The Hidden Stars Page 3

  “In utter anonymity,” said Curóide, “and as far from any place where Ouriána will be looking for her as it is possible to take her.”

  There was a tense, waiting silence in the room while Réodan considered the wizard’s words. Faolein trimmed the candles, which were beginning to smoke; Curóide knelt by the hearth in his sage-green robe and mended the fire; Éireamhóine stood quietly with his arms crossed and his hands inside his dusky purple sleeves, watching the King with his night-dark eyes.

  Very softly, under her breath, Sindérian began to sing to the baby, a lullaby in the Old Tongue, the language of magic:

  Shenana, beichlin

  Shenana, beich ilthanen

  Shenana, beich-sin

  Shenanar uiléthani sillüer.

  At last Réodan spoke. “You have already discussed this, the three of you. You have reached a decision without me.”

  “Any decision must be yours, Lord King,” said Éireamhóine, shaking his head. “With your permission, I will take the infant to some distant part of the world and raise her there in secret. No one will know where I am headed; I’ll send no word when I arrive. But when she is old enough, when she has grown strong enough and wise enough to claim whatever power is in her, I will bring her back to you here on Thäerie, to fulfill her destiny.”

  There was a murmur of approbation and assent from the other wizards. Still, Réodan hesitated. “Even from me you intend to keep your destination a secret? Even from these, your fellow wizards?”

  Faolein took a step in his direction, made a half bow of deference. “Lord King,” he said, “we have warded this tower: ringed it round with powerful runes and spells. What we say here remains private among us. But we none of us live our entire lives in warded rooms. One slip, one careless speech could prove fatal to the little princess’s chances.” He made a weary gesture. “It will be far better for her if we all remain ignorant.”

  Réodan began to pace the floor, causing the candles to flicker, the coarse wall hangings to stir faintly as he passed. Three times he circled the room, then stopped and whirled around to face the wizards. “Be it so, then. Take the infant, Éireamhóine, but if you’re unable to keep her safe—” He passed a hand over his eyes. “What am I saying? If you can’t protect her, then no one can.”

  “And yet your fears are reasonable,” answered Éireamhóine, reaching out to touch him lightly. Some of the wizard’s serenity, his calm acceptance of the world in all its troublesome complexity, seemed to flow into Réodan with that touch, though his words were far from reassuring. “It may be there is no place of safety for this child, not in all the world. I will do what I can…but it may not be enough.”

  “We are forgetting something,” Curóide said quietly. “Protect her he may, but Éireamhóine can hardly care for an infant himself. It requires a woman: a wet nurse.”

  There followed several moments of baffled silence, as the four men wrestled with this intractable fact.

  “I suppose,” said Réodan, his broad forehead creased in thought, “there is no other way to provide for her nourishment?”

  “No way that lends itself to a difficult and possibly dangerous journey,” answered Faolein. “Moreover, a man and a woman traveling with a newborn child will be far less conspicuous than the man and the infant alone.”

  In the end, they decided to send for Rionnagh. Knowing her to be devoted to the Princess, the King confided the plan to her, presented their dilemma. She listened patiently, standing with her hands clasped in front of her, her head tilted to one side. But there was a faint curl to her lips, a look of cool amusement in her grey eyes, and Faolein had an idea she had recognized the problem long before Réodan explained it.

  When he had finished, she shook her head, as though wondering at the opacity of the male mind. “You would need a wet nurse in any case. There is a girl in the village who gave birth to a stillborn child seven days ago. According to one of the midwives, she still has milk.”

  Réodan frowned, as though doubting so easy a solution could possibly exist. “There would be more required of her than just suckling the young princess. She must abandon her home and all her family, undertake a perilous journey into foreign lands. I wonder if she would even understand—”

  “Luenil is no simple village maiden,” said Rionnagh, with a small, tight smile. “She arrived in Cuirglaes only six weeks ago, a young widow with a tragic past. I think she would be willing to begin her life over again in a far country. I suggest that you speak to her, Lord King, Master Wizards. I think you’ll find she is exactly what you need.”

