Voyage of the Shadowmoon Page 13

  “Nevertheless, now we need to either recover and destroy Silverdeath, or confirm its destruction. If we do not, our entire world will soon go the way of Torea.”

  Chapter Three

  VOYAGE TO TOREA

  It was to the small Metrologan mission and shrine Terikel and Velander went from the governor’s mansion. The six deaconesses and one priestess were waiting for them, and had a hastily prepared but impressive dinner waiting. After the meal the resident priestess, Serionese, ushered her two refugee superiors into her small study. They sat down on seagrass and wicker chairs and related the story of Torea’s death yet again.

  “Your story is terrifying, but you still survived,” Serionese said as she poured out freshly pressed grape juice. “Are you sure there are no other priestesses alive?”

  “Very unlikely,” Terikel replied, after she had drained her mug. “You were the only member of the Sisterhood stationed beyond the reach of the fire-circles. Only two Brother deacons may have survived in Diomeda.”

  “I shall, of course, put the Order as it exists here under your direct control, Worthy Elder Terikel,” Serionese assured her guest.

  “That will not be necessary,” replied Terikel. “You can remain in charge of the shrine’s running”

  “That is generous of you, Worthy Elder, but what is left for you to do?”

  “I must rebuild the Order. The shrine must be expanded into a temple so that we can perform ceremonies and ordain priestesses. I have convinced the governor to provide workers, stone, and timber. When the numbers increase I shall set up a teaching academy for Helion.”

  “But Worthy Elder, this is only a mission. We work among the harlots and poor, and preach to sailors from distant lands.”

  “What we have on Helion is all that remains of the Metrologan Sisterhood in the entire world. Helion is Torea now. The four principles of our Order are teaching, researching, love, and charity. We now have a monopoly on the sciences of Torea, so we shall be in demand. There is another important factor to remember, also. Governor Banzalo intends to claim and colonize Torea.”

  “Colonize? But … But there are only seventeen thousand people on Helion, and twelve thousand of those are refugees. Many are living on ships in the harbor.”

  “Banzalo is our monarch now, and that is his wish. He looks upon us with favor, Worthy Serionese.”

  Serionese clenched a fist to her mouth. “‘Worthy’ is not my title, good Elder. In her wisdom the former Elder saw fit to demote me to ‘Aspiring.’ It was a matter of—”

  Terikel waved her hand for silence, leaning back in the chair and closing her eyes.

  “Bring me a writing kit and I’ll restore you to ‘Worthy’ at once.”

  “But my case is not due for review for another two years, Worthy Elder.”

  “I am the Elder, and I can grant a review whenever I wish. I know your case, Aspiring Serionese. The politics behind it are as dead as the people who played them.”

  Terikel wrote out a proclamation elevating Serionese back to “Worthy,” another appointing Velander and Serionese to her Councilium, and a third declaring the shrine now to be the headquarters of the Order. The six deaconesses were called to the shrine’s sanctum, where they were told to prepare to be assessed for ordination in a very short time. The shrine’s bronze gong was struck twenty-seven times to announce the Elder to be in residence, and chants were sung to Fortune in thanks for the Sisterhood being spared during the destruction of Torea.

  “I now declare the first session of the Councilium on Helion to be open,” Terikel declared, once the chanting was over. “Sessions will normally be only for members, but we need to apportion the work before us, resolve petitions, and bring any other local business to my attention. Are there any new or outstanding petitions?”

  Velander stood up at once, drawing a scroll from her sleeve. “I petition to declare just cause to impeach the Elder of our Order,” she said in a cold, tense voice.

  The eight other women and girls sat dumbfounded for a moment. Terikel said nothing, but turned as white as the plaster on the walls.

  “Impeachment?” ventured Serionese, hardly believing her ears.

