Sorcerer's Moon Read Free Page A

my life, and said that I wanted only to be left in peace. I also returned the considerable sum of money vouchsafed to me by the Crown when I was granted knighthood.
    There was no reply to my message, and none of my later attempts to windspeak Lord Stergos were successful. He and Conrig were occupied with more urgent matters. The king's domestic enemies, Cathra's Lords of the Southern Shore, had demanded that he defend himself against persistent Tarnian accusations that he possessed magical talent, was thus not the legitimate High King of Cathra, and therefore was unworthy of Tarn's fealty.
    The official inquiry was as brief as it was dramatic. No member of Cathra's Mystical Order of Zeth could swear that they detected talent in the king. (The scrupulously honest Vra-Stergos was saved from having to condemn his brother because of the precise wording of the oath, even though he knew well enough that the accusation was true.) Maudrayne was believed dead and unable to renew her denunciation, and I was shielded by sorcery and refused to testify. Since there were no other witnesses against Conrig who had status under Cathran law, he won his case easily.
    The Sealords of Tarn cursed all lawyers and grudgingly continued to pay the heavy taxes imposed by the Sovereignty. The wealthy Lords of the Southern Shore did the same, thwarted in their attempt to put Duke Feribor Blackhorse, their ringleader, on the Cathran throne in place of Conrig.
    In the devastated little kingdom of Moss, far from the tranquil cottage on the edge of the Western Ocean where I dwelt with Induna and her mother, the Salka hunkered down in the lands they had overrun and pondered the next big stepin the reconquest of 'their' island. They owned numbers of minor moonstone sigils which they had already successfully used as weapons, and hatched plans to obtain others that were more potent. Conjure-Queen Ullanoth, who had ruled Moss before the Salka invasion, was believed by most people to have perished through imprudent use of her sigils. Her scheming younger brother Beynor had dropped out of sight after quarreling with the victorious monsters, his former secret allies. No one knew (or cared) what had become of him.
    With the security of the Sovereignty now his primary concern, Conrig garrisoned troops at crucial points along the Dismal Heights from Rainy Pass to Riptide Bay, supposedly making a land invasion of Didion by the Salka impossible. At the same time the formidable Joint Fleet of the Sovereignty, equipped with tarnblaze cannons, patrolled the waters off the island's eastern coast in a show of strength designed to keep the amphibians in check. In spite of the blockade, the monsters made several waterborne forays against coastal settlements of Didion and Cathra. But finally, in a single decisive battle, the Salka stronghold in the Dawntide Isles was completely destroyed by the Sovereignty, and an interval of peace settled over High Blenholme.
    * * *
    As for myself, Induna and her mother Maris, a much-admired shaman in Tarn's coastal Stormlands, had invited me to stay with them indefinitely in order to learn the healer's art, since I no longer had any taste for spying. Using part of the fortune she had inherited from her late grand-sire, the renegade wizard Blind Bozuk, Induna purchased a fine manorhouse and lands that lay in a pleasant place called Deep Creek Cove, backed by grasslands. For my sake the manor was fortified with ingenious magical defenses. Rumors persisted that High King Conrig still thought I was even more of a threat to his Iron Crown than Maudraynehad ever been. Induna and I both feared he'd eventually send someone to eliminate me, and we resolved to be ready.
    Maris was a kind person endowed with singular wisdom, who helped me to a deeper understanding of my uncanny abilities. (Up until then, I had been entirely self-taught in magic.) She also gave me valuable advice concerning the two moonstone sigils, Concealer and Subtle Gateway, that were