Beneath an Opal Moon (29 page)

He did.

Lunged across the table at the old woman, caught her wrist fast sliding away from him colors streaming all around him like a flight of bubbles feathers fanning the hot humid air sticky and sweaty after working all day in the sun tremendous thirst tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth bloated and so dry that all he could think of was …
Get her!
he screamed at himself. Twisted his arm, felt her wrist snapping like an old dry twig.

The old woman reeling backward the house in tremor she stumbles the house shimmers she falls the house dissolves about him.

Dazed, Moichi sat in the grass, hands flat on the earth. He felt as if he wanted to vomit. Unperturbed, the night chirruped and croaked on around him as if nothing untoward had happened. Some paces away, the luma, heads to the earth, munched grass contentedly. What did they know?

Abruptly, he did vomit. It was over as quickly as it began. He felt weak and he turned over, lay back, staring up at the infinite river of stars, glittering and close by, as if he could gather strength from their illumination. The moonlight hurt his eyes so he closed them. He found that his chest was heaving as if he had run a long distance. But he'd run longer than that, he knew. He had run for his life.

Tsuki's words had saved him.

He had met Sardonyx and almost been defeated. Almost. What information had she desired from him? And what had he given her? Not much, he was certain. He opened his eyes.

He walked back to the luma, feeling somewhat better, and swung up. Beneath the river of starlight he headed northwest, after the caravan.

Demoneye

When he saw her, his heart lightened.

She crouched in the lee of a great glittering granite boulder perhaps a thousand meters from the encampment. Just another shadow.

Immediately he saw her, he dismounted and, leading the luma behind him, crept toward her. The animals were perfectly silent and would remain so now; they knew the enemy was close. Chiisai whirled, her short blade out, but he passed into a patch of starlight and she recognized him. They embraced joyfully.

“Thank the Gods you have come at last,” she whispered, her beautiful oval face sobering. “My horse gave out yesterday and I have been on foot ever since.”

Quickly, he brought her up-to-date.

“I'm so relieved that Martyne was unhurt. I was worried about her since I left. But as for Aufeya, I think perhaps we are already too late.”

“What do you mean?” he hissed. “Has Hellsturm already killed her? Then why didn't you stop him?”

“Calm yourself,” she said. “I understand your concern. But the fact is, she is not within the caravan.”

“Not here? But how is that possible?”

“I cannot say for certain, Moichi.”

“Then she's already at Mistral with Sardonyx.”

“Mistral?”

“A strange castle, Tsuki informed me. On the northwest shore of an even stranger lake known as the Deathsea. It is inhabited by this sorceress.” And he told her all he knew of Sardonyx.

“I see.” Chiisai's brow was furrowed in thought. “There seem to be plans within plans here.”

“What do you know? Martyne told me—”

“Yes. The Land of the Opal Moon. I could scarcely believe it when I heard.” She put her back against a rock and, after taking a quick glance at the caravan's encampment, continued. “There is a legend that I have heard, although I do not think it has Bujun origins. Perhaps it had its genesis during the time that Ama-no-mori was part of the continent of man.”

“You mean during the sorcerous wars.”

“Yes. It is said that there came into being at that time a place where all time ceased to exist, where all time coalesced, an opening in the fabric of our universe, like the incision of a surgeon's scalpel. Perhaps it had been inadvertently created as a by-product of the continuing pernicious spells being conjured, or perhaps through a means totally unknown to our world. In any event, this Eye of Time, once it was discovered, opened up terrifying possibilities. If one could slip through, for instance, all the secrets of the future could be had and brought back; victory for the first sorcerer through would be assured. Yet it was not to be so simple a task, for this Eye of Time was inimical to humans and even sorcerous spells proved no protection from the deadly vortex. Thus the site was abandoned and its location forgotten; and thus it passed into the realm of legend.”

“Are you saying that Sardonyx has learned of this—Eye of Time's location?” Chiisai nodded. “But what good would it do her?
This
is the future those sorcerors would have come to; they would have found nothing.”