  “During the voyage I felt it my duty to chronicle the circumstances of our escape from Warsovran’s hellfire. This is part of the testament of Laron Alisialar, navigator and medicar on the Shadowmoon:

  “‘During the previous night the boatmaster had slipped aboard with a heavily robed woman at about the hour before midnight. He informed me that he had brought a female friend aboard, that they were to be sleeping together, and that they were not to be disturbed. Sometime after sunrise the boatmaster emerged and said that he and his companion had overslept, and that she could no longer leave because of it being daylight. Navigator Laron was instructed to cast about for a disguise for the boatmaster Feran’s guest, so that she could leave without revealing her identity. Minutes later, Worthy Velander staggered aboard, completely exhausted, and warned us to cast off and sink if we wished to escape the fire that was soon to come.’”

  Velander looked up, the trace of a grin on her lips.

  “I shall skip forward a little now, but you are free to read what you will of this scroll, Worthy Sisters:

  “‘After the Shadowmoon had floated back to the surface, we observed that the port of Zantrias had been annihilated. The air was like that from the mouth of a smithy’s furnace, and every trace of life had been seared away. I began helping to get the schooner ready to sail, and it was now that I noticed that boatmaster Feran’s lover of the previous night had been the priestess Worthy Terikel. She was still only partly clothed—’”

  “Enough!” Terikel barked. “You have made your point.”

  “I declare impeachment proceedings against Worthy Terikel before this, the Councilium of the Metrologan Order,” replied Velander. “The grounds are that she committed the act of fornication in flagrant violation of her vows.”

  “I pronounced the rule proscribing fornication to be annulled!” Terikel cried back. “You were the witness.”

  “And I confirm that you did so, Worthy Elder,” Velander said smoothly, allowing herself a smile. “However, I can also confirm that your pronouncement was made only after the wall of fire had killed the previous Elder. You violated a properly constituted rule at the time you were bedded by boatmaster Feran of the Shadowmoon. It is now up to myself, yourself, and Worthy Serionese to vote on whether you are a fit and proper person to hold the office of Elder.”

  Within a quarter of a minute Terikel had been deposed as Elder, and Serionese had replaced her. Both acts could be done by a two-thirds majority of all the members of the Councilium, and Velander and Serionese made up just such a majority.

  The sun was down by the time Serionese summoned Terikel and Velander to her study for the first of her official duties. She had taken the time to rearrange the furniture so the stone cube that was her strongbox separated her chair from the rest of the room. Over the chair she had draped a purple curtain. The deaconesses had removed the wooden guest chairs and replaced them with wicker stools, so visitors would be in no doubt of who was in charge. The shelves behind her contained over three-quarters of the books and scrolls on the entire island, and added further to her authority. On top of the stone cube were four cups and a beaker of grape juice.

  A deaconess announced Velander. Serionese ordered her deputy to carry one of the wicker stools to the right of her chair, then called for Terikel. Terikel entered, glanced around, then stood before the stone strongbox and folded her arms.

  “Worthy Sister, this is a disciplinary hearing,” Serionese warned. “Your insolent bearing—”

  “Worthy Elder, if you take the guard auton off your strongbox and give me all your money, I shall sign the ordination scrolls of your deaconesses. Otherwise, the Order dies when the last of us dies and you will never rule any more priestesses than the Worthy Velander.”

  “You threaten—”

  “I certainly do. I also suspect
that the governor will transfer his patronage to the Bluthorics, because their local patriach has the authority to ordain priests. Five priests can elect a new patriach, and, well, they do seem to have a future—which is more than I can say for the Metrologans if you do not conjure up an improved attitude.”

  Serionese was far better practiced at being forced to accept adverse rulings than handing them out. By now she had gone as white as sun-bleached bone, but her mind had raced along all the paths of logic and rule Terikel had already explored, with rather more leisure available.

  “Worthy Velander, scribe out six ordination scrolls and sign each one,” Serionese hissed with her teeth clamped together. “Blank sheets are on the lowest shelf, on my left.”

