P. C. Hodgell - Kencyrath 02 - Dark of the Moon

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Dark of the Moon

Table of Contents

Characters

Present And Past

Prologue:

The Story So Far

Chapter 1

Fire and Ice

Chapter 2

The Hell Hunt

Chapter 3

Old Friends, Old Enemies

Chapter 4

First Blood

Chapter 5

Under Green Leaves

Chapter 6

The High Council

Chapter 7

A Rage of Rathorns

Chapter 8

Interlude with Jewel-Jaws

Chapter 9

The Haunted Palace

Chapter 10

The Lurking Past

Chapter 11

Into Shadows

Chapter 12

Night Pieces

Chapter 13

Converging Paths

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Chapter 14

Gathering Forces

Chapter 15

The Killing Ground

Chapter 16

Blood Rites

Epilogue:

Moon Rise

Appendix I:

The High Council

Appendix II:

The Master's Generation

Maps

DARK of the MOON

P. C. Hodgell

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

Paper versions are available from

Meisha Merlin Publishing Inc.

www.meishamerlin.com

ISBN 10: 0-689-31171-0

ISBN 13: 978-0-689-31171-0

Cover art by P. C. Hodgell

First Baen Ebook, April 2007

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To my father, Robert O. Hodgel

1922-2000

the consummate artist.

Characters

Present And Past

In The Kencyrath

The High Council

ADRIC, LORD ARDETH OF OMIROTH BRITHANY: his Whinno-hir mare PEREDEN: the

last and youngest of his sons, in command of the Southern Host BRANT, LORD BRANDAN OF

FALKIRR CALDANE, LORD CAINERON OF RESTORMIR DONKERRI: his grandson

GENJAR: his son, who led the Southern Host at Urakarn GRAYKIN ("GRICKI"): his spy at

Karkinaroth KALLYSTINE: his daughter, Torisen's limited term consort LYRA: also his daughter,

consort to Prince Odalian NUSAIR: his son, Donkerri's father SHETH SHARP-TONGUE: his

randon commander DEMOTH OF THE COMAN, Kraggen Keep KOREY: his half brother and

rival for control of the Coman ESSIEN AND ESSIAR, LORDS EDIRR OF KESTRIE

HOLLENS (HOLLY), Lord Dam'or of Shadow Rock: a distant or bone cousin of Torisen's

JEDRAK, LORD JARAN OF VALANTIR: patron of the Scrollsmen's College at Mount Alban

ASHE: a former randon, now a scrollswoman and singer attached to Mount Alban KEDAN:

temporary lord after Jedrak's death KIRIEN: Jedrak's great-great-grandchild and heir RION: his

great-great-grandson KENAN, Lord Randir of Wilden: patron of the Priest's College at Wilden

KlNDRIE: a Shanir of his house, disowned for leaving the priesthood TORISEN, LORD KNORTH

OF GOTHREGOR, HIGHLORD OF THE KENCYRATH, also called the Black Lord or

sometimes "Blackie" BURR: his Kendar servant GANTH GRAY LORD: his father, once Highlord

until his defeat in the White Hills and exile to the Haunted Lands HARN GRIP-HARD: his randon

commander JAME: his twin sister JORIN: her blind ounce MARCARN (MARC): her friend, an aging

Kendar LARCH: one of his former officers in the Southern Host ROWAN: his steward at Gothregor

IMMALAI: an Arrin-ken from the Ebonbane

In Perimal Darkling

GERRIDON: the Master of Knorth, once Highlord, who betrayed his people to Perimal Darkling in

exchange for immortality GLENDAR: his younger half-brother, who led the remnant of the Three

People to Rathillien after Gerridon's fall and became Highlord in his place JAMETHIEL

DREAM-WEAVER: Gerridon's twin sister and consort, also called the Mistress KERAL: a changer,

half-brother to Terribend and Tirandys TERRIBEND: Tirandys' brother, who disappeared at the time

of the Fall TIRANDYS: a changer and Gerridon's half-brother, whose sense of honor led him to follow

his fallen lord even though he knew that this would lead to his own damnation; also Jame's Senethari or

teacher in the Senethar

In Tai-Tastigon (SeeGod Stalk)