“You miss the point, Moichi. If Sardonyx manages to gain entry there, she can
go back
to the time of the Kai-feng or beyond; to a time when sorcery was potent. She could bring back all the sorcerous creatures—”

He raised a hand. “Enough! I see what you mean. But—are you saying that the location of the Eye of Time is here in Kintai?”

Chiisai nodded. “The legend tells us that the Eye is located in a land where the moon is always full and when you look at it it appears round as a ball, not flat as in other lands. Its color is not the silver of the north nor the gold of the east nor the blue of the west nor the orange of the south. No, it is of all these colors and more. An opal moon.”

Almost involuntarily, Moichi looked skyward. “But look there, Chiisai. The moon is horned and is as red as a rose.”

“Yes,” she whispered, “so it is. But the legend states that the one entrance to the Land of the Opal Moon is across a plain lit by
ninsō-waru
, the Demoneye.”

“So here we are.”

“Yes.”

“Then, if Sardonyx's castle is near here, she has been in possession of that bit of information for quite some time. This is not what Cascaras and Aufeya possessed.”

“No. There is, unfortunately, more.” She sighed. “After the end of the sorcerous wars, there came into being a story about an artifact. It cropped up in a number of disparate places, giving that much more credence to its veracity. Somewhere, it was postulated, was the artifact-key to the puzzle of the Eye of Time. Some, even, claimed that they had seen it. But since each gave a different location and none, it seemed, proved to be correct, its actual existence was discounted by most. Still, others dreamed and hoped, keeping its name alive: the Firemask.”

There was a brief hissing along the narrow ledge of shale.

He remained motionless, staring into the tiny ruby eyes of the scaled lizard, its horned ridged crest making it seem like an apparition out of prehistory. Its forked tongue licked out, questing along the rock as it regarded him incuriously. A slow pulse beat in the hanging flesh at the juncture of its neck and lower jaw. Then it had scuttled past him, into a crack in the rock face. It stared stonily at him.

He squinted upward. Streaky clouds, faintly luminescent, drifted overhead but never came near the bloody moon.

He ignored the pain in his chest, straining his ears, listening for the tiniest sound out of place, because there was a lot of loose shale down there below him and a totally silent approach, he knew, was next to impossible. It could be a lot worse, he reflected: Hellsturm could be a Jhindo and then he would be in for it because the night was the Jhindo's world. But Hellsturm was only a
koppo
adept. He laughed inwardly but there was little humor in it; he was not, after all, the Dai-San, and the Tudescan had destroyed Kossori.

While he waited, crouched high on the narrow ledge, alone in the night, he had time to think. It had begun well enough. He and Chiisai had both decided that they could not let the caravan reach its destination, which they knew now to be Mistral. Hellsturm and presumably now Sardonyx already knew half of the vital information; Aufeya possessed the other half. How explosive that information was! Pieced together from what Martyne had told them about Cascaras and what Aufeya had told Moichi about Hellsturm, this became the only possible conclusion: Together, Cascaras and Aufeya had discovered the location of the fabled Firemask.

Whatever Hellsturm now brought to Mistral would have to be intercepted. There was no alternative.

The caravan encampment was centered in a shallow dell bordered on the left by a dense copse of oak trees and on the right and to the rear by sheltering rock.

There were four Tudescan warriors. But Hellsturm was shadowed by another man, short and squat but as muscular as a bull. This man was not Tudescan but Moichi recognized him as a Tülc, a member of an obscure tribe of folk to the north. They lived on the vast snow-covered steppes and wore the skins of predatory animals such as the wolf and the bear. Their headmen wore the skulls of these animals, covering the top halves of their faces. Moichi had come across a Tülc aboard the second ship he had signed on with. What the man was doing so far from home Moichi never learned, but it had not even occurred to ask him, for Moichi, too, was far from his native land and had no desire to talk about his own reasons for leaving. But he had learned other things from the man. The Tülc were a fierce people and, in many ways, only semicivilized. What one was doing with Hellsturm was impossible to ascertain.

In all, there were six.

“A fair match-up,” Chiisai had whispered, grinning. But he had not shared her optimism.

