HM02 House of Moons

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FREEZING RAIN FELL
throughout the morning, spattering the Highlands clearing with patches of ice and glazing the surrounding trees until the interlaced branches gleamed like fine porcelain from across the distant Cholee Sea. The raw, biting air carried the scent of half-frozen mud and wet leaves. The House of Moons, a gray two-story building, stood at one end of the winter-bare grounds, dwarfed by a huge, sprawling brown-stone complex on the other side.

Haemas Tal flung open the House of Moons door and hesitated, her pale-gold eyes desperate. She pulled the hood of her cloak over her braided hair, then ducked her head and fought her way into the hissing downpour. The icy rain streamed off her cloak as she dashed down the crushed-gravel path that led across the grounds to Shael’donn. The chill air knifed through her lungs with each breath, but she ran faster, faster. Not much time, Lising had said. She had to hurry, or it would be too late. Master Ellirt would be gone forever.

The wind buffeted her, screaming like a hungry silsha prowling the lowland forest. She felt her own silshas close by; vigilant, lurking in the surrounding trees like black-furred shadows as she rounded the final turn. They picked up on her anguish and snarled in response, their voices carrying in the wet cold. Haemas’s pumping legs ached and her lungs cried out for air. Ahead, the driving rain sheeted against the larger school’s rough-cut brown granite. Gasping for breath, she raised her fist to beat on Shael’donn’s massive door, but a startled, wide-eyed student swung it open.

She pushed inside, her hands trembling as she ripped off the icy weight of her sodden cloak. The boy took it wordlessly and folded it over his arm. She turned around, the only sound her labored breathing and rain dripping on the entrance flagstones. Quiet hung in the halls like a shroud, and it seemed everything she loved about this ancient seat of learning had already died.

Healing Master Lising’s long legs hurried down the main staircase toward her. He was tall and narrow, his grim face pale above the traditional healer’s black tunic. Haemas pushed stray tendrils of wet white-gold hair back from her flushed cheeks and made herself meet his golden-eyed gaze. “You’re sure?” She couldn’t keep the disbelief out of her voice. “Master Ellirt is dying?”

Resignation flickered across his thin face. “Best you go up and say your farewells now.”

She hesitated. “What about Kevisson?”

“He’s been called back, Lady Haemas, but I doubt he’ll get here in time.”

Numb with the shock, she bowed her head and swept past him up the steps, wishing he wouldn’t use her title. “Lady Haemas” was someone else entirely, someone competent and at peace with her father, who could never have been tricked into running away—someone other than Haemas Tal, Mistress of the House of Moons, the struggling mindarts academy for girls.

She hesitated outside the familiar door, then forced herself to push the latch. Inside the drapes had been drawn, although Master Ellirt had been blind from birth. A roaring fire illuminated the figure lying in the bed, swaddled in quilts up to his neck against a cold that ate at him from within, not without. The walls seemed to move inward as Haemas was overwhelmed with the muffled smell of the sickroom. She steadied herself against the mantel, fighting to speak around the knot in her throat. “Master Ellirt?”

The dimly seen figure stirred. “Come in, child.”

Crossing to the narrow bed, she sank onto the wooden chair at its side, feeling as if she balanced at the edge of a black precipice. How could it have come to this? Only yesterday her old teacher had seemed hearty enough, his craggy face cheerful as he visited her classrooms and offered suggestions. She, as well as the rest of Shael’donn, had depended on him as if he would go on forever, like the towering mountains that ringed the Highlands or the clear green sky. Taking his gnarled hand, she pressed the papery skin to her cheek.

“I’m ... sorry.” His voice was a hoarse whisper. “I—” He broke into a cough that wracked his lungs and brought tears to Haemas’s eyes.

“Don’t talk,” she said as the fit subsided.

No,
his mindvoice whispered,
there are ... warnings I must ... give.

Even though speaking that way did not trouble his breathing, it took even more energy, and he had so little left. “Please—” she began.

