Prophet of Moonshae

this room of dusty tomes and potent, arcane scrolls. Yet of that he had been adamant, claiming that his powers could only bring him to the place where he had first seen her. Although the explanation made a certain kind of sense, something suggested to Deirdre that there must be another reason, but she couldn't guess what it might be.

Then the familiar shape floated in the air, and in the next instant, he stood before her, his hood thrown back, his blond hair gleaming like spun gold in the light of the lone candle.

'My love!' she cried, mindless of the excitement in her voice. His smile was like a soothing fire on a cold night; it warmed and cheered her and seemed to bring a kind of flame to her heart.

'Hsst!' he warned, his tone reproving. 'I cannot be discovered here, or it would be my-our-ruin!'

'Oh, I know!' she conceded, mindful to keep her tone low. 'But it seems so wrong!'

'Come, my princess, my kitten. We must take our lives as we have them now. Soon-perhaps sooner than you believe-our happiness will be full!' He placed his strong yet gentle hands on her shoulders, and she thought that her heart must melt from the surging heat there.

'Yes. . I'll be patient.' In this, however, she did not have so much conviction. She thought of tonight, how she had known beyond any shadow of doubt that he would come to her.

Yet when it came to the more distant future, all was a blur. At times a face or an event would crystallize before her, and as often as not these were horrifying, or dark and sinister. No, she could not fully accept his admonishment that soon all would be light in her life.

'Have you attended the passages I bade you to read?' asked her golden-haired lover.

'Indeed. They frightened me in places.' She shivered at the memory of dark powers, described in their dwelling places on the lower planes, together with tales of those who had mastered them and of others, far more numerous, who had failed and had perished in pursuit of that dangerous task.

'As they should,' he said. He spoke a word and she gasped as light sprang up in the library, a pale glow that emanated from the chandelier. Deirdre did not have to look up to know that no flame burned in the crystal light. It was the power of his sorcery at work.

His. Another of her nagging doubts returned, and she went to his side as he perused the scrolls that lay along a high shelf-scrolls that had come from the ancient vaults of Caer Allisynn. She took his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder, clinging lightly to him.

'My love, I have need to call you more than that. Can you not now tell me your name?' She spoke softly, feeling him grow tense at her side.

He stepped away and turned to face her again. She saw sorrow and much love in those deep, impossibly blue eyes. 'I am sorry, my own love, but you know that I cannot. She who gains my name gains the secret of my soul, and that is a thing I must guard for all time.'

'But… I must have a word, a name to call you, to know and remember you by.'

'Then that is a thing that you must give me.' He bowed slightly, a gallant nod of his head.

Did he mock her? She couldn't know and dared not ask him. 'I shall call you Malawar,' she said, unknowing from where the word came into her head.

'As Malawar I shall hear you,' he said, again with that little bow, a smile tugging gently at the corners of his mouth. He proceeded to remove several scrolls from the shelf and place them before Deirdre. 'These, now, you must begin. You have learned an awareness of the powers that will serve such as you and I. Now you must attempt to begin their mastery.'

Deirdre took the scrolls and seated herself at the great table. She would do as he asked, as she had done before. Gradually the keys to power had been revealed to her, and in this, he showed her the path. Dutifully, knowing that he stood behind her, she began to read.

She felt the words of might wash over her, pulling her upward like a leaf borne on a powerful gust of wind, carrying her above the land, toward the very stars and moon themselves. The power was there, and she would wield it-soon, now, she could see.

For hours she read, and each new scroll took her to a higher flight across the land. Her mind was a hungry thing, driven by instinct deeper than thought to consume the feast he had laid before her. He… Malawar.

When she finally settled back to the world and the castle and the library, dawn had begun to color the eastern sky. And as she had known he would be, Malawar was gone.

The Earl of Fairheight paced restlessly through his Great Hall. He could not sleep nor even sit still, such was the tension that had gnawed at him throughout this long night.

At times he quailed from the course he had set, a route that might lead him to the mastery of all the Ffolk, to power he had never before imagined. But all too many branches of that path led him toward one end: a traitor's honorless death.

These were the possibilities that tore at his insides, denying him rest and comfort. Did the princess live? Had the mage worked his dark magic? Would his own involvement be discovered, suspected?

For a moment, he regretted the need to have the golem rampage through his own holdings, but he quickly realized the necessity of that tactic. Otherwise, it might prove all too obvious whose hand had orchestrated the death of the High Princess.

A sound disturbed the brooding lord, and he looked up from his pacing. The Great Hall was empty, its row of beastly heads staring down impassively on the great, black-bearded earl.

'She shall be reborn!'

The voice, a hysterically pitched shriek that was nonetheless projected with resounding power, echoed through the great room, driving through Blackstone like the slash of an ice-bladed knife.

'Where-where are you? Who speaks?' he demanded, spinning in a great circle. Impulsively he ran to the hearth, seizing the great battle-axe mounted above the mantel. He heard commotion throughout the great house as he ground his teeth together, staring around the shadow-cloaked hall.

'Traitor!' The voice came again, but this time a body materialized behind it, moving forward from the high alcove at the door. 'Know ye of the earth's vengeance!'

'Where did you come from?' demanded the earl, gaping in shock at the ragged-robed figure who shambled toward him. 'How did you get in here? Guards!'

The intruder's hair and beard flowed in snowy cascades across his shoulders, down his chest. The top of his head gleamed, a cap of baldness, and he hobbled as he walked like a very old man.

But it was the eyes that captivated the Earl of Fairheight, for they were the widely staring orbs of a madman, and they seemed to penetrate into the darkest depths of the earl's soul.

'Repent of your evil! It is not too late-or ye shall know the wrath of she who comes again!'

Other doors burst open as several men-at-arms stumbled into the hall, swords drawn or crossbows at the ready. They paused, looking at the intruder with surprise and at their earl with questioning eyes.

'Now. . answer my questions!' growled Blackstone, raising the axe menacingly and advancing. 'Who sent you? How did you get in here?'

'Hah!' The man threw back his head and cast the mocking shout to the ceiling. 'She sends me, who sends hope of the future to us all! I go where I please, and it pleased me to come to you now!'

In the pit of his stomach, Blackstone felt a growing sense of menace from this outwardly frail old man. He remembered the raving lunatic slain by his firstborn son, Currag, and then of Currag's own death, bare hours later. That lunatic, too, had been white-bearded, with a bald circlet atop his pate.

Yet the man had been slain and burned!

'Take him-I want him alive!' the earl shouted, his voice uncharacteristically shrill.

His men lunged forward, sheathing their swords and putting up their bows to grasp at the intruder with their gauntleted hands. But somehow the madman slipped away, darting toward Blackstone with such speed that the earl shrieked aloud. His hands lifted the battle-axe over his head, then brought the keen blade slicing downward in a desperate attempt to drive away this apparition of doom.

He felt the metal edge slice into flesh and bone. Only dimly did he sense the blood spray through the air and see the shocked expressions on the faces of his men as they watched their lord succumb to a berserk frenzy.