  “Whatever we decide,” said Faolein, “it must be soon.”

  3

  Dawn came, grey and chilly, with a driving sleety rain. King Réodan’s escort took refuge down in the pinewood, out of the wind and the worst of the weather. From her vantage point at one of the arrow-slit windows, Sindérian could see a line of smoky small campfires glowing red between the trees, and hear the stamping and whuffling of horses.

  A short time later, when the King walked downhill to join them, the men all saddled up and rode away. By then, Sindérian had retreated to her own little bed under the roof, curled up with the baby in a cozy nest of rough woolen blankets and sheepskin rugs. But she heard them go, and the sound of hoofbeats on the stony road entered her dreams.

  She dreamed of a scouring wind in rocky high places, of snow as fine and hard and sharp as diamond dust. There was a fortress built in the heights, of smooth white stone, with towers high and fair and banners bright as jewels. A proud, cruel, sorcerous people lived there, and into the castle from distant lands came many beautiful and magical things: starry crowns and crystal harps; caskets of ivory, ebony, and pearl; wands made of lignum vitae; enchantments written on lambskin parchments and tablets of stone and leaves of gold.

  The name of the lord who ruled that people was known and feared throughout the north. The King of the Dwarves sent him tribute; Shadows and Shapechangers served in his bodyguard. If he sent a message to the Gnomes or the Sea-People requesting any favor, that favor was granted without hesitation.

  His fortress was strong and ringed with such spells of power that none might breach the walls from without. But there was treachery within. Lured by the promise of greater riches, greater power, the sorcerer-lord betrayed his people. Death walked through the castle then, sparing no one, not even the one who summoned him.

  For long years the fortress lay deserted, open to the sky and the bitter weather. Hawks came and built nests on ledges and in empty tower windows; snow-cats laired in the overgrown courtyards among the bones of the dead.

  Then a small party of horsemen came pounding up the long white road to the fortress, leaving tracks in the snow. They came seeking the treasure waiting in the ruins: chalices of silver and gold; bowls set with amethyst, tourmaline, and owl’s-eye agate; beads of honey-colored amber, each one enclosing a perfect dragonfly or a tiny frond of fossilized fern. But something else waited in the castle. As the men filled their saddlebags with precious things, a dispute broke out over a necklace of diamonds as clear as dewdrops. They drew their swords; the stones of the fortress were stained with their blood. Only one man left the castle alive, and he was crippled and mad and blind.

  Now ghosts walked in the empty halls, haunted the treasuries, counting old coins with their bony fingers; they wore crowns and rings and armbands, bright with gemstones, but their eyes were hollow; they had crystal harps and silver flutes, but their voices were gone. Only the wind had a voice in that lonely land.

  While Sindérian slept, and her elders made preparations for travel, the storm passed, and the sky gradually brightened. Later, a thin fog crept in, followed by a drizzly rain.

  At moonrise, when frost lay hard and cold on the ground, the first party set out: Faolein, Sindérian, and Rionnagh, riding sturdy grey cart horses, purchased with silver coins from a man who lived in the village. Sindérian rode pillion behind her father, with her arms clasped around his waist. She wore a
sheepskin cloak over her woolen gown, and sturdy boots and fur-lined mittens; but he could feel her teeth chattering and tremors pass over her slight body.

  “We will take it in easy stages to Pentheirie,” he said, when Curóide came out of the tower to bid father and daughter a safe journey. As always, when forcibly reminded of his duties as a parent, Faolein was chastened and ashamed, regretting his own negligence—and determined to do better. “She is still very weak, and these last few days of worry and grief have done her no good.”

  Curóide stood at the base of the tower, his fair hair lifted by a slight breeze, and watched them go.

  The ruddy sunset faded to grey, and then to black; stars appeared in the sky like tiny jewels of fire and ice. Then the second party set out: the two wizards walking, and the girl, Luenil, mounted on a shaggy black pony, holding the newborn princess in her arms. They followed the road to the foot of the hill, then turned northeast, heading straight for the coast, where the boat that had carried the wizards from Leal to Thäerie awaited their return.

