Douglas Niles - Prophet of Moonshae

It was stormy water, and a surface that must be crossed by the druid sent on this quest.

A rocky promontory dropped sharply a hundred feet or more into the foaming surf. The steady cadence of the sea came to them from below like a booming tempo that marked away the minutes remaining to them. Danrak felt, with a cold shudder, that those minutes had become all too few. Perhaps not the entire time of his life had been good, but he surprised himself by realizing, when faced with its possible and potentially imminent end, how much he wanted to keep living, to sample many more minutes of existence.

Closing his eyes, Danrak offered a quiet prayer to the goddess. Though he felt no response to his act of faith, the litany soothed him, and he felt better prepared to face the challenge implicit in Meghan's remarks.

"Here, Danrak," said a softly female voice. "I made this for you-just the way it was in my dream." Petite Isolde, her black hair framing a round and very serious face, held an object in her hand.

"Thank you, sister," he said, clasping the small feather in his hand.

"And here, brother," offered Kile, extending a small curved object, the crossed talons of a great wolf's paw.

"You, too, Kile?" Danrak could not help asking. "You had this dream?"

"Aye, and I carved the claw as it was in the dream."

A young druid called Lorn gave Danrak a shiny pebble, which he said had come from a shallow streambed. Danrak saw that it bore a circular spot, like the pupil of an eye. Lorn had smoothed and polished the bauble until now it glowed more brightly than gold.

One by one the others gave him the gifts they had made-things of animal, or plant, or earth. With each bestowal, Danrak felt a flowing of love and a slowly growing sense of power. Each of the druids had spent months in the preparation of the talisman, and now all of their might, limited though it was, flowed together into one. All of them had made the objects of their dreams, and in those dreams, they had given them to Danrak.

Only Danrak had had no dream, had seen no token. Yet he couldn't ignore the combined will and prescience of the others.

"I will go on the quest as the goddess commands," announced Danrak, when they had finally finished. He carried the talismans about his person, in belt pouches and pockets and, in some cases, pinned to his woolen tunic.

"May her benevolence watch over you," said Meghan quietly, her voice catching. Danrak was surprised and touched to see tears gathering in her eyes.

The others stood back, forming a loose ring around him. Trying to suppress the trembling in his knees, Danrak stepped to the edge of the promontory. He didn't look down, yet he remained acutely conscious of the surf pounding against the jagged boulders far below.

It had been decades since any druid had gained power from the goddess, either to cast a spell or to employ the innate abilities of their order. This had been the reason for the talismans, but none of them knew if their hopes had any basis in truth.

Now Danrak took the pebble from Lorn. He looked at it and stroked it with his fingertips. Finally he touched it to his forehead, and then cast it into the distance, watching as it soared to the north and then suddenly veered to the right, to the east. He felt a strong sense of destiny and purpose and now, with the flight of the stone, he knew where to go.

Still, it took an act of faith to see if his intuition-indeed, the hopes and plans of all the druids-had been correct. They didn't know if the years of toil and craftsmanship had indeed been able to impart to them some sense of the old art, the old skills that had gained for the order mastery over the wild places of Moonshae.

Slowly, reverently, Danrak took the feathered token given him by Isolde from a pouch at his side. He looked at the woman and saw her as she had been twenty years ago, a red-cheeked girl bursting with the faith of nature, then confused when that faith had seemed to desert her.

Now she smiled, and once again Danrak saw her as that girl. He tried to remember some of his own faith when the goddess had been real, her power accessible to any druid of serious nature and righteous virtue. Surprising himself, he felt the memories flow into him, bringing a surge of joy the like of which he had never known.

He held the feathered token lightly between his fingers, feeling the wind carry the plumes away as he slowly toppled forward. An image came into his mind, of a white gull dipping along the shore of a sea. Wind rushed into his face, roaring in his ears, and the shoreline whirled below him, rushing upward terribly fast.

And then, instead of striking the rocks, he flew.

From the Log of Sinioth:

My princess, you tantalize me with your dreams. Soon - very soon now-you shall make your pledge, and we will share the same master. Then the secrets will be yours and mine to share.

And then, too, will we share the land of your people.

The northman capital of Gnarhelm was, to Alicia, disappointingly small and rustic by comparison to Callidyrr. The city centered around a hundred great log buildings, which Brandon proudly indicated as the lodges of Gnarhelm's sea captains. Many houses of drab, weatherbeaten wood dotted the shoreline and pastures around the lodges. Tracks of dirt led to them, and sheep and goats grazed on the scruffy patches of grass that browned the yards.

Beyond these great lodges, across the grassy moors that spread inland for miles and reminded Alicia of the rolling country of her parents' home in Corwell, hundreds of small farms dotted the land. The barns and pastures looked brown and withered and much less prosperous than those of the Ffolk. Sheep and goats and occasionally cattle or horses managed to eke out a survival from the harsh terrain.

The streets seemed empty, almost deserted. The princess enjoyed the bustling market of Callidyrr, with its crowds, music, jugglers, and booths. Of course, the rain, steadily drumming since her arrival, discouraged such activity here. In Callidyrr, the buildings along shop streets were lined with overhanging arches, sheltering the walk down either side of the road. Gnarhelm offered no such amenity. Still, she had accepted Brandon's offer to tour the town, and she knew it would be fruitless to wait for a cessation of the rain.

"These are the smithies and the wainwright!" the prince explained as they walked along the edge of the main street of mostly hard-packed dirt. The center of the avenue was a morass of ruts, mudholes, and pools of brown water.

Brandon pointed out several great barnlike buildings. Sounds of hammering emerged from one where the doors stood open, and Alicia saw a craftsmen pounding an iron rim onto a spoked wheel. The princess realized that these, the great centers of this capital, were no larger than any of a dozen such shops that could be found throughout the mercantile quarter of Callidyrr. She refrained, however, from speaking of her conclusions, since the prince's pride in his realm was obvious and she had no wish to offend him.

Finally Brandon led Alicia to the waterfront, and here she saw real fire come into the northman prince's eyes. Salmon Bay jutted like a stabbing finger of sea into northern Alaron, and Gnarhelm occupied the shoreline of a sheltered cove near the southern end of the bay. Alicia marveled at the many graceful longships at rest in the dark, gentle waters of the large, natural harbor.

She counted more than a score of the vessels, each nearly a hundred feet in length, with sweeping lines and proudly curved prows. On some, she saw figureheads, many of women, though others depicted great beasts such as an eagle-headed griffon, a bear, or even a leering dragon. The princess watched a crew haul in the anchor of one sleek longship several hundred yards from shore. The sail of the vessel unfurled with a sudden billow, revealing the image of a crimson hawk, wings spread wide. With practiced ease, the helmsman turned the prow toward the mouth of the harbor, and the ship fairly sprang into the bay.