You must listen!
In her mind, Haemas heard and felt him clearly now, tasting of lemons and sunlight, sounding like his old self.
I have very little time left ... I’m not going to spend it arguing, even with someone I care as much about as you.
Master Ellirt struggled against the quilts and she loosened them so that she could prop him up on the pillows. His face was haggard in the flickering fire-shadows, the lines of strain standing out like cords.
For three years now, I have believed ... in the House of Moons, what it would stand for, what you wanted ... to do for the girls.

If it hadn’t been for her old master’s persistence, the Council of Twelve would never have funded her project, and Haemas understood that better than anyone. It was against tradition to educate female children in the extended mindarts as she herself had grudgingly been allowed to train. Even though her school was smaller than she had visualized, and operated with minimal funds, it was a start and she was grateful. She tightened her fingers over his, as if by her strength alone she could hold him to this world.

If the Kashi people are to survive, we ... must use all our resources.
He hesitated, moving his chilled fingers in her hand.
But the Lords will ... try ...
The white-haired head lolled back against the pillows and she thought he had passed beyond her reach. Half rising, she started to call the healer, but the gnarled fingers held on, anchoring her at his side.

I’ve designated ... Kevisson as my ... successor.
His head stirred weakly.
If they ... fight it, that will doom the House of Moons. I’m sorry ... the House ... so important ... You and Kevisson ... take care of each ... he’s a good ... man ...

Dropping her mental shields, she laid herself open to him. “What can I do, Master?” Her eyes burned with scalding, unshed tears. “You showed me the way out when I had nowhere else to turn. You gave my life back to me. Tell me what I can do.”

You took your own life ... back. Remember ... that ...

But he had shown her the way. When her cousin, Jarid, had implanted a terrifying false memory in her mind to make her believe she had killed her father, Master Ellirt had helped her sort out the real from the false. No one else had even considered that she might not be guilty.

Watch out for ... for ...
The old fingers suddenly spasmed in her grip, then relaxed. She reached for his mind, but found only a soft peacefulness, like the light from a shrouded lamp, slowly fading. She sat there as the fire burned down into embers, holding the familiar hand, frozen in place, feeling that until she moved he was still with her.

Outside the room, Shael’donn went on about its daily business, as yet unaware of its loss, the Kashi boys attending class, working with accomplished Andiine Masters to hone their natural mindtalents and make the best use of their innate Talent. Although Shael’donn had existed for centuries, Master Ellirt had built the school into far more than it would ever have been without him, and against custom and the displeasure of the Council of Twelve, he had made her a part of it, too, in a time when women and girls were never permitted this level of training.

Behind Haemas the door swung open. She felt the sun-gold warmth of a familiar strength enter the room as the only mind she knew as well as Master Ellirt’s reached out to her. She turned. A man in green riding leathers stood in the doorway, his tan face bleak, his gold-brown eyes questioning. She answered him without words, then flew into his arms, holding Kevisson tightly against the black loss that threatened to consume them both.

* * *

Two nimble ilserin skittered around the edge of a quiet, mirror-surfaced pool in the heart of the great forest, their long green fingers exploring the trees, the brush, the drifts of dead leaves, smelling ... listening ... Their bright black eyes, enormous in their expressionless green faces, noted that someone had come to this sacred place and cleared the faded blue leaves away from the broad white steps leading down into the spring-fed pool. A strange, alien scent lingered, faintly acrid to sensitive ilserin noses.

Leafcurl’s four limber fingers clutched convulsively at his male-brother’s arm as he stared down into the pool constructed so long ago that no one, not even the venerated ilserlara—the ancient Third Ones—remembered how it had been made. He shuddered. One of the dull-green shapes that should have nestled in the sheltering mud below was gone. He turned and embraced his brother Streamleap’s slim green body. Sorrow and distress echoed back and forth between them, building until it was more than either could bear. This was wrong—very, very wrong. Such pools were sacred. No one, not ilserin, ilseri, or ilserlara, would ever think of disturbing one. He trembled and buried his face in Streamleap’s cool neck. Now the mothers, those ethereal, distant creatures who but rarely visited ilserin environs, must be summoned. He trembled at the thought of their mysterious, almost disturbing presence. They would be very angry, distressed beyond all measure at the terrible news he had to convey.

