The Stone of the Stars Page 11

  “I am acquainted with his writings, yes. It was Meldegar who declared that all reality could be compassed by man’s five senses. Now, anyone who has had some acquaintance with animals knows that this cannot be true. A dog, for instance, can hear and smell things a man cannot. A cat may walk with ease through the darkness that causes a man to stumble and lose his way. How then can man be the Measurer?”

  “Ana, you should be teaching at the Academy,” replied Damion, covering his astonishment with a light tone. Where in the world had she picked up all of that? She could never have been a student: in her far-off girlhood days no woman would have been allowed to study at the Academy. But he realized, somewhat to his own surprise, that he was enjoying this unexpected conversation. Though he did not concede her point, she argued it well. Learned minds unfettered by orthodoxy were rare in his experience. He leaned forward, as was his habit when debating with Kaithan. “Ah, but the man understands that certain things must lie beyond the scope of his senses, and so he makes them a part of his knowledge, all the same.”

  “My point exactly!” Ana exclaimed. “It is the mind, Damion—the mind that is the key. Reason as Meldegar defined it actually limits knowledge by making us depend overmuch on our senses, which are dull and easily deceived. I of all people should know that,” she added, waving a hand at her filmy eyes. “The phenomenal world can actually be a barrier to understanding. Once we acknowledge its silent sounds and invisible atomies, we must also acknowledge the possible existence of other, unknown things. The angel, the demon, the faerie—all these are but words for the Other, the immaterial reality. The mind must accept this limit to its certain knowledge, and admit that the universe may be stranger than it can know.”

  Damion’s amazement was growing by the minute. He could find no words to refute hers, and a long pause followed as he sat there speechless. It was dark outside the cave mouth now: from somewhere in the distance came an owl’s mirthless cackle, and the leaves that had not yet fallen sighed and murmured on their boughs. Again, as in his youth, he became aware of the woven sounds of the mountainside and then sensed beyond them a deeper silence: only now that silence spoke to him of the overarching sky, of its endlessly circling celestial bodies and the black fathomless voids above them. He felt lost suddenly, adrift in that appalling immensity, as the once-vast world of hill and forest seemed to shrink beneath it into insignificance.

  After a few moments Ana’s voice broke the silence and the spell it cast. “Tell me, Damion, have you ever heard of clairvoyance—the Second Sight, as our Rialainish friends like to call it?”

  “Well, yes—but I never believed in it.”

  “Yet another thing you don’t believe in! There seem to be rather a lot of them. Let me see if I can make you change your mind about this one.” Ana dislodged the cat from her lap and set her mug down. Going to the table, she picked up the glass globe.

  “Look into this,” she said, bringing it over to him and placing it in his hand. “Oh, it’s not magical. The crystal is only an aid to concentration, like your prayer-mandalas. Look into it, look deep . . .”

  Damion set his mug down on the floor and looked at the shining ball. The firelight danced in its depths, and he could see the shapes of the flames burning within the circle of stones, and the passage opening into the cave’s mouth beyond . . .

  Damion blinked. He knew that objects seen through a globe of glass should be inverted, but the scene he saw was right side up; and he could see a human figure standing by the hearth. He jerked his eyes up: there was no one there. He looked down at the globe, and again he saw the standing figure.

  Damion drew in a sharp breath. The figure was slim, fair-haired, female: as he watched she drew near—nearer. She was dressed in a long green robe or gown. He could just make out her face: eyes green as her garment, creamy skin framed by soft curls that tumbled about her shoulders . . .

  “How interesting!” said Ana’s voice in his ear. She was standing close beside him. “Your mother, it must be—and seen through your own unfocused, infant eyes. A memory from very long ago.”

  He looked up from the crystal, stared at her. “I don’t understand. How did that happen?” he whispered. He held the crystal up, turning it this way and that, peering into the depths that were now clear and empty.

  “The image that you saw came from your mind. The crystal served only to focus your thoughts.”

  “In my mind—” Damion shook his head from side to side. Then he gave a violent start. “But how did you know what I saw? I said nothing.”

  She took the crystal ball from his hand. “You have not heard of the thought-speech—the communion of minds? It was strongest among the Elei sorcerers, who in olden days used it to communicate with one another, even across great distances.”