  East of the hills, they came upon a forest of pine and spruce and oak, silvered with frost and moonlight. Éireamhóine and Curóide walked in silence for many miles, before the younger wizard spoke. “I had a word with the High King, before he left us this morning. He plans a diversion—an attack on Phaôrax. By now, I suppose, he will be provisioning his ships, mustering his troops.”

  Éireamhóine frowned. “A diversion you call it—but it sounds like suicidal folly to me. What can Réodan be thinking, to take such a reckless step?”

  The pony shied at something moving in the shadows under the trees, and Curóide dropped a square, blunt-fingered hand on her neck to calm her. “For twenty-two years we have been fighting this war, ever since the smoke of sacrifice first rose over Apharos, and our enemy laid claim to all of the former Empire lands. In Rhuaddlyn, Malindor, Brielliend, we’ve fought battle after battle in defense of our allies. There are cities on the coast that have changed hands a half-dozen times—and the slaughter every time has been tremendous—but always, in the end, our armies fall back, and Ouriána’s generals move in to conquer new territories.”

  His fair bright face, with its broad cheekbones, clear blue eyes, and spurious look of youthful innocence, was uncharacteristically grim. “Those are our former allies rowing in her slave ships. And women and children go hungry all through the south, while the first fruits and the pick of every flock go to be sacrificed in her temples. Last year, she invaded Rheithûn. Now, Réodan believes, it is time to wage war on Phaôrax directly. If nothing else, it will distract Ouriána, engage her attention while you are going—wherever it is that you are going. And perhaps he will even take her by surprise, this attack is so unprecedented.”

  “There are reasons,” said Éireamhóine, evenly, “that we have never tried anything of the sort before. Ouriána will be terrible defending her own land. The Isle of Phaôrax is surrounded by a triple wall of magical protection; Réodan can never hope to pierce it. Unless…unless he plans to take wizards with him, and even then—”

  The baby began to whimper, and the wet nurse hushed her. Éireamhóine tried to quiet the infant with his mind, but met with a surprising resistance. Her will was unformed but already very strong. It came to him then that the next fifteen or twenty years of his life were likely to prove interesting ones.

  “I intend to go with Réodan, others may follow,” said Curóide. He threw back his long yellow hair, and his jaw set in a hard line.

  Éireamhóine sighed. “I had hoped you would return to Leal and fill my place on the Council. Take my advice and leave Réodan to his folly—he will come to nothing but grief!”

  An owl hooted somewhere in the woods; dried oak leaves crunched underfoot. The night was growing steadily colder, and their breath came out like smoke as they walked.

  “Nevertheless,” said Curóide, “I think your journey is likely to prove more perilous than mine.”

  Something in his voice troubled Éireamhóine; he flashed his companion a quick, apprehensive glance. “Have you seen something? Is this meant as a warning?”

  Curóide shrugged a burly shoulder under his wooly cloak. “I have seen many things—a hundred different possibilities, from the downfall of all our hopes to our ultimate triumph. But when the mind is anxious and overwrought, it’s best not to rely on the Sight. Then we can only fall back on those things we know for certain—and on common sense.

  “You taught me that,” he added, with a slight smile, “sixty years ago, when I was a very young wizard and your student.”

  “You are still a young wizard,” said Éireamhóine, shaking his head. “At eighty, you are only just beginning. May we both live to see two hundred…and better times.”

  She was just such a boat as the fisherman of Thäerie and the Lesser Isles rely on to make their living: clinker-built, sturdy, with a stout mast and a square sail of weathered canvas. She had seen Éireamhóine through many a perilous adventure and across many heavy seas.

  He took her out with the tide, then set the sail. Making all fast, he took his place at the tiller and glanced over at the girl, Luenil. She sat on the thwart, shielding the infant as best she could from the biting wind, under her fur-lined cloak.

  The hood of that cloak was pulled forward to shadow her face, and her features were only a pale blur in the silvery moonlight. “It will be colder,” she said, “when we leave the bay and go out on the open sea before the sun rises. The little princess—”

  “We will do all that we can to keep her warm,” answered Éireamhóine.