But, then, perhaps they would know what to do.

* * *

So the old fool was dead.

Diren Chee compressed his lips, fighting the smile that wanted to settle there. Ellirt’s death eliminated the last true obstacle to his plans. Gazing around the Council Chamber, he reflected that it had certainly taken him long enough to die. The warning mentioned in the old text against vriddis berries had specifically said that, without antidote, death would occur in “one to two hours.” Kniel Ellirt had somehow lasted more than a day, a wily, tough old bastard to the last.

Mind-conjured blue chispa-fire glittered from small bowls arranged along the clerestory ledge, signifying the seriousness of the occasion. Diren took his gilded seat, third from the left, at the long half-circle table of the Council of Twelve. A dozen perfumes vied as people filtered in to fill the tiered gallery. They were all dressed in their best, Lowland and Highland Houses alike, the women swathed in bright velvets and silks, the men stiff and crisp, even a few children, mostly male, wide-eyed and fidgeting. No matter what the excuse, the Kashi loved a chance to gather and gossip.

Somewhere in that blaze of a hundred different shades of golden hair sat Ellirt’s replacement, the next Lord High Master of Shael’donn. Diren Chee was hoping for someone either stupid or greedy, preferably both. Stupid, greedy men seldom concerned themselves with anything beyond their personal profit.

Steepling his fingers, Diren leaned back in Chee’ayn’s hereditary seat, trying not to notice that the ebari-hide covering was peeling and cracked and the silsha-fur stuffing had long since packed down to a pebbly hardness. Though he lacked the funds to remedy such humiliations at the moment, he would not have to endure them much longer. Reaching into his pocket, he fingered the cool, faceted hardness of the latteh crystal. Soon everyone would have to acknowledge the House of Chee.

At the center of the table, the Council Head, Dervlin Tal, glared at the crowd from under fierce bushy white eyebrows. He was dressed in an ornamental gold-brocaded jacket that left no doubt as to who was in charge here. Famous for his temper, Tal was another tough old bastard who might stand in Chee’s way, but he would see to him soon enough. His fingers tightened around the latteh and he savored the quiescent power it contained. Everything would be taken care of in proper order.

Tal rapped on the gleaming wood of the curved table for silence. Diren stared down at his own reflection, approving the confident, golden-eyed man who gazed up at him. He straightened his collar and lounged back in his chair.

“The Council will now take up the matter of Master Ellirt’s successor for the High Mastership of Shael’donn,” Tal announced.

A flurry of latecomers entered the circular room. Diren recognized Haemas Tal and Kevisson Monmart as the pair passed the Council table without glancing aside. Her face was hollow-eyed, strain evident in the carriage of her shoulders and the set of her jaw. He had watched her at the funeral pyre for Ellirt the night before, her somber profile silhouetted against the red-orange flames, always at Monmart’s side. Then, as now, she had taken his breath away. He sensed both power and passion behind those reserved white-gold eyes, and meant to have them both.

Dervlin Tal scowled at their backs with undisguised animosity. The rift between the Council Head and his daughter had grown only deeper and more bitter with the passage of years, and Diren knew the fact that Haemas Tal was often seen with a person of Monmart’s inadequate station did not help. Although second in Talent and training at Shael’donn only to the now-deceased Kniel Ellirt himself, Kevisson Monmart had been born of an undistinguished Lowlands House and his golden-brown hair and eyes were almost dark enough to be those of a common chierra, hardly a fitting consort for the only child of Dervlin Tal, Head of the Council of Twelve.