  “That’s—that’s just a faerie tale.” His mouth was dry, his hands unsteady. There must be a reasonable explanation, there must. It’s all a trick of some kind . . . Damion rose with an abrupt motion. His heel struck the earthenware mug and it fell over, its contents streaming across the stone floor.

  “My dear Damion, you’re not afraid? What is there to fear? You have a gift, a wonderful gift, that’s all . . .”

  The candles had burned down. The only source of illumination in the cave was now the pulsating fire-glow that cast shifting shadows on the rough rock walls. It played on Ana’s figure too: her withered face was half lit, half webbed with darkness, and her eyes were masked. The globe in her hand burned yellow, glutted with captive light. Her shadow loomed up huge behind her. He stared at her, his palms sweating, and the cave seemed to reel around him.

  Old Ana . . . Ana, the witch . . .

  Without another word he swung away from her and made for the cave mouth.

  He heard her call after him, but he paid no heed. A blind unreasoning panic had seized him, and he could think only of returning to the safety of the Academy. In the darkness he could not find the path: twigs clawed at him as he stumbled downhill, and there were scrabbling sounds and strange cries in the underbrush. Around him the forest’s aged trees stretched out gnarled limbs and gaped at him with black-mouthed knotholes. A pathetic receding woodland no longer, it had become again the Dark Forest that had struck terror into the hearts of errant knights.

  He began to run, feeling his way wildly from tree to tree, like a man possessed.

  AILIA SAT BY THE FIREPLACE in the students’ common-room, a circle of little girls from the orphanage grouped around her. A goblin-lantern sat atop a nearby table, casting its fiery grimace upon the far wall: its glow, and that of the flames on the hearth, provided the only light in the room. Bedtime had long gone, but it was an evening for ghostly tales, and the orphans had coaxed Ailia to tell the story of the ghost prince. The older girls held aloof, with the exception of Lorelyn, who sat with the children, chin cupped in one hand, listening as eagerly as they.

  “Long ago,” Ailia recited, “when the old Elei Commonwealth was still great and powerful, a war was waged against the Zimbourans. King Brannar Andarion marched on their capital city with his knights. He was fair of hair and blue of eye, a man of divine beauty” (she was picturing Damion Athariel as she spoke) “for he was the son of a faerie—that is, one of the lesser angels, some of whom still roamed the earth in those days. So he alone was able to fight and slay the Demon King, Gurusha.

  “After Brannar Andarion triumphed over his foe, he remained in Zimboura for a time, riding from temple to temple to tear down the idols of Valdur. Entering one of these unholy shrines, he beheld a terrible sight: a beautiful maiden chained to an altar. She was very lovely, with flowing dark hair and ivory skin and eyes like deepest amber. When he freed the maiden from her chains she fell at his feet in gratitude. Her name, she told him, was Moriana, and she was a human sacrifice, sent to the temple as an offering to Valdur in return for victory over the Paladins. She was of a noble and ancient lineage: not only Zimbouran but also Shurkanese and Kaanish blood ran in her veins, and she was descended from the great
emperors of old. As proof of this she drew out a ring that she had hidden among her garments: it was a signet ring, bearing the coiled dragon that was the sign of the old imperial house of the Kaans. King Andarion offered to reunite her with her kin. But her family was dead, she said, and she implored him to take her with him to Maurainia. Andarion agreed to this, for from the first moment he laid eyes upon her he had fallen in love with Moriana. And so it happened that, soon after their arrival at Raimar, he offered her his hand in marriage, and she accepted.

  “But before a year was out the Maurainians began to be suspicious of their new queen. Word went out that she had lied to the king, only pretending to be a sacrificial victim: in fact she was a priestess of Valdur, and practiced black magic in her private chambers. Andarion, though, would hear no word against his wife, not even from his most trusted councillors.

  “One day, when a party of Paladins arrived at the Temple of Heaven in Trynisia to look upon the holy Stone, the Faerie Queen Eliana herself approached them, and said: ‘Beware! For the bride of your king is not what she seems. She was never offered for sacrifice: that was but a ruse, so that she might win his sympathy and entrap him. Let the king go to the chamber wherein she performs her secret incantations and he will learn the truth: that she is an evil sorceress.’

