'You have the power,' said the golden-haired mage quietly. 'You have no need of guardsmen to banish this impudent rogue.'
'What do you mean?' she demanded, her anger turned even on the man that inspired such passion in her heart.
'Use it-use the power,' Malawar said, his voice still soft. 'Remove him!'
Deirdre whirled back to the old man. He had ceased his advance and stood watching the three of them, his hands planted on his hips, his mouth twisted into an expression of derision that served to madden her still further.
Abruptly she sensed the rightness of Malawar's suggestion. She raised a finger, pointing it full into the chest of the old man. He laughed, his tone still mocking, and her fury grew to volcanic heights.
For a moment, the Great Hall settled into an awful, poignant stillness. Then the shrieking that Deirdre had heard moments earlier came back, as if a groaning, howling maelstrom of wind sought to form within the huge building. The princess felt like a statue, locked motionless in the grip of her own power.
She began to tremble, to feel an awful heat building within her, but still she couldn't move! Her finger remained fixed, and the stranger stared, as challenging and insolent as ever.
A dull rumbling shook the great tables, and chairs bounced and vibrated on the floor. Dishes rattled against the hearth, and the windows shivered in their frames. Deirdre felt as though she would burst.
Then the explosion came-a massive release of tension that ripped outward from the woman's finger in the form of a great bolt of energy. Red lines of power pulsed, etching themselves in the air, sizzling toward the wild- eyed prophet, striking him full in the chest and smashing him backward to the floor, battering his body with crushing force.
The rumbling continued, but now Deirdre could lower her hand. She felt weak, but suddenly Malawar was at her side, catching her when she would have fallen and lowering her gently into a chair.
The intruder, meanwhile, lay upon his back, the expression of awful gloating still fixed upon his face. Crimson flame outlined his body as his back arched and his legs jutted stiffly, raising him into an arc over the floor.
Then the hellish light pulsed brightly, so intense that Deirdre had to shield her eyes against the flash. When she looked again, the body of the stranger was gone.
The stream of pilgrims trickled to the Moonwell, Ffolk from small farms and highland pastures, remote from even the modest-sized town of Blackstone. A few came from the town, while others were drawn from farther cantrevs.
A woman from Blackstone told Danrak that Sir Gwyeth had proclaimed the Moonwell bewitched, forbidding travel to it until he and his guardsmen had had the chance to break the spell. He posted men-at-arms beside the foot of the trail, but those pilgrims coming from Blackstone immediately started bypassing the trailhead, following a treacherous goat track over several steep foothills.
Danrak talked to one young man who had carried his crippled bride all the way up the sheer and rocky trail. The fellow said Gwyeth had recruited a cleric of Helm into his plans and that the knight and his men would come to the vale of the Moonwell on the following day.
Not all of those who journeyed to the small pond had come with some need for healing. Some made the trek from curiosity, others because they had inherited a knowledge of druidical teachings from their parents or grandparents and wished to see the power of the goddess incarnate on the world. This, in fact, was what they believed: that a miracle had restored the Earthmother, and this well was simply the first sign of her coming. The faithful represented all ages, men and women and boys and girls, and though they were destitute, the miracle of the Moonwell gave them great joy.
All those who sought cures for ailments, it seemed, were miraculously healed by the magical waters. They came with limp and twisted limbs, with great scars on their skin, or with ears or eyes that failed to sense. They came, they bathed in the waters that-though they flowed directly from mountain heights-seemed as warm as a bath, and they emerged from the well healed and whole.
Some of them remained, resting or praying, around the water, while others started back to their farms or homes. They would spread the word to their neighbors, and soon the truth would carry across the isle. For a time, Danrak meditated with contentment on the miracle worked before his eyes. None of the pilgrims, except for the crone whom he had aided to the water, took any notice of him. The old woman took the time to gather a pouchful of sweet, dark raspberries and offered them to the druid. Danrak realized, with surprise, that he was famished, and he ate the simple meal with warm gratitude.
But as he ate and considered the steady stream of humanity, he realized that he could not become complacent. The young man whose once-crippled wife even now danced in the shallowest part of the pool had provided fair warning of the mischief intended by Blackstone's acting lord.
Danrak knew that the pilgrims, none of whom were armed, would be unwilling or unable to defend this place against the band that Gwyeth would bring on the morrow. He expected that group to be much larger than the half- dozen men he had routed on the previous day, and they would also be supported by the religious powers of a cleric.
Against them stood only Danrak of Myrloch, with his bare hands and the talismans he carried. Yet a week ago the prospect of such a struggle would have depressed and disheartened him-though, of course, he would still have faced it resolutely. Now it presented a challenge that inflamed his determination. He began to form a plan.
He selected several talismans and decided to begin his discouragement of the lord's party some distance away from the valley. If they became confused and demoralized during the half-day march into the mountains, he reasoned, they would be less likely to stand firm against him here.
Still, the question tickled the back of his mind even as he refused to consider it: What, in truth, could he hope to accomplish against a score or more of armed men and the magical abilities of a cleric who had known his god for his entire life?
Danrak's deity, after all, had so far been around for no more than a few days.
From the Log of Sinioth:
16
Sir Gwyeth felt considerably heartened now that he was clad in his suit of plate mail, mounted atop his eager, prancing charger, and trailed by a column of more than one hundred men-at-arms. He had doubled the size of the party he had originally planned in order to make certain they could deal with any threat.
The presence of the cleric Wentfeld, riding beside him, did much to enhance his confidence. Whatever the nature of the ensorcellment transforming the Moonwell, the knight of Blackstone felt certain they would make short work of it. Even the rain, beating against his armor and trickling in icy rivulets down his skin, couldn't dampen his enthusiasm.