The Tudescans were up and battle-ready in an instant, even though he and Chiisai had come upon them as silently as they were able. They had another advantage, however, for the Tudescans seemed contemptuous of a woman warrior. Until, that is, Chiisai dispatched the first man they sent against her with one swipe of her dai-katana. She ducked under the attack of the Tudescan and skewered him from front to back just below the breastbone.

Cursing, Hellsturm immediately sent two men against her.

For her part, Chiisai was as calm as the water in a lake as she faced this dual charge. She stood her ground, unmoving, hands placed one above the other on the long hilt of her weapon, holding it vertically so that the tip touched the earth.

The Tudescans split, coming at her from either side. So massive were both the warriors, they appeared to be giants rumbling toward her. The one on her right drew fractionally first, beginning an oblique strike.

Left to right the strike came and, two-handed, Chiisai brought the dai-katana up to block, precisely as if she were holding a wooden staff that had neither cutting edge nor sword-point. In the same motion she continued the sweep horizontally and down so that, as the point dropped below the second warrior's incoming blow, it lanced inward with a blur, slicing the Tudescan open from his right side through to his spine. His weapon flew from his hands as he went down.

Now she ducked under the first warrior's cut and, leaning forward, tried a reverse blow. This he parried and, in counterattacking, used such force that she was almost struck from her fighting position. She recovered in time to deflect a strike aimed at her neck but the flat of the heavy sword smashed into her shoulder. She winced and twisted her blade upward so that the point pierced the warrior just above his Adam's apple, slashing into the brain.

Moichi was now fully engaged in combat with the remaining Tudescan warrior. The man struck twice and on the third blow succeeded in separating Moichi from his sword. Moichi cursed himself silently for not having been a better student. But he had never been sufficiently interested in swordsmanship. Pity he had not known about this moment then.

The Tudescan's face split in a feral grin as he moved in for the kill. That expression stayed permanently in place. He had not even seen the motion of Moichi's left hand. Foolishly, the grin still in place, he stared down at the thick copper handle protruding from his chest. He coughed once and pitched backward.

There was only Hellsturm now. And the Tülc. That one moved toward Chiisai as Moichi turned to confront Hellsturm.

The hood of his cape had been pushed back and for the first time Moichi saw his face.

He was stunningly handsome. This came not so much from the individual features of his face—his nose was too straight, his mouth just a touch too wide, the lips thick and sensual—but from an intermix which made of the whole something unusual. There was about him the distinct air of an animal—dangerous, cunning and amoral, all part of the undeniable masculine magnetism which had drawn both Tsuki and Aufeya.

His deep-set eyes were black and this, too, seemed to be the only color he wore. His leather helm was ebon as were his chain-metal corselet, leggings and high boots. The only touches of color were at the front of his helm and on the buckle of his wide weapons belt. Here had been painted a small blood-red cross surrounded by a circle of the same hue.

Moichi picked up his dirk, wiping the blade clean on the dead man's cloak, then retrieved his sword. During this time, his eyes never left the figure in front of him. He put away the dirk, held his sword, point slightly higher than hilt, in front of him.

Hellsturm smiled at him and came forward, his white teeth gleaming in the moonlight, sharp and moist and pink-tinged. He did not touch the sword that swung slightly, scabbarded at his side.

“You know what I am.”

It sounded like the sibilant whisper of a summer's breeze and the dissimilarity between visual and aural was so enormous that he was shocked. Hellsturm might have been talking to his lover. Moichi winced inside when he thought of Tsuki and Aufeya.

He had a chance if he could get Hellsturm to draw his sword. If he couldn't—He lunged forward in a feint but the other danced nimbly away and shook his head, his tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth so that now he sounded like an old lady.

“Oh no,” he said. “No, no, no.”

And raised his hands like blades.

Moichi sheathed the useless weapon, maneuvered so that his side was presented, giving a narrower target, but Hellsturm was too swift and he came on and it was all Moichi could do to deflect with his wrists the three, four, five hand-strikes in rapid succession.