  “When the Paladins approached him with this counsel Andarion was angered, and said that he would not spy upon his beloved. Yet there must have been some doubt deep within his mind, for one dark night he went to Moriana’s private chamber as she had many times asked him not to do. What he saw therein he never revealed to any living soul. But he came forth with a face blanched and haggard; and Moriana fled the castle that very night. She was never seen by anyone in Maurainia again.

  “More than ten years later, Queen Eliana appeared at the court of the king; and this time she brought with her a young boy. This, she told Andarion, was his son and Moriana’s—”

  Arianlyn looked up. “Ailia, I don’t think this is a proper story for children.”

  “Never mind her!” cried Lorelyn as Ailia hesitated. “Go on!”

  “Well, the sorceress had died and Eliana had taken in the boy, whose name was Morlyn. ‘Watch over him well,’ the Faerie Queen warned King Andarion, ‘for he was born to be a cruel sorcerer and tyrant. If he is not taught compassion that evil may yet come to pass.’ Then she departed, leaving the boy in his father’s care.

  “Brannar Andarion took his son into his household: and when Morlyn was grown to manhood he joined the Paladin order. Yet there was a dark side to his nature, and his father was afraid of him. When the prince chose for his royal sign the dragon, symbol of his mother’s imperial ancestors, Andarion was distressed. And though Prince Morlyn became a knight of great renown, performing many deeds of valor, he was a solitary man with few friends, and never grew close to the father who feared him. After the aging Andarion went to dwell in Trynisia, Morlyn was given the castle of Haldarion and the title of viceregent. But he spent all his days poring over forbidden books of black magic, seeking to understand the powers of Modrian-Valdur’s servants and so devise strategies to defeat them. But as he read he became fascinated by the dark arts, and was tempted to make use of them himself.

  “Many years after the departure of Andarion to Trynisia, trouble came again to Maurainia. The land began to be wracked by mysterious cataclysms, floods followed by droughts, tempests on sea and on land. The sibyls of Trynisia told Andarion of these things, warning him that they were not natural occurrences, but rather the result of an evil power loose in his homeland. And they named Viceregent Morlyn as its source.

  “‘Nay, that cannot be!’ Andarion exclaimed. But the sibyls told him that his son had taken to black sorcery, for over time the Fiend had won him to the ways of darkness. Morlyn it was who ravaged the land with evil spells, for he was an enchanter like his mother before him.

  “Andarion was filled with sorrow, but he knew what must be done. With his friend Sir Ingard the Bold and a great force of knights, he set out for Maurainia. He found Haldarion armed against him, and his son would not come forth. They laid siege to the castle, and the forces of the king had the victory. Breaching the inner keep’s defenses, Andarion and his men entered. But though they searched the keep from roof to cellar, they could find no trace of the traitorous prince.

  “Then Sir Ingard discovered a secret stair, leading down from the deepest of the dungeons into a cavern. Here lay a lake that the sorcerous prince had used as a scrying-glass. And as they gazed in fear upon its dark face, Prince Morlyn came rushing upon them out of the shadows. But his evil magic was of no avail against Andarion, son of a faerie, and he drew his sword instead. They fought, but Andarion held back, and it seemed he must die by the hand of the one foe he could not bear to slay. Then Ingard the Bold leaped forward and fought the prince. Long they struggled, there in the darkness, until at last Ingard struck Morlyn a mortal blow, and the prince fell into the dark lake and arose never again. Thus perished Prince Morlyn the Magician.

  “But Ingard too was gravely wounded, and he begged the weeping Andarion to have him carried up to the surface of the earth that he might die gazing on the heavens. And the Paladins did as he bade them, bearing him up out of that dreary place into the warmth and light of the sun, and there as Andarion held him he breathed his last. And thus Andarion was spared the shedding of his own son’s blood, and Maurainia was delivered from the sorcerer-prince.”

  Ailia leaned back, into the leaping shadows flung up by the flames. “Now, the magisters say that Prince Morlyn was a real person, and people just made up these stories about him after he died. There are others, though, who say it is all true—that he really was a sorcerer, and there really is an underground lake far below the castle. From its dark depths his spirit rises at times, to wander through the ruins of his home.”

