Mistress of the Night (22 page)

Feena gasped and flinched back. Her hand darted up to clutch the battered disk of her holy symbol. "That's monstrous!"

"And so the ancient New Moon Pact became the reviled New Moon Heresy, its members damned and the very mention of it erased. The pact survives only in remote inscriptions and barbarian tales, the mere mention of the heresy only in charges that take more than a decade to even identify." Dhauna closed the great tome and said, " Our Silver Lady shield us from such horrors."

Feena swallowed and said, "But if the priestesses of

Glister could even be accused of such a thing
" She

looked up. "Dhauna, could the New Moon Heresy have been reborn here? Is that what Selune is trying to warn you about?"

"No," said Dhauna, a gentleness returning to her voice. "There's no truth to the Heresy. It was a false accusation-terrible, but false. The priestesses of Glister were caught by a shadow of a memory of it. And whispers of the Heresy in my dreams..." The High Moonmistress patted Feena's cheek. "A clue, nothing more. One I misinterpreted in my

weakness. Heresy is a danger, but knowledge of the New Moon Heresy was necessary only to uncover the truth of the Pact."

"Then why did Selune send the dreams at all?" Feena asked in confusion. "What does she want?"

Dhauna's gentle smile hardened. "She wants me to bring back the New Moon Pact. That's clear to me now. She wants me to lead the fight against her enemies outside of the temples—and within it. My summoning of you, that was part of her plan, too."

Feena stared at her. "What?"

"Only lycanthropes could belong to the New Moon Pact." Dhauna Myritar reached up and wrenched with magic-enhanced strength at the neck of her robe, tearing it wide to expose her chest. "Bite me, Feena! Turn me into a werewolf!"

peena stared at the High Moonmistress in shock.

"No!" she spat. "Dhauna, that's-"

"Insane?" Dhauna's eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed, but her voice was steady. "That's what you all think of me already, isn't it? My ears are still sharp, Feena, and in spite of what everyone seems to think, so are my wits. There are things to be seen by moonlight that sunlight cannot reveal." She moved closer, holding her torn robe wide. "Bite me!" she ordered. "You were the one my thoughts turned to the night of that first dream. Selune knew I would need you here to share her blessing with me! With it, I will be stronger, more vital—the Moonmaiden's arm!"

"Dhauna, no," Feena said. She backed away from the old priestess. "Being, a werewolf isn't a blessing. Do you know what would happen if I were to bite you?"

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't." Dhauna lowered

her hands from her collar and said, "On the night of next full moon, I will take the form of a wolf, with no more than an animal's wild instincts. I saw it happen to you as a girl. We had to lock you in one of the chambers in the infirmary until the night was over. But you learned to control it, didn't you?"

Feena gasped. "I learned to control it, yes, but I was born a werewolf. The wolf has always been inside me. In you..." She spread her hands. "Mother Dhauna, the beast would rage out of control. Believe me. I've seen it happen all too often."

"Control can be taught."

"I—" Feena ground her teeth together, cutting off her own words. "No. I won't do it."

Dhauna hissed, "You have to." Her voice rose and broke. "You have to! Selune has guided us both to this moment."

"I won't!" Feena shouted.

Her refusal echoed in the sudden silence. Dhauna stared at her with hard, cold eyes. After a moment, she said softly, "I see."

"Mother Dhauna..." Feena began.

The high priestess just shook her head. "I feared this," she said. "You reject Our Silver Lady's call. I'm sorry, Feena." Her arm rose, fingers curled into a mystic sign. "By the Moonmaiden's light, let your hidden spirit be revealed!"

Silver light lanced out as if the full moon itself were captured in Dhauna's curled fingers. Feena gasped—then shrieked. The sound of her dress ripping apart vanished in the pain that washed over her. Fur raced across her skin, burning like fire. Her joints and bones popped and rearranged themselves. Muscles1 shifted and broke. Her face tore as it grew into a muzzle. The forced change was harsher than anything she had ever endured. When her paws hit the floor, it was all she could do to stay on them.

"The New Moon Pact," snarled Dhauna, "will be reborn!"

The night above the terrace of the Sky's Mantle was black and featureless. No moon. No stars. It draped down to shroud Yhaunn in darkness, wrapping it in thick, still heat. The terrace was the only source of light and noise.