  He could see nothing of the child from where he sat. The girl had her bundled up safe in skins and blankets, and the little white face was turned away from him, out of the wind. But when he closed his eyes, he could sense her: Nimenoë’s daughter, a tiny spark of life but a steady one, burning with a clear, fierce light in the darkness. “There is a power inside this child, raw and unformed as it is. I think she’ll be at home in the elements and likely to weather this voyage much better than you or I will.”

  They sailed out beyond the breakwater, and the boat danced on the choppy waves, keeping the wizard busy for a time, with the sail, with the rudder. When he resumed his seat, he said to Luenil: “The child has a name chosen by her mother just before she died: Guenloie. It’s best that we use it and never refer to her rank, ever. There is no telling how far the wind may carry our words over the water.”

  Dawn came at last, a faint rosy light growing in the east, a tinge of gold on the crests of the waves. Gradually, the light broadened, until a cloudless blue sky stretched from horizon to horizon. Éireamhóine felt an uneasy mixture of relief and apprehension. In spite of what he had said to Luenil, he feared for the infant if the weather turned foul—yet he felt vulnerable, exposed, out on the open waters of the Thäerian Sea while the light was so clear and revealing. Between sea and sky, there was no place to hide.

  He considered, briefly, a spell of concealment, a charm to call up a favorable wind—and rejected that thought almost immediately. If he was forced to rely on his ordinary seamanship, the voyage was certain to last for several days, but by using magic he risked drawing attention from the very quarter where he feared it most. He had provisioned the boat before sailing from Leal with ample supplies: dried fish, fresh water, winter apples, and hard ship’s biscuit, sufficient to keep himself and the girl while the voyage lasted. Yet every day was a day during which they might somehow attract Ouriána’s notice, as she sat in her tower searching land and sea with the farseeing power of the Dragonstones.

  And whenever a gull sailed overhead, its white wings catching the light, the wizard said to himself: Is this one of my enemy’s spies? Crows, ravens, jackdaws, magpies, wyvaerun, they all served her, and he knew that her influence was growing daily. Perhaps she had already corrupted the gulls, the sea hawks. Many hundreds of miles of ocean divided him from Phaôrax, but for the birds of the air that was no great distance.

  That day passed, and a
clear, starry night. Other days followed: days of cold autumn sunlight and sea spray, or of thin fog and gusty rain. Luenil proved a surprisingly pleasant companion, a handy and cooperative shipmate.

  When he first spoke to her, back at Cuirglaes, Éireamhóine had thought her sullen, guarded, even hostile, but it was very different now. On fair days, she sat on the thwart with her hood thrown back and her rich brown hair blowing in the breeze. And if she was not suckling the infant, she sang, or spoke nonsense, that secret language between mother and child which is older than time.

  But then, watching her one day, Éireamhóine felt a shadow darken his heart, a little chill of doubt crept over him. It was good that Luenil seemed fond of the little Guenloie, but if she began to regard the child as her own—

  The girl glanced up suddenly, caught him looking at her, and spoke as though reading his thoughts. “She is nothing at all like the infant I lost. That was a son, and small—so small. I wasn’t supposed to see him before they buried him, but I insisted.” As she spoke, a fierce light came into her eyes, and Éireamhóine sensed the slow-burning anger that was in her before, at Cuirglaes.

  They had dressed her in clothing belonging to the Princess; her own things had been too poor and too scanty, unsuitable for a journey on the threshold of winter. Gown, cloak, boots, gloves, all were the dull black of mourning. But she wore, as well, something that must be her own: a brooch of base metal, with a lock of wheat-colored hair set behind glass. The materials ought to be finer, thought Éireamhóine—silver and quartz, or platinum and rock crystal—for her accent, her manners, were not those of a country village or of the lowest class. She had been born to a life of ease and luxury, he was very certain of that.

  “You are estranged from your family,” he said. “So Rionnagh told me.”