  The children squealed. “But it’s just a story, isn’t it, Ailia?” asked one little girl, wide-eyed.

  Seeing that they were alarmed, Ailia hastened to reassure them. “Of course it is. Now you had better get ready for bed.”

  “You’ll give them all nightmares, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Arianlyn in mild reproof as the little girls headed for the door.

  “I thought it was terrific!” declared Lorelyn. She gazed into the fireplace, her blue eyes burning with its reflected glow. “I wish I could be a knight, like Ingard.”

  They all stared at her, and one or two girls laughed. “A knight—but you couldn’t,” said Belina. “You’re a girl.”

  “What of it?” Lorelyn picked up the poker from the hearth and tried a few experimental swings with it. “I’m sure I could wield a sword as well as any boy. And how wonderful it would be to ride about the country, righting wrongs.”

  “Knights don’t do that sort of thing nowadays,” Ailia told her. “Knighthoods are just honorary positions, conferred by the king. And only men can receive them, Lori.”

  “For goodness’ sake put that poker down,” implored Arianlyn. “You’ll hit someone if you wave it about like that.”

  “Why, that’s odd,” said Wenda suddenly, pointing out of the window. ”I thought I saw a light just now, in the men’s chapel. A funny dim sort of light, moving to and fro.”

  “The ghost!” shrilled the little girls, halting at the door and clutching each other.

  “Nonsense!” said Arianlyn. “Wenda, you ought to be ashamed, frightening the children like that.”

  “No, she’s right,” declared Lorelyn. She tossed the poker to the hearth with a clang and bounded over to the window. “There is someone there.”

  “It’s probably just one of the monks, looking for something he left in the chapel,” said Janeth.

  “No, that isn’t it. Something’s wrong,” said Lorelyn. Her eyes seemed unfocused, and she swayed where she stood. “I can feel it . . . It’s something . . . dark.”

  “Lorelyn’s having one of her spells again,” exclaimed Wenda, looking scared. Some of the girls edged away.

 
“Lorelyn, you’re putting it on,” said Lusina sharply. “Stop it this minute or I’ll tell Reverend Mother.”

  The tall girl came suddenly out of her trance. “I want to go over there and look around,” she said.

  “Lorelyn! You can’t!” gasped Wenda. “What if it’s the—the ghost?”

  “What if it is? I’ve never seen a ghost,” replied the other girl. She headed for the door.

  “You’re not to go out there, Lori,” said Arianlyn firmly. “You know we’re not allowed to leave the convent after sundown. If it is a ghost then let the men worry about it.”

  “But someone should tell them about it,” replied Lorelyn with determination. And before anyone could stop her she had sped from the room.

  “Oh, dear,” fretted Ailia, distressed. “Now she’ll get herself into trouble. I shouldn’t have told that silly story.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Arianlyn with a weary look. “The nuns won’t let her out of the building at this hour.”

  “She’ll climb out a window. She’s done it before. I must go after her: if she gets in trouble it will be my fault.” Ailia stood up.

  “Sit down, Ailia,” ordered the prefect. “There’s no use in your getting in trouble as well. You can’t be always helping her. She’ll just have to learn her lesson the hard way.”

  DAMION MADE AN EFFORT to study the notes for next day’s sermon. But the words kept blurring and drifting before his eyes as his thoughts returned to the day’s unsettling events.

  His parents . . . He had not given any thought to them of late. As a boy, of course, he had often wondered about them. He was a mere infant when he was abandoned at the monastery gate, and the monks had never glimpsed the one who brought him. At the orphanage being parentless was normal, however, and he had not been greatly troubled by it at first. The burden of the unsolved mystery of his existence had only begun to make itself felt in recent years, as he moved out of the cloister and into the world. Some of his boyhood friends, like Kaithan, had a few dim memories of their parents; others had been able to track them down in time. Not so Damion: the two nameless, faceless figures in his past grew ever dimmer with each passing year, like fading frescoes. He had reconciled himself to the fact that no answer such as romances provided—no dying nursemaid’s confession, no ancestral locket concealed among his swaddling—would ever restore his full identity to him.