Keph sat at a long table, the center of attention. Jarull, Starne, Baret, and Talisk sat with him, all of them laughing, all of them drinking the wine that flowed freely from a pitcher in the middle of the table. Strangely, Variance was there as well, laughing and drinking right along with them. Even stranger, so was Bolan. The priest's weird, flawless face didn't move, even when he laughed.

And they were all laughing a lot at the stories Keph told. At least Keph thought they were stories. He couldn't actually hear himself. Whenever he spoke, the words just came out as an indistinct buzz, something like a fly in a hot room. Whatever he was saying, though, it was clever and funny. Confidence rolled through him and he wished he could hear the story himself. It must have been good, maybe the best tale ever told. Everyone was hanging on his words.

Not just his friends, either. When he turned his head to the side, he realized that the table was a lot longer than he'd thought. It stretched out like a banquet table. Crowded around it were all of Shar's cultists, some hooded, some boldly barefaced. There were other people, too. The denizens of the Cutter's Dip: Stag, Drik, Noyle, Lahumbra, Kor, and other men and women he couldn't name. He focused on a knot of them as they fawned over him.

I know you, he thought, but from where?

They were Lyraene's friends—the cronies who backed her in the fight on the bridge.

"That's right, you bastard!" the half-elf shrieked. She leaned over the table, her face damp with sweat, her blond hair limp around her delicately tapered ears. "They're yours now. You wanted them, you got 'em. They didn't want to be around me anymore."

She thrust her right arm in front of his face. What shriveled flesh clung to her bones was red and oozing, flaked with tattered patches of black crust. Her hand and wrist were twisted, muscles and tendons drawn taut by Quick's lightning. Keph's stomach rose at the sight and he lurched back.

"You're not going to take that, are you?" asked Jarull.

Keph spun to look at his friend. Jarull sat close to Variance—very close. Their hands were entwined, the matching amethyst rings nestled together and winking at each other in the light. The purple gleam reflected in Jarull's eyes.

"Believe in the Lady of Loss," said Variance. "Your faith is strong, isn't it?"

Keph turned back to Lyraene and raised his hand. Shar's disk dangled from his fingers to lie like an eye in the center of his palm. Lyraene sneered at him and reached out with her burned hand.

"Shar take you!" Keph snarled.

Shadows welled up like smoke, billowing silently over the half-elf. Between one heartbeat and the next, she was gone.

Ecstasy blossomed in Keph as night's power swept through his soul. Drunk on it, he whirled and raised his hand to Lyraene's former friends.

"Shar take you!"

Darkness swallowed them as well. Their laughter disappeared. Keph spun to Stag, Drik, and the others from the Cutter's Dip.

"Shar take you!" he commanded, pointing at each of them in turn. "Shar take you! Shar take you!"

One by one, they vanished into the shadows. His friends and the cultists just laughed louder and cheered him.

"The Mistress of Night has chosen," roared Jarull. "And she has chosen Keph!"

Only one person was no longer laughing. Bolan glared at Keph, his eyes dark holes in his white face. Keph faced him and slowly raised his hand once more.

"Shar take you," he said.

The darkness that swallowed Bolan burst out of his eyes and swarmed across his face—Shar took her priest from the inside out. Variance reached across the table and touched Keph's arm.

"The Mistress of the Night has a great destiny for you," she said. "You'll take his place."

"Oh, yes," said a bitter voice. "That's Keph—always taking someone else's place."

Feena thrashed desperately, trying to shake her trembling legs free of the tattered remains of her gown. Dhauna kept the light on her. Its radiance was maddening—she could feel it pressing against her, glaring in her eyes and throbbing in her brain as if she had stared too long at reflections in water on a bright day. Feena tried to change back, but couldn't. The magic stirred the wolf in her even as it dazed the woman. A thin, helpless whimper forced its way out of her throat.

"Be silent!" Dhauna hissed. "You brought this on yourself." With her free hand she fumbled for the holy symbol at her neck. The chain snapped, and Dhauna held the symbol up. "Tremble before Selune for her gaze is upon you!"

Magic crushed down on Feena. Her whine rose as Selune's power shifted and changed like gathering storm clouds, the goddess's will tearing through her already shaken spirit.

No, some part of her thought, not Selune's will— Dhauna's. The magic might descend from Night's Bright Lady, but spun out in the prayers of a mortal, it was nothing more than a blunt club wielded by Dhauna's madness.