BANE: a fallen Kencyr, possibly Jame's half-brother BORTIS: a brigand and Taniscent's lover THE

B'TYRR: Jame's name as a dancer CLEPPETTY: housekeeper and cook at the Res aB'tyrr DALLY:

Men-dalis's younger brother, who loved Jame and was murdered by Men-dalis, who thought he had

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betrayed secrets to her GHILLIE: hostler and musician at the Res aB'tyrr HANGRELL: an apprentice

thief who injured Marc and whom, in turn, Jame delivered to the city guard to be flayed alive ISHTIÉR:

a renegade priest of the Three-Faced God MEN-DALIS: Theocandi's rival for Leadership of the

Thieves' Guild PENARI: Jame's master in the Thieves' Guild SCRAMP: a thief who hanged himself,

partly because of Jame THE TALISMAN: Jame's nickname in the Thieves' Guild TANISCENT

(TANIS): the Res aB'tyrr's former dancer, who died of an overdose of Dragon's Blood given her by

Bortis THEOCANDI: lord of the Thieves' Guild, who stole the Book Bound in Pale Leather from Jame

and accidentally burned his brains out with it TUBAIN: innkeeper at the Res aB'tyrr

Elsewhere

GRISHARKI: warlord of the Grindarks KRUIN: late King of Kothifir, who went hunting wolvers

KROTHEN: Kruin's son, present king of Kothifir and the Southern Host's employer MOTHER

RAGGA: the Earth Wife of Peshtar, a far-hearer ODALIAN: Prince of the Agontiri of Karkinor, a

would-be ally of the Kencyrath and Caineron's son-in-law THE WOLVER GRIMLY: a poet and

werewolf from the Grimly Holt

Prologue:

The Story So Far

SOME THIRTY MILLENNIA ago, the entity known as Perimal Darkling first breached the barrier

between the outer void and the series of parallel universes called the Chain of Creation. It began to

devour universe after universe, invading each one in turn by way of the threshold world that linked it to

the adjacent dimensions.

To meet this threat, the Three-Faced God forged together three races from different threshold worlds

into the Kencyrath. Then, apparently, he abandoned them. The Three People— Highborn, Kendar, and

catlike Arrin-ken—found themselves alone, pitted against a foe too great for them. And so the long,

bitterly fought retreat began from world to world. As the fighting skills of the Kencyrath increased, its

number dwindled and its bitterness grew. The Three People felt betrayed by their god and yet unable to

refuse the role that he had forced on them. Honor alone upheld them.

Then one man rebelled. Gerridon, Master of Knorth, Highlord of the Kencyrath, offered himself and his

followers to Perimal Darkling in exchange for immortality. He persuaded his twin sister and consort,

Jamethiel Dream-Weaver, to dance out the souls of the Kencyr Host. On that night, two-thirds of it fell.

The remnant fled to the next threshold world, Rathillien.

At this point, the Kencyrath has been on Rathillien nearly three thousand years. In all that time, there

have been no major clashes with Perimal Darkling, though the Perimal Darkling and Gerridon have taken

over part of the planet, and the Highborn have long since begun to fight among themselves. Some

thirty-three years ago, one of these power struggles, combined with a major battlefield defeat in the

White Hills, led to the exile of the then Highlord, Ganth of Knorth, called the Gray Lord.

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Ganth settled in the Haunted Lands, near the Barrier between the free lands and those controlled by the

Perimal Darkling. He took as consort a mysterious Highborn lady whom he brought back one day out of

the hills near the Barrier, seemingly out of nowhere. She bore him twins: Torisen and Jamethiel, called

Jame. Then she disappeared back into the hills.

Ganth didn't particularly want a daughter, especially when it became clear that Jame had inherited Shanir

blood, which linked her, as it had both the Master and her namesake, to the oldest, most feared powers

of her race. Ganth cursed her and drove her out of the keep.

Jame crossed the Barrier into Perimal Darkling. She was gone from Rathillien for at least ten years of her

life, apparently spending most of that time in Gerridon's House. Then she fled back to her home world,

bringing with her an ancient object of power called the Book Bound in Pale Leather but no clear memory

of what had happened to her during all that lost time. She found that on Rathillien more than twenty years

had passed. She also found her old home, but now it was only a broken shell containing the dead. Her

twin brother alone wasn't there. She took their father's ring and his sword, Kin-Slayer, and went

southward to look for Torisen.