  Now she stood and came around the strongbox. She removed the tea service from it and placed her hand on the stone’s surface with her fingers splayed. Red sparks and tendrils boiled up around it, then there was a dull clunk. The heavy stone lid hinged free on one corner, revealing two gold goblets, a ceremonial lamp, and a calico drawstring purse. Serionese breathed tendrils of force onto her hand, then reached into the cube. Tendrils of fire from the guard auton flared around her skin but recognized her. She drew out the bag.

  “There are fifty-one gold circars in here,” Serionese forced herself to say.

  “I shall write a receipt for you.”

  “I’ll have you expelled before the ink is dry!”

  “Well, actually, you cannot. Expulsion of a priestess is a serious business. It requires a majority of Councilium—”

  “I command such a majority!”

  “—seniors of fifteen years standing. You can depose an Elder or demote a priestess to ‘Aspiring,’ but you cannot expel a priestess or even change the rules regarding expulsion without a majority of seniors. Oddly enough, the rules regarding sexual misconduct are within the ruling Elder’s authority, so feel free to change my recent ruling on the subject at your discretion.”

  In the privacy of his small room above the Midway Inn, Laron breathed his newly renewed etheric energies into the cup of black glass and capped it with the greenstone. Almost at once the stark little face appeared within the sphere’s dusky green depths and looked out at him.

  “Laron, you invoke me again,” said the auton girl.

  “And we have reached Helion! I have plenty to eat, and I have even been to the market. You will never guess what I have found.”

  “I cannot guess, that is true.”

  “It is something for you.”

  “For me? Great thanks to you.”

  The words were devoid of intonation, but who knew what feelings the auton might have? thought Laron. He opened the shutters of the window and carried the ether machine over.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  “Only you. Fuzzy, with more distance.”

  “What about now?”

  He placed a stubby tube against the greenstone sphere, and at once there was a tiny gasp from the imprisoned being.

  “Ah! Yes! A picture. You are showing me … a picture.”

  Laron did not betray his disappointment. She knew about little beyond her oracle sphere.

  “In the market I discovered the glass components of sundry farsights and other devices,” Laron explained. “It took about an hour of fiddling with their arrangement until I achieved the opposite to the sphere’s distortion. That is no picture, that is the real world.”

  “Ah! Beautiful, enchanting,” the auton girl responded flatly.

  “I cannot get you out of that oracle sphere yet, but at least I can open a window for your soul to gaze through. Soon you will be free, I promise that.”

  “What is ‘free’?”

  Laron turned the contraption of lenses to face himself, then sat down on the bunk and removed his tricorner hat. Slowly he unwound his headband, then he tapped something invisible at the right of his forehead. A silvery starburst materialized, with thin clasps of wire that vanished into his hairline. At the starburst’s center held by three claws, was a small, violet sphere with an oddly metallic sheen.

  Laron raised his hand and tapped at his own oracle sphere.

  “Fair Ninth, free is what I am, even though I am still in here,” he said solemnly.

  The next morning Worthy Elder Serionese sat in her study, considering her position. The sale of all the current stocks of new wine had restored five gold circars to the treasury, and the governor’s artisans were already converting the shrine to a temple. Thus, aside from some personal humiliation, Terikel’s departure had not caused undue damage. Like Banzalo, Serionese also sensed personal opportunities presented by Torea’s destruction.

  “A small puddle, but my own,” Serionese mused as she looked at her shelf of books and scrolls, then gazed out through the window.

  The view was of vineyards carpeting the mountainside, giving way to sheep in the fields beyond, and it included the winding road that led to Port Wayside. The Metrologan Order owned the vineyard, and was thus an important part of Helion’s economy. Serionese leaned forward. A man was visible, striding briskly up the steep slope. She picked up the shrine’s farsight and focused on the visitor. He was dressed as an Acreman merchant, but carried no pack of samples. That could have meant he was very poor, yet his clothing was of fine-looking cloth, and well cut. A rich merchant, then, who was above mere samples. Serionese hurriedly finished arranging her study, selected a tome on the wordsmithing of etheric energies, and sat on a bench beside the window. Presently a deaconess announced that the merchant Roval had arrived and was seeking an audience.

