Julian May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon

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Julian, May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon

CONQUEROR'S MOON

THE BOREAL MOON TALE: BOOK ONE

JULIAN MAY

ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK

An Ace Book

Published by The Berkley Publishing Group A division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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Julian, May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon

Hudson Street New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales

is entirely coincidental.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not

participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. ACE and the “A” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First American edition: January 2004 Previously published in Great Britain in 2003 by Voyager Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

May, Julian.

Conqueror’s moon / Julian May.—1st American ed.

p. cm. — (Boreal moon tale; bk. 1) ISBN 0-441-01132-2 1. Feudalism—Fiction. I. Title.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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Julian, May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon

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Julian, May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon

CHAPTER

~~~~~~~~~~

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Julian, May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon

PROLOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

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Julian, May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

~~~~~~~~~~

THE TWELVE MOONS RHYME SUNG BY CATHRAN CHILDREN

Snow Moon, Storm Moon, winter fast.

Wind Moon, Green Moon, spring at last.

Milk and Blossom follow after,

Then comes Thunder, God’s own laughter.

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Julian, May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon

Corn and Harvest bring their boon,

But Hunters curse the Boreal Moon.

Last of all the Ice Moon drear

Doth bring the end of Blenholme’s year.

Each of my successors may pose to me one Question before singing the Deathsong, and I will answer true.

—Bazekoy, Emperor of the World

prologue

The Royal Intelligencer

==========

In obedience to a command from the throne commuting my death sentence, the Lord Chancellor of Blencathra banished me to the continent two years ago, with an adequate stipend

that will continue so long as I keep my mouth shut. Left unsaid was what would happen if I did not. Cutting off my pension would doubtless be the least of it; and I fear it’s only a

matter of time before my silence is ensured by more economical means.

Well, if I’m caught, so let it be. I value my life, as every man does, but there’s also a great fatigue having nothing to do with bodily weariness that tempts me to release my grip and

allow all the burdens to fall away.

But not yet, I think. Not quite yet.

For prudence’s sake, every morning I perform a shortsighted windsearch encompassing a dozen leagues or so round about my dwelling. I’ve not yet found anything or anyone

suspicious. The one minor sigil I managed to take away with me from the palace at Cala Blenholme remains under my bed in a locked lizard-wood box. It’s called Night Preserver,

one of the non-hurting sort, hardly worthy of the Lights’ notice, primed for defense against assassins dispatching me in my sleep. But a truly competent cut-throat would have little

difficulty getting at me during waking hours, so of late I have had to review my situation and decide whether or not I want to retain control of it, or surrender at last.

Surrender is such a seductive option when one is very old.

My years number four score and one, and I’ll certainly die soon of something, whether it be the infirmities of age or foul play. But shall I go unregarded and unsung, in the manner

that I lived most of my life… or is there a more amusing option?

The gold of my royal pension has bought me a comfortable house in southern Foraile along the River Daravara, five rooms furnished well, with a peg-legged manservant to cook and

keep the place from getting too squalid. This is a pleasant land, warm throughout most of the year and kind to old scars and bone breaks, where the breezes blow soft and musk-

fragrant, and folk having arcane talents such as mine are so rare as to be the stuff of peasant legends. But I never before lived a tranquil life, and perhaps my attempt to do so now lies

at the root of my present mental unease. Tranquility, to one of my stripe, is boring. No one is so pitiable as a derring-doer put out to pasture, no one so frustrated as a tired old spy

without an audience to impress with his cleverness.

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Julian, May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon

When I first arrived in this over-placid exile, I spent some time each day overseeing my old haunts, especially Cala Palace and its ants’ nest of scheming courtiers and retainers. Not

for curiosity’s sake or with any hope of learning fresh secrets, but out of a pathetic longing for those hazards and intrigues that once caused my blood to sing even as my stomach

wrung itself like a bile-soaked sponge.

The diversion was a dangerous one, for I am no longer the peerless scryer I used to be, and my own unique talent shielding me from other windwatchers is fading fast, like the other

arcane abilities I inherited, all unknowing, from my strange ancestor. If Cathran magickers should catch me spying on the palace, my blood would surely be forfeit. I had to ask

myself if this rather tepid species of fun was worth the risk. At length, I decided that it was not.

But the pleasures left to me are so few! I am too frail of body to ride or hunt or even explore the tame jungle surrounding my house. My traitor stomach rebels at rich food. Expensive

wines and liquors only put me to sleep without gladdening my spirit. And not even the cleverest bawd from the local house of joy seems able to rekindle the sweet fire in my nethers.

There’s really only one source of delight left to me now.

Mischief.

The telling of secrets.

The tearing away of masks.

Why provoke trouble in piddling small ways, when one has the potential to bring on a grand firestorm that will rock a kingdom? Why not stir my sluggish passions by reliving the

old dangerous life I loved?

Sitting here on my shaded porch above the languid tropical river, with only indifferent birds and my grouchy housecarl Borve to take note of my labors, I shall write it all down. At

the end, if God wills that I finish, I’ll return to the island and publish the story myself. It will be supremely gratifying to revel in the ensuing scandal. Why should I care then if my

reward is the sharp blade belonging to an agent of the Cathran throne, cutting my scrawny throat?

Highborn or low, the people of High Blenholme would all know who I am at last.