What she came across first, though, was the city of Tai-tastigon, where she was delayed for more than a

year. During her stay, she became involved in the Thieves' Guild, where she made a name for herself as

the Talisman, and with an inn called the Res aB'tyrr, where she discovered that she had not only brought

the Book out of Perimal Darkling, but fighting and dancing skills that drew on her Shanir blood in

alarming ways. The latter ability proved especially useful, however, when Ishtiér, renegade priest of her

own god, went mad and she had to dance down the rampant power of his temple before it could destroy

all Tai-tastigon. At the same time, war broke out in the Thieves' Guild and Jame found herself accused of

the Guild Lord's murder. She fled the city with her ounce Jorin and the Kendar Marcarn.

This story begins three days later.

Chapter 1

Fire and Ice

The Ebonbane: 7th of Winter

TAI-TASTIGON BURNED.

"Wake, wake!" shouted city guards under windows barred for the night. Fists pounded on doors. Bells

began to shrill. From the roof of the Council Hall came the sudden boom of the warning horn, all five of

its mouthpieces manned at once.

The citizens woke. They tumbled bleary-eyed into the streets to find the sky alight overhead. From the

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north came shrieks and the crash of falling buildings. An unearthly wail rose from the Temple District as

the gods, bound in their sanctuaries, felt the stones heat around them. Fiery motes danced in the air.

What they touched, burned: roofs, clothes, flesh. Panic spread. Now people were running, some already

on fire, down through the twisting streets, toward where the River Tone ran between dark buildings.

Quick, the water. The swift, cold current bore them downstream under the soaring bridges to smash

against the prow of Ship Island or drown in the white water along its sheer sides.

On the island itself, in the Palace of the Thieves' Guild, an old man sat in a tapestry-hung room. On his

lap lay a book bound in white leather with the texture of an infant's skin. His head tilted back. Gaping

mouth and empty eye sockets opened only into darkness.

The chamber room door burst open. A man clad in royal blue stood on the threshold, his golden hair

shining softly in the gloom. He stared at the old man. An unpleasant smile twisted his handsome features,

but when he turned to the dark figures crowding the corridor behind him, they saw only anger and grief in

his face.

"The Talisman has done this," he said to them. "Get her."

A low growl answered him. The hallway emptied. Moments later, shadowy forms slipped through the

streets, oblivious to fire and ruin, growling still. Swift as they were, rumor outpaced them:

The Lord of the Thieves' Guild is dead, is dead. The Talisman has slain him. Brother thieves, the

hunt is up!

The Talisman ran for her life, ran for home. One corner more, and there was the inn, the Res aB'tyrr,

blazing. Dark figures came at her, silhouetted by the glare.

"The fire might have spared it, Talisman. We didn't."

They closed in on her. Someone inside the inn began to scream. She fought her captors' sooty hands,

shouting the names of her friends: Cleppetty, Ghillie, Taniscent. . . . But here was Tanis now, clinging to

her arm.

"A party, Talisman, a lovely party, and you're the guest of honor! See, here's a friend to escort us."

The brigand Bortis shambled out of the darkness, grinning. The blood streaming from the red ruin of his

eyes looked black in the light of the burning inn. He took her arm. The streets were lined with silent

people, staring at her: Hangrell, Raffing, Scramp with the rope still around his neck, Marplet . . . dead, all

dead. Judgment Square. The Mercy Seat.

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Dally was sitting on the stone chair. He looked up, smiling, and courteously rose to make room for her.

His skin hung in tatters about him.

"I loved you, Talisman. See what your love did to me."

Still smiling, he bound her to the chair with strips of his own skin.

They were all coming for her. Firelight flashed off knives, off short, flaying blades, their edges white hot.

She huddled back in the Mercy Seat, but they kept coming, coming . . .

"No!"

Jame woke to her own cry of horror. Stone pressed against her back, but where were the knives? The

air here was cold, so cold that it seared her lungs as she drew a deep, shuddering gulp of it. Where was

she? The wind keened and snow stung her face, numbing it. No, not in Tai-tastigon at all, but high above

it in the storm-locked passes of the Ebonbane. She had fled the city before the thieves could catch her.