  The man who entered was in his thirties and had a closely shaven head, but with his travel cloak removed he had more the build of a warrior than the soft rotundity of a prosperous merchant. The two rings on his fingers were of plain and inscribed silver.

  “Please be brief, I am rather busy,” Serionese said in flawless Diomedan.

  The man blinked, then smiled broadly. “All hail, young but Worthy Elder Serionese, and congratulations on your Diomedan. I am indeed impressed.”

  Roval had learned of the leadership coup from the deaconess who had shown him in, and had rethought his strategies with astonishing speed.

  “You are not a merchant,” Serionese observed.

  Again Roval blinked. Serionese had intended the remark as a compliment, and she was about to say that he had the look of a warrior noble.

  “Now I am impressed with your sources of information, Worthy Elder. On behalf of the High Circle of Scalticaran Initiates, I bid you additional greetings.”

  Serionese lowered her eyes to hide the surprise in them, and gestured to the other end of the bench. The High Circle was equaled only by the Metrologan Order in learning, but was more secretive in its teachings and activities.

  “I fear that your brothers and sisters now have the advantage of us Metrologans in numbers,” Serionese stated wistfully as Roval sat down. “I was contemplating a degree of cooperation with your Order in the future, but at this moment I have more pressing things on my mind.”

  “I see that you study etheric energies,” he said, indicating the book on her lap with a circular flourish of his hand.

  “Those energies destroyed Torea; in fact, my deputy Velander predicted what would happen—hence she is here, alive. My interest is now in what to do about them.”

  Roval sat forward, his hands clasped. “Have you heard of Silverdeath?” he asked.

  “Everyone has,” she replied cagily. “If Torea’s death led to any good at all, it was the destruction of Silverdeath.”

  “Silverdeath was not destroyed. The High Circle believes that it lies in the ruins of Larmentel.” Roval leaned farther forward, suddenly animated. “We must send a vessel back to Torea, find Silverdeath, and remove it from our world forever.”

  “Then do so.”

  “I cannot pay for a ship.”

  “Ah.”

  “You have money, Worthy Elder, and favor with the governor.”

  “Why not approach the gov
ernor yourself?”

  “I cannot approach him directly.”

  “Why not?”

  “If I may speak frankly, the governor is an ambitious ruler, and an ambitious ruler destroyed Torea with Silverdeath. Acreman and Scalticarian sorcerers have guarded Silverdeath for centuries. They have proved they can be trusted.”

  “Point taken,” Serionese said warily. “What do you need?”

  “A fully crewed and provisioned deepwater trader, with the shipmaster answerable to me. It would sail to Gironal’s ruins, and from there a gigboat could be rowed up the rivers to within a few miles of Larmentel. The trader’s crew could dig for gold and silver in the ruins in the meantime, so the trip would make a profit for you.”

  “I … have certain reserves that could be spared. All right, then, but only provided three of my own people make the voyage as well.”

  Roval thought quickly. His position was precarious, and speed was everything.

  “I agree. We must trust each other, so—”

  “Please, I have not finished: I have certain terms and conditions.”

  “Terms and conditions?” Roval echoed with foreboding.

  “I may rule only two priestesses and a single shrine, but I am still Elder of the Metrologan Order and that gives me authority. If I hand over my gold, I want certain things in return.”

  “Like?”

  “Like a seat on the High Circle, authority to send missionaries to your continent, and a priestess and two guards to oversee the recovery of Silverdeath.”

  Again Roval considered, frowning down at the rug on the floor.

  “I cannot grant the first two conditions without consulting the High Circle, and time is against us. Someone else may stumble upon Silverdeath, someone who might set it off again.”