Douglas Niles - Prophet of Moonshae

Alicia looked at the expanse of surging sea and wished for a moment that she had faith enough in some deity to allow her to pray. Though she remembered the sudden vitality of the Moonwell, that transformation seemed remote and irrelevant now. It hadn't changed her life; she had seen no further evidence that the goddess was a real presence in the world. She shivered and looked at the twin silver bracers spiraling about her forearms. The metal chilled her skin uncomfortably.

Keane joined her, catching himself on the mast to keep his balance in the pitching, rolling hull. The mage came from the gunwale, where he had just deposited the remnants of their previous evening's dinner over the side. His thin face was cast in a sickly shade of green, but Keane had impressed Alicia by his lack of complaint thus far into the voyage.

"I've always enjoyed a pleasant cruise on a sheltered sea," he informed them, trying unsuccessfully to conceal his chagrin.

"Splendid sailing weather!" boomed Brandon, clapping the slim Ffolkman on the back, a gesture which almost sent Keane lurching back to the rail.

Despite the northman's heartiness, which seemed somewhat forced to the princess, even Alicia's unpracticed eye could see that the swells grew higher and higher as they pressed toward the south. Gray mountains of water loomed over the bow, seemingly ready to swamp the craft, yet somehow the sleek figurehead rose into each precipitous crest and carried the ship smoothly to the top.

There the Gullwing teetered on the breaking summit, white water foaming all around them, and then she tipped forward to careen with dizzying velocity into the trough between the heaving swells. Though the vessel stretched nearly a hundred feet in length, the waves rose or lowered her as if she were a mere cork bobbing in the brine.

"Stroke, you fainthearted wretches!" called Knaff from his position at the stern. The oarsmen redoubled their efforts, and Alicia saw the old warrior turn and bark something to Tavish, who sat beside him. His words were inaudible over the pounding of the sea, but the princess heard the music of the bard's harp, louder than ever, fill the ship with renewed strength and determination.

A gray wall of water rose suddenly, and tons of the icy sea poured over the bow, soaking Alicia and the others as it thundered the length of the hull. The ship wallowed and slowed, growing sluggish, as yet another, higher, wave loomed before the sea gull figurehead.

All the northmen not straining at the oars seized buckets and frantically started bailing the water over the side. Alicia joined them, while Keane clung to the mast, his teeth clenched, his greenish cheeks taut with determination.

The mage fumbled in his pouch as the wave began to break, reaching with greedy fingers of foam to embrace the craft as the vessel nearly foundered. Keane finally removed that which he sought-two tiny squares of crystal. He raised them, pinched between his fingers, as the water crashed downward toward the open hull of the Gullwing.

"Dividius! Arcani-tuloth!" He cried the enchantment as the crew bailed and Brandon looked fiercely upward at the angry spume that threatened to doom his ship.

Keane shattered the two crystals with a snap of his fingers, and abruptly, magically, the frothing barrier parted before the Gullwing's prow. A trough appeared, slicing as if a knife divided the great wave, and the longship slipped through while the swell collapsed into a maelstrom on either side.

Brandon turned to regard the passenger, his face a mask of shock, but Keane took no notice. Instead he stared forward, where gray swells-all of them capped with angry caps of foam-stretched to the far horizon.

And as the mage concentrated, the waves before them parted, and though heaving swells still tossed and smashed on each side of them, a narrow, straight gap had been carved in the sea.

Along this sleek highway, the Gullwing sprang forward as if the ship herself felt the exhilaration of the wizard's triumph.

"Lady Deirdre! Earl Blackstone! What is the trouble? Are you hurt?" The demanding questions were accompanied by persistent pounding on the doors of the Great Hall. The princess recognized the voice as belonging to young Arlen, the castle's burly sergeant-at-arms.

Deirdre blinked, looking quickly from Malawar to Blackstone. The latter still gaped at the place where the intruder's body had disappeared. The former looked mildly at the confused, hesitating princess, and finally he spoke.

"You must send him away, my dear, but reassuringly."

She nodded dumbly, but then her mind began to work.

"All is well, Sergeant," she called, pleased that her voice sounded level and calm. "It was a mild commotion, but the matter is concluded." She crossed to the doors and lowered her voice. "And please, Arlen, I would desire that you keep this matter in your confidence. No harm has been done."

"As you wish, my lady." The sergeant's voice quite clearly indicated that the resolution was not as he wished. Nevertheless, she heard him order several other men-at-arms away. She pictured the strapping warrior taking the position as door guard himself, and she knew that she could trust him not to intrude.

"He-he was dead! It's the same man… but I saw him die! I killed him!" Blackstone recovered his voice, but the brawny earl's tone quavered as his words groped for some kind of understanding. He pointed at the spot where the man had vanished, and they all saw that no spot-no mark of any kind-indicated the place.

"He seemed to be quite alive," said Malawar dryly. "Perhaps you are confused as to his identity."

"But … he sounded the same, said the same sort of things!" Blackstone shook his head, then looked up. "Of course, though. . you must be right. He was dead. . "

The earl turned to look at Deirdre, his eyes wide. "How, lady, did you slay him? What power do you have?"

For the first time, the princess recalled the explosion of might with which she had taken a life. The memory frightened her, yet the sense of triumph gave her a strange thrill as well.

"It-it comes from within me," she stammered.

"You have summoned the Bolt of Talos, an enchantment controlled by the will of a very potent sorceress," Malawar explained. The priest turned to Deirdre and placed his hands upon her shoulders. "Now, my dear," he declared, "you must tend to your country."

"Raise an army?" she asked reluctantly.

"Any further delay could be disastrous," he observed. "You know that the northmen are on the march!"

"I'll notify the lord generals," she said. "They'll have all the cantrevs mustered. It'll take a few days."

"The captains will do quite well," the priest noted. "You can be certain that the war will begin with a vigorous attack."

"I'm concerned about my cantrev," Blackstone announced. "I have to be there in case that column comes over the mountain."

"Yes," agreed Malawar. "You should go."

"Can you stay here for a time?" Deirdre asked Malawar. "As a guest of the castle? I have chambers that are ready even as we speak. You'd be very comfortable."

"I don't doubt that in the least, my lady. But, alas, comfort is not a luxury I can currently afford. No, I have to leave you. There are other matters to which I must attend. I will return to you before the moment of decision."

"As you will," Deirdre concluded unhappily. Before she had completed the last word, her mysterious companion had faded to nothing before her eyes.

"I hate it when he does that!" growled Blackstone, gesturing at the place where Malawar had disappeared. "It gives me the shivers, thinking he might be anywhere, whenever he wants to be there!"

Deirdre paid little attention. Instead, she stared at the place where Malawar had been and thought about the eternal hours that must pass before she would see him again.