Now a blizzard had her instead, and she was lost in it. But why was it so dark? She drew back against

the rock that sheltered her, fighting the first feather touch of panic.

"Marc, where are you?"

Jorin whimpered in her arms. Blind from birth, the ounce cub saw through her eyes—when she could

see anything at all.

"Marc?" Fear sharpened her voice, making her sound even younger than her nineteen-odd years. "Why

is it so dark? Did you let me sleep past moonfall? Marc?"

Feet crunched on the snow. "Lass? Softly, softly. Let me look."

She felt the Kendar's big hands gently touch her face.

"H-have I gone snow blind?"

"Ah, no such thing. Your eyelids are only frozen shut."

Tears?thought Jame.But I never cry. Then she remembered the inn.

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"They all burned to death," she said unsteadily. "Cleppetty, Tubain, everyone at the Res aB'tyrr except

Taniscent, and she was dead already."

"Well now, I suppose it could happen," said Marc slowly. "A good bit of the city was burning when we

left, but that was three days ago, after the worst of it, and the inn was safe enough then. Now, if you

were a farseer—"

"But I've been spared that at least, haven't I?" Jame's voice sounded strange even to her, as if it

belonged to someone else, locked away in the dark, gripped by nightmares and memories. "You needn't

remind me that I'm Shanir. The old blood, the old powers—god-spawn, unclean, unclean . . ."

Marc shook her. Gentle as he was, the tremendous strength in his hands shocked her away from the

memory of her father shouting those words after her as he had driven her from the keep that had been

her home, into the Haunted Lands. But that had been long ago, before the years in Perimal Darkling,

which she could no longer remember, before she had returned to Rathillien to lead her double life as the

Talisman, apprentice to the greatest thief in Tai-tastigon; and as the B'tyrr, tavern and temple dancer.

Jorin anxiously touched noses with her. Then she felt the rasp of his tongue on her frozen eyelids. There

in the dark, still closer to dreams than reality, she tried to sort one from the other.

"So the Res aB'tyrr is probably safe, but Dally and Bane. . . . Is Dally really dead?"

"Yes. Very."

Jame shivered. "And Bane? Is he dead too?"

"We can only hope so."

So, in the end, it came to that. Bane, Dally, Tanis, Scramp. . . . She gave a bitter laugh. "It occurs to me,

somewhat belatedly, that I'm rather hard on my friends."

At that moment, the ice sealing her eyelids at last melted away. Jorin rubbed his soft cheek against hers,

purring. His whiskers tickled. Marc had let her sleep almost until morning, Jame saw, but in that time the

storm had eased. Now more snow seemed to be blowing than falling, and the full moon low in the sky

glowed through a thinning cloud cover.

By its light, Jame regarded her friend with concern. The biggest mountaineer's jacket they had been able

to find barely fit across his broad shoulders, much less down those powerful arms. The exposed wrists

looked blanched. His beard was white too, both with frost and years. At ninety-four, late middle age for

a Kendar, surely he was too old for such a desperate adventure.

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"Why did you ever let me talk you into this?" she demanded.

"As I recall," he said mildly, "it was more a case of not being able to talk me out of it. We'd pretty well

decided even before the uproar that it was time to leave. You have that twin brother of yours to

find—name of Tori, wasn't it?—and I've an itch to see old friends in the Riverland. We're going home,

you and I. This is just the shortest route."

"Right. Just as jumping out a third story window is the fastest way to the ground."

"Oh, I've tried that too," said the big man placidly.

Jame started to laugh, then drew in her breath sharply. Simultaneously, Jorin's head snapped up. The

ounce might see quite well through her eyes, but she had only recently gained a limited use of his nose

and ears. Now she heard what he heard, distorted at first, then all too clearly.

"Wolves," she said, and scrambled to her feet.

Marc rose almost as quickly, but his stiffened knees betrayed him and he lurched against a rock. "No,

no," he said absently, pushing Jame aside as she reached out to steady him. "Always stand clear or

someday I really will fall and smash you flat." He drew himself up to his full seven-foot height, towering

over her. "Wolves, you say? If we're lucky."