==========

I was born in Chronicle Year 1112, in the Cathran capital city that was called simply Cala in the days preceding the Sovereignty. My name is Deveron Austrey. Although rumor had

it in latter days that I was the by-blow of some wizard, the truth is that my father was a harnessmaker in the palace stables, as was his father before him. This would have been my

work as well, had not fate decreed otherwise. My mother was a laundress, and my memories of her are scant, for she died in childbirth when I was five, taking her unbreathing babe

with her. Apparently, neither of my parents showed any evidence of arcane talent. My own didn’t evidence itself until I began crossing the threshold of manhood, and I was slow to

recognize it for what it was.

My father perished of wildfire fever when I was eleven years old, so I became apprenticed to my grandsire, irascible and half-blind, but still one of the most ingenious leather-

workers in the royal household. I had not a tenth of his artistic skill, but I labored dutifully at my trade, urged on by the occasional smack on the ear, one more among scores of

insignificant crafters in the stables, until an alert head groom took note of an odd thing.

Horses were uncommonly docile when I fitted them out in harness. Even the most fractious destrier gentled when I took him in hand, and before long I was the one called to saddle

up the huge, evil-tempered stallions trained to fight in tourneys with hooves and teeth, as well as the mettlesome coursers preferred by Prince Heritor Conrig and his high-spirited

young band of Heart Companions. My gift with horses was really a species of wild talent, the first to manifest itself.

The second talent to bloom was nearly the death of me.

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Julian, May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon

When Prince Conrig was an unbelted youth of nineteen, not knowing what else he was, and I was twelve, still working with leather but also filling in as an undergroom, I had

occasion to lead His Grace’s skittish horse to him before a hunt. He spoke to me kindly, and after looking him in the eye I dared to answer back with what I thought was an innocent

observation.

Horrified by what I told him so casually, the prince thought at first to have me killed. (And told this freely to me later, as he swore me to secrecy with a formidable oath.) But even

then I possessed a glib tongue and a winning manner, and after close questioning and deep thought, Conrig realized that I could be supremely useful to him in a singular way. So he

made me his fourth footman, in time dubbing me Snudge because of my artful sneakiness, and thus my later patrons also styled me.

My crabby grandsire, deprived of a useful dogsbody by my promotion to the royal household, predicted that nothing good would come of me aspiring beyond my God-given place.

He died a few months later, by which time I had completely forgotten his dire prophecy. Whether it was true or not I leave to the judgment of those who read this tale of mine.

I was Royal Intelligencer throughout most of my life. I fought and fled and skulked and snooped and committed red murder and magical mayhem in the service of King Conrig

Ironcrown and his three remarkable sons. I was condemned and reprieved by another of that family, who continues to rule peaceably enough in the wake of the Sovereignty’s

dissolution.

I was perhaps the most humble of their arcanely talented servants, but so insidious and necessary that I witnessed—and even secretly helped to bring about—many a regal triumph

and defeat. That was in times long past, four thousand leagues to the north, on an island where sorcery was once taken for granted and inhuman presences still share the world with

mankind.

Continental readers unfamiliar with my former home may appreciate a brief description of it, and they would also do well to consult a map as the story unfolds. Others may skip

directly to the first part of the tale, here following.

==========

High Blenholme, an island in the Boreal Sea, is a rugged, roughly oblong land-mass with a broad northwesterly extension. It is about four hundred leagues in width and measures

roughly six hundred leagues from north to south. Blenholme means “moon island” in the old Forailean tongue. At that northern latitude, a trick of the eye makes the heavenly orb

seem much larger than normal at certain times of the year, and so the moon enjoys a prominent place in local religion and folklore.

What with the wildness of the waters surrounding the island, the reefs and frowning precipices that guard its approaches, and the Salka, Green Men, Small Lights, and Beaconfolk

who haunted the place in prehistoric times, High Blenholme was shunned by Continental explorers and would-be settlers until the mighty invasion fleet of Bazekoy the Great sailed

into Cala Bay, and he himself planted his standard at the mouth of the River Brent. That portentous event marked Year 1 of the Blenholme Chronicle.

The emperor’s heavily armed, disciplined forces drove the sluggish Salka monsters beyond the central mountain ranges and the Green Men into the Elderwold. The Small Lights

were only a minor threat to humankind and learned the virtue of staying inconspicuous, while the mighty Beaconfolk unaccountably gave no resistance at all to the invasion. Perhaps

they were in the mood for fresh amusements!

Bazekoy named the fertile southern part of the island Blencathra (“moon garden”), and it soon attracted hordes of farmers, herders, and hunters from the teeming mainland. The

discovery of iron ore in the west and rich copper deposits along the River Liat led Bazekoy to establish mining and smelting operations, and even facilities for manufacturing

weapons and armor to further his continental conquests. By the time of the emperor’s death in Chronicle Year 62, Blencathra was a thriving province, exporting not only metals but

also grain and many other kinds of valued goods to Foraile, Stippen, and Andradh, and even to other nations more distant.

After Bazekoy’s incompetent successors allowed his empire to disintegrate, Cathra became an independent kingdom—although still attractive to continuing waves of immigrants

from the politically turbulent Continent. Over the next thousand years the entire island was gradually taken over by humankind and most of the surviving Salka forced into the fens or

the dreary Dawntide Isles far to the east.

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