Traitor's Moon

14 MYSTERIES

Thero envied Beka the headache that had released her from the day's duties. As negotiations rambled on, the wizard grew increasingly restless. Most of the day's speeches were hollow posturing, currying favor with one side or the other. Stories and grievances from centuries past were trotted out and argued. Apparently there was no shame in napping during these interludes; a number of onlookers up in the gallery were snoring audibly.

Thunderstorms descended on the city soon after midday, throwing the Iia'sidra chamber into lamp-lit gloom. Cold winds swept in through the windows, carrying rain and leaves. At times thunder drowned the voice of the speaker on the floor.

Chin on hand, Thero watched the lightning illuminate rippling sheets of rain lashing down outside. It brought back memories of his apprentice days in Nysander's tower. Sitting at the window of his chamber on summer afternoons, he'd watched the barbed white bolts spike down over the harbor and dreamed of capturing that power, channeling it through his hands. To control something that could destroy you in an instant—the thought had made his pulse race. One day he'd blurted out his idea to Nysander, asking if it could be done.

The older wizard had merely given him a look of kindly forbearance and asked, "If you could control it, dear boy, would it be as beautiful?"

The response had seemed nonsensical to him at the time, he thought sadly.

An especially long, bright flash lit the Iia'sidra just then, transforming the window he'd been staring at into an oblong of weird blue-white brilliance. Thero saw the black outline of a woman framed there, as if in a doorway.

The window went dark again, and a clap of thunder shook the building, driving in a fresh gust of wind. The figure had been no fleeting vision, however. A young rhui'auros stood there, resting one hand lightly against the stone frame as she stared across the chamber at him. Her lips moved and he heard a voice whisper in his mind, Come to us afterward, my brother. It is time.

Before Thero could even nod, she had faded away in a blur of color.

Thankfully, the council adjourned early that day. Thero doubted he could have told anyone what had been said. Following Klia and the others out into the storm, he found the woman waiting for him by his horse. She was very young, with grey-green eyes that seemed overly large beneath her ridiculous hat. Her soaked robe clung to her thin frame like a wrinkled second skin, and the wind had whipped her wet hair into lank strands against her cheeks. She should have been shivering, but she wasn't.

Klia gave her a surprised glance.

"With your permission, my lady, I would like to visit the rhui'auros," he explained.

"In this weather?" Klia asked, then shrugged. "Take care. I'll need you first thing tomorrow."

Thero's strange companion did not speak as they set out, nor would she accept his cloak or an offer to ride. He was soon glad to have a guide. In this weather, one broad, deserted street looked no different from another.

Reaching the Nha'mahat at last, the girl motioned for him to dismount, then led him by the hand along a well-worn path to the cave beneath the tower. Clouds of vapor issued from the low opening, crawling low across the ground to disappear in wisps on the wind. Mineral secretions coated the rock here, white and yellows shot through with wavering bands of black. Untold pairs of feet had worn a smooth path inside.

A sudden rush of wonder brought a lump to Thero's throat as he followed it into the large natural chamber beyond. If Nysander had been correct, this was the very womb of mysteries, the source of the magic that had come to his own people through the blood of Aurenen.

The place was humid and primitive, its rough walls unaltered except for a few scattered lamps and a broad staircase that curved like a ram's horn at the center of the room, its even stonework out of place in such a setting. Light shone down from some upper room, and Thero smelled the sweet reek of incense as they passed. Down here there was nothing of ritual or decoration. Steam curled up from a network of fissures and small pools in the floor. Rhui'auros and 'faie moved among the shadows, quiet as ghosts.

The girl gave him no time to get his bearings but continued down one of several passageways that branched off from the main chamber. There were no lamps here and she did not strike a light. The darkness posed no problem for Thero, either; when his eyes failed other senses took over, showing him his surroundings in muted shapes of black and grey. Was this a test, he wondered, or did she simply assume that, sharing a similar magic, Tir wizards could see in the dark?

Sweltering air closed in around them as they went on, and Thero was aware of the downward slant of the tunnel floor beneath his feet. Small, hive-shaped structures stood here and there along the way, large enough to hold a person or two. Brushing his fingers across one as he passed, he felt thick, sodden wool. Leather flaps covered a small door and an opening at its top.

"Dhima, for meditation," she told him, speaking at last. "You may use them whenever you like."

Evidently this was not the point of the current expedition. The passage took a sharp jog to the right and the air grew cooler, the way more steep and narrow. There were no dhima here.

In places they had to duck their heads as the overhanging stone dipped low. In others, they grasped thick ropes strung through metal eyelets driven into the stone, lowering themselves over short drops. He lost track of time in the darkness, but the feeling of magical energy grew stronger with every step.

At last they reached level ground again, and Thero heard a sound like wind in branches. After a few yards the tunnel curved again, and suddenly he was blinking in the relative brightness of clear moonlight. Looking around in surprise, he saw that they were standing at the edge of a forest clearing under a clear night sky. The

ground sloped gently to the edge of a glassy black pool. The crescent moon's reflection floated motionless on its still surface, undisturbed by any ripple.

The light grew brighter as he stood there. Looking around, he could find no sign of his guide, but the pool was now surrounded by a great throng. Those he could make out wore the robes and hats of the rhui'auros. He knew by the lifting of the hair on his arms that at least some of them were spirits, though one looked as solid as another, even the ones with the curling black hair and dark skin of Bash'wai. Beyond them, in the thick, night-black forest, something moved—many creatures, and large ones.

"Welcome, Thero son of Nysander, wizard of the Third Oreska," a deep voice rumbled from the darkness. "Do you know where you are?"