"Trinity. And if we aren't?"

The howling began again, closer, unexpectedly shrill.

"Wyrsan," said Marc. "An entire ravening of them, from the sound of it, and headed this way. They may

be smaller than wolves, but they're faster and fiercer. These rocks won't protect us for long if they catch

our scent. There may be better cover up near the Blue Pass."

He stepped out into the open. Leaning into the wind, he trudged stolidly up the nearly invisible path

between snowdrifts, his bulk breaking both the ice crust and the wind's force for Jame as she struggled

after him with Jorin bounding along behind her in their footsteps. The worst of the storm might be over,

but the wind was still savage and the driven snow blinding. Jame could see nothing of Mounts Timor and

Tinnibin, which must be looming over them now, or of the Blue Pass, which cut between them, straddling

the spine of the Ebonbane.

The situation was bad enough without wyrsan on their trail. Not much was known about these beasts

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because they usually kept to the deep snow of the heights during the brief travel season when the passes

opened. Superstition claimed that they were possessed by the souls of the unavenged dead. Rumor had

it, perhaps more accurately, that they were prone to killing frenzies and could tunnel nearly as fast under

the ice crust as they could run on top of it.

The two Kencyr had risked this winter crossing largely because they had hoped to find quite a different

sort of creature here among the jagged peaks. Long ago—nearly two thousand years, in fact—the first of

the Three People had grown disgusted with the rest of the Kencyrath and retreated to the wilds of

Rathillien to think things over. They were still at it. One of these catlike, almost immortal Arrin-ken made

his home here in the Ebonbane, but Jame had been mentally calling to him for three days now without

success. It looked as if she and Marc were on their own.

Abruptly, the Kendar stopped and Jame ran into him. He shouted something, then turned and climbed

the snow bank to the right. Jame scrambled after him. A sloping snowfield stretched out before them,

wind rilled, sheltered by the flank of Mount Timor. Snow blew over their heads off the mountain's spine.

The ice crust here was thick enough first to bear Jame and Jorin's weight, then Marc's.

Jame drew level with him. "What did you say?"

"I thought we might find something useful up here. The top of that mound up ahead might be our best bet

for a stand."

Not far away, Jame saw a rectangular pile of rocks about ten feet high with sloping sides and a flattened

top. Suddenly, she knew exactly where they were. This was the field where Bortis and his band of

brigands had slaughtered last season's first caravan, the one Jame herself would have joined if it hadn't

been for Marc's unexpected arrival in Tai-tastigon. That thing ahead was the burial cairn of the victims.

The wind moaned about it, raising ghosts of snow around its black flanks. Subsequent caravans had not

only raised this monument, but, to conciliate the dead, had built into its outer walls whatever personal

possessions the brigands had overlooked. Here a bride's broken mirror gave back a splintered reflection

of the moon, there a wooden doll thrust a stiff arm out between the stone blocks. Jame slowed, staring.

Her own people believed that while even a single bone remained unburned, the soul was trapped, but

here were hundreds, thousands of bones.

Marc had reached the cairn. "Come on, lass," he said, holding out his hand. "You first. We only have to

hold on until dawn."

Jame still hesitated. This was ridiculous. She had dealt with bones before, and with the dead themselves,

if it came to that. They simply obeyed their own rules. Once you found those out, you could usually cope,

however messy things got. Besides, in a sense, she and Bane had already avenged these poor folk in that

before the massacre, he had put out one of Bortis's eyes protecting her; and after it, she had gotten the

other one defending Jorin. No one had seen Bortis in Tai-tastigon since. She wondered fleetingly what

had become of him, then put him out of her mind and began resolutely to climb the cairn's sloping side.

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摘要：

DarkoftheMoonTableofContentsCharactersPresentAndPastPrologue:TheStorySoFarChapter1FireandIceChapter2TheHellHuntChapter3OldFriends,OldEnemiesChapter4FirstBloodChapter5UnderGreenLeavesChapter6TheHighCouncilChapter7ARageofRathornsChapter8InterludewithJewel-JawsChapter9TheHauntedPalaceChapter10TheLurkin...

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