Feena desperately clung to that thought in the face of the dark fear that flooded over her. Rage flared in Dhauna's eyes. The old priestess thrust Selune's symbol at her.

"By the Moonmaiden!" she cried. "By the Bright Lady of Night and Our Silver Lady!" She took a step forward.

"You—"

She took another step. Feena scrambled back.

"—wiM—"

Another step. Feena cowered.

"—yield!"

Energy, invisible and formless, surged in the rawest expression of Selune's faith, the ultimate power of the goddess of the moon over a creature of the night. It ripped away any illusion of control, and Feena howled as helpless terror seized her, wolf and woman recoiling as one from Selune's high priestess. Instinct took over. She scrambled back, tripping over her own legs in panic. A stack of scrolls blocked her way. Her claws shredded the ancient parchments as she thrust herself as far as possible from Dhauna.

Cold stone stopped her. She pressed herself into a corner, the hair on her neck bristling high, her teeth bared.

Dhauna turned with her, one hand still presenting Selune's symbol, the other still clenched around silver light.

"You are weak, Feena Archwood," she raved. "Weak and foolish! I am Selune's hope. Her warnings speak to me, and through me the New Moon Pact will be reborn! Through me, her faith will be cleansed. I will be her hand. There will be no fear. There will be no heresy, and no heretics." Her eyes narrowed. "Have they taken you, Feena?" she asked. "Have they already caught you in their web of lies?"

The words barely pierced Feena's terror. All she could do was growl at her tormentor. Saliva fell in a long string from her mouth. Dhauna bared her own teeth in response.

"You will be restored, Feena. I promise that. You will see I'm right. I do this out of love for Our Silver Lady." Her eyes shone fever bright. "Now do what your goddess calls you to do!"

She took a step forward.

Cornered, driven beyond fear, Feena snarled, snapped— then leaped. Powerful jaws bit down, tearing into Dhauna's outstretched arm. Dhauna shrieked as she stumbled backward under the wolfs weight. Blood spurted hot in Feena's mouth.

------

Keph turned to look down the table. Roderio looked back at him. His brother sat—along with Strasus, Dagnalla, Malia, and Krin—at the dining table of Fourstaves Hall. Just as they had for breakfast. Keph's breakfast was laid out before him as well. The Sky's Mantle was gone. So were the Sharrans except for Jarull and Variance. They stood behind him, hands on his shoulders. Keph stared at Roderio.

"What do you mean by that?" Keph demanded.

Roderio snorted derisively and said, "Just what I said, little brother." He pushed his breakfast away. "You're always taking someone else's place, borrowing someone else's power. From the day you were born, always 'Mama, I want Rodo's food! Mama, I want Rodo's toys!'" Roderio's voice rose high and whining. "'Da, I want magic like Rodo and Mali!'"

"Roderio," said Dagnalla, "don't taunt your brother. He's too young to know any better."

Roderio just made a face. "So now you're going to be Shar's dark priest, is that it, Keph? You're still just borrowing power. Even if you have magic now, it's not yours. It's Shar's."

"Shut your mouth!" screamed Keph. He lifted a clenched fist and opened it.

Dark, glittering magesbane dust was heaped on his palm. He flung it at Roderio.

His anger caught it and turned it into a shining, swarming cloud. Suddenly his brother was flailing back away from the table, shrieking and tearing at his clothes as glittering particles settled onto his skin and collapsed into drops of thick, yellow-green acid. His robes began to

smolder. When he turned to Keph again, huge red sores had been eaten into his face. Acid poured in smoking streams from his eyes. Skin was sloughing off his melting hands.

"Keph..."he choked.

Fear stabbed into Keph's heart. What had he done?

"Rodo!" he gasped, and started to rise.

Hands held him firm.

"Tell me you regret it," said Jarull.

"The agony of an enemy's spirit is joy to the Mistress of the Night," said Variance.

Keph watched Roderio slump into formless, bilious ooze.

"No!" he shouted, struggling to stand. Variance's grip tightened harshly and she look down on him.

"False regret," she hissed. "Everything that you've done, you've done deliberately."

"Keph?" Malia said, staring at him in loathing and hatred. Krin and Dagnalla were staring too. Only Strasus kept eating, oblivious as Malia spat at her youngest brother. "This was no accident? You did this?"