Caught off guard by the misnomer, it took Thero a moment to grasp the question. As soon as he did, however, he knew the answer.

"The Vhadasoori pool, Honored One," he replied in an awed whisper. How he knew it was a mystery—there was no sign of the statues, much less the city itself, but the magic that radiated from the black water was unmistakable.

"You see with the eyes of a rhui'auros, Nysander's son."

The girl who had been his guide stepped from the crowd and offered him a cup fashioned from a hollow tusk. It was as long as his forearm and wrapped in an intricate binding of leather thongs that formed handles on either side. Grasping these, Thero closed his eyes and drank deeply. Beneath his fingers, the cup vibrated with the touch of a thousand hands.

When he looked up again, he and the girl were alone in the clearing. Her face no longer looked so young, and her eyes were flat disks of gold.

"We are the First Oreska," she told him. "We are your forebears, your history, Wizard. In you we see our future, as you perceive your past in us. The dance goes on, and your kind will be made whole."

"I don't understand," he said.

"It is the will of Aura, Thero son of Nysander son of Arkoniel son of Iya daughter of Agazhar, of the line of Aura."

Gentle, unseen hands loosened the fastenings of Thero's garments and they fell away, shoes and all. A will other than his own guided him to the water's edge, and on, until he was up to his neck in the pool. The water was winter cold, so cold it robbed the breath from his lungs and burned his skin like fire. Turning back toward

shore, he was surprised to see himself still standing there beside the woman. Then he was dragged under.

The water closed over him, filling his eyes and nose and mouth, and then his lungs, yet he felt no discomfort, no panic. Lost in the formless dark, he floated, waiting. And remembering. The night they'd slept by the dragon pool in Akhendi he'd dreamed of this place and of drowning. The dream itself had raveled to mere fragments since then, yet it resonated with the same surety he'd felt when he'd named this place as the Vhadasoori.

"What is the purpose of magic, Thero son of Nysander?" the deep voice asked.

"To serve, to know—" Thero was unsure whether he spoke aloud or only thought the words; it made no difference, for the other heard him.

"No, little brother, you are wrong. What is the purpose of magic, son of Nysander?"

"To create?"

"No, little brother. What is the purpose of magic, son of Nysander?"

The darkness pushed in on him. He felt the pressure of it in his lungs, smothering him. The first cold stab of fear hit him then, but he forced himself to remain still. "I don't know," he replied, humbled.

"You do, son of Nysander."

Son of Nysander. Sparks danced in front of his sightless eyes, but Thero held on to the image of his first mentor, the plain, good-humored man he'd too often underestimated. He recalled with shame his own arrogance and how it had blinded him to Nysander's wisdom until it was too late to honor it. He recalled the bitterness he'd felt when Nysander kept him from spells his skill could master but his empty heart could not wisely employ. For an instant he heard his old teacher's voice, patiently explaining, "The purpose of magic is not to replace human endeavor but to aid it." How many times had he said that over the years? How many times had Thero ignored the importance of the words?

The crescent moon wavered into view in front of him, dancing gently over the water's surface far above. Still mired in darkness, Thero felt the power of it breaking in on him, and his mouth stretched wide with joy.

"Balance!"

Like a cork buoy suddenly released, he shot to the surface, shattering the moon's reflection.

"Balance!" he shouted up at it.

"Yes," the voice said approvingly. "Nysander understood better

than any Tir the role of Aura's gifts. We waited for him to come to us, but it was not to be. The task falls to you."

What task? Thero wondered with a thrill of excitement.

"Balance was lost long ago between your people and our own, between the Tir and the Light. Light balances darkness. Silence balances sound. Death balances life. The Aurenfaie preserve the old ways; your kind, left to dance alone for a time, have forged the new."

Thero reached a tentative foot down and found solid ground in easy reach. Wading from the pool, he walked to the lone figure awaiting him, an ancient Bash'wai woman. Her face and skin were black in the moonlight, her hair silver.

Thero fell to his knees in front of her. "Is that why Klia was allowed to come here, and at this time? Did you make this happen?"

"Make?" She chuckled, and her voice was deep, too large for such a frail frame. She stroked his head like a child's. "No, little brother, we only dance the dance with whatever steps we can manage."

Confused, Thero pressed a hand over his eyes, then looked up again. "You said the wizards of Skala would be made whole. What does that mean?"

But the Bash'wai was gone. In her place sat a large dragonling with golden eyes. Before Thero could do more than register its presence, it darted forward between his bare thighs and bit him on the scrotum. Leaping up with a panicked shout, he felt his head connect with something hard and the moon spun away like a dropped ring.

When Thero came to again, he was sprawled facedown and fully clothed just inside the mouth of a tunnel leading off from the main cavern beneath the Nha'mahat.

A vision! he thought in dazed wonder. He shifted to stand up, then pressed flat again, squeezing his eyes shut as fiery talons of pain tightened around his balls. The memory of Alec's bitten earlobe, swelled three times its normal size, presented itself ungraciously, and he let out a groan.

The sound of movement against stone made him open his eyes again. Through a haze of pain, he saw a seated figure uncoil itself from the nearby shadows and resolve into his young guide.

"Lissik." She held a flask down for him to see before disappearing behind him.

A mark of honor, they call these bites! he thought helplessly as

she went about her ministrations. If I survive long enough to heal, how am I ever going to show it off?

People came and went around him. If the sight of a Skalan wizard cackling hysterically on the ground with his robe tucked up around his waist struck any of them as odd, none were so ungracious as to say so in his hearing.