ago Oryn and Summerchild had saved Foxfire's life. That, at least, was a debt he could repay. "What I will do is send for Cattail to come here and pay her for her time, whatever she asks. Will that do? There is nothing that I can do to save my nephew's life," he added, not quite truthfully. "But for good or for ill, he can at least go to the consecration without that added grief in his heart."

Moth said, "Thank you, yes. That will do. That's way good of you."

"If I pay Cattail enough," added Mohrvine, with a slight curl to his lip, "she'll even do exactly as she's told."

The concubine's eyes glinted. "She d.a.m.n better."

"I'll make sure of it."

Shaldis wasn't much surprised to see Pontifer lying in the warm sand of the beach, a few feet above the tide line, watching her as she emerged from the healing house. The dawn air was moist and heavy, tepid rather than hot. Puahale gathered a cloak of bright-colored feathers elaborately knotted together about her shoulders; Shaldis was glad for her rough trousers and for the sleeves of her shirt. She hesitated in the doorway, then turned back to her new friend. "Do you see him?"

"The white pig?" Puahale seemed surprised at the question. "He is yours, is he not? He is beautiful. If I did not think he was precious to you, I would ask that you leave him here awhile, to father piglets that would be a marvel to all."

"It is he who brought me here," said Shaldis. "And I hope, he who shall take me back." She walked down the beach to where the pig lay and, kneeling in the sand, took from her belt the pouch containing her scrying crystal. How many times, through headache and exhaustion, had she felt the others calling her during her three days' pursuit of the teyn in the desert and last night as she'd worked healing magic over the herbs that had saved the children. She was asleep and dreaming, she knew, back in Jethan's arms in her little shelter in the desert, and she was not actually here.

Nevertheless, she cradled the crystal in her hands. "Pomegranate?" she whispered, calling to her mind her friend's wrinkled face. "Pomegranate, are you there?"

"Dear G.o.ds, girl, are you all right?" The beggar woman's image in the central facet was tiny, but beyond her Shaldis could see nothing but a whirling darkness. The dust storm must have enveloped the Yellow City. Pomegranate's face was veiled, but her voice was hoa.r.s.e with strain. "Where are you?"

"I'm all right." Shaldis didn't want to go into where she was. "Pontifer's with me."

"Oh, thank the G.o.ds! Is he all right? The thing-the thing you said was in your grandfather's house-it's stronger. It's starting to devour people, I think. We can't get in, that brother of yours won't let us. Magic won't work the same way inside the walls, because it seems like the thing's making its own world the way the djinni used to. And it's starting not to work out in a couple of the alleyways behind the house as well. We're trying to hold it, Moth and Pebble and I-"

"Who's with Summerchild?" Panic twisted at Shaldis's heart. Not this choice, she prayed. Not the choice of whether to let Summerchild die in the hope of having enough strength to defeat the Dreamshadow.

"Cattail. Mohrvine's paying her. We're using all the spells of ward we can, but we can see it. It's a green mist that's coming over the walls and under the gates of the court."

"It's a thing called the Dreamshadow," said Shaldis swiftly. "It comes out of the earth; it lives on the dreams of the dead. If it takes hold of you it can be driven out by bleeding, by cutting the victim with an obsidian knife. There has to have been some kind of ward or spell against it, written on tombs as part of the funeral rite, because we've never had trouble with it before, like the lake monsters. Get someone to look it up, fast, but it can be trapped with spells into obsidian or gla.s.s if necessary. And listen, Pomegranate! The teyn-"

"Dear G.o.ds!" Pomegranate whirled, as if at some sound in the blackness all around her, and the image in the crystal died.

"Pomegranate!" She shook the crystal, as if that would somehow bring Pomegranate back. "d.a.m.n it! Pontifer, take me back."

"What is it?" Puahale came running down the beach as the pig got to his feet.

"My friends are in danger from the Dreamshadow. It's big there and it's strong."

"Then take these." The priestess took from around her neck the biggest of her obsidian amulets, and from her belt an obsidian knife. "Source your power from the moon and the sea. Trap the Dreamshadow with these words: Lolo ano ti, ti, lolo walana." As she spoke the spells in her own tongue, Shaldis felt their meaning in her heart, in the marrow of her soul, where magic had its birth. Black doors into black, black earth where you come from.

"The words are from the Old Islands that are no more," Puahale said. "My sister, come back if you can. . . ."

Puahale had never heard of scrying, and there was no time to teach her. In the course of the night Shaldis had joined them together in the rite of the Sigil of Sisterhood-that they might call upon each other's magic, that they might know each other's hearts-but there was no guarantee it would work across who knew what kind of distance. This might, Shaldis thought frantically, be the last time she might speak to this tall heavy woman with the beautiful hair.

Would she even be able to carry things from dream to waking? she wondered desperately as she thrust the knife into her belt, strung the amulet around her neck. Would she remember the words?

From around her own throat she pulled the silver amulet Twinkle had given her, pressed it into Puahale's hand.

"I will. I promise."

They caught each other in a hard embrace, where the sea beat with a great crashing on the sh.o.r.e. Pontifer Pig was already trotting away down the sh.o.r.eline toward the trees. Shaldis turned and ran after him, her mind racing ahead of her in despair. She would wake, and she would still be a day and a night from the Yellow City, and who knew what would happen in those hours?

"Jethan," she called as she ran. "Jethan, are you there?"

And awoke, in Jethan's arms, with her skin and lips cracked dry, her hair full of dust, and a strange amulet and a dagger of obsidian clutched in her left hand.