Woman Who Loved the Moon (4 page)

“You are certain you are not hungry,” said Seramir.

“I am certain,” Rhune said firmly. He sipped more wine, glancing with unfeigned curiosity round the room. The furniture was ebony, the tapestries fine woold, and the table-top—he rubbed his fingertip across it—was a thin smooth slab of pale green jade.

Seramir said softly, “Well, Rhune-who-is-not-a-fleetmaster; is my house fine enough for you?”

Rhune said, “Lord, I have never seen anything like it.”

“Does not Shea live in such luxury?”

“Not like this,” said Rhune. He gazed at his host. The wizard was dressed in fine silks. A gold brooch of a dragon rode his right shoulder. “Thank you for admitting me to your kingdom, lord.”

The wizard lifted his golden cup. “Shall I spurn what Shea valued?” he said. “Though I am very curious to know what brings you here.”

“Lord, I will tell you,” Rhune said. It seemed strange to be naming this man ‘lord.’ Yet it seemed to Rhune that Seramir and Shea had something—he was not sure what—in common. It was nothing so simple as the habit of command. He wondered if the mere possession of magic could change a woman or man’s face and eyes... The flame in Seramir’s dark eyes gleamed like Shea’s sea-green ones. The resemblance was suddenly so acute that Rhune had to look away.

Staring into the wine in the cup, he told the story he and Shea had devised. It poured out of him easily. At the end of it, Seramir pursed his lips. “Having served one wizard ill,” he said, “you still desire to serve another?”

Rhune swallowed. “In serving one wizard ill,” he answered, “I learned a harsh lesson. I swear I would serve you well, lord. Give me a ship under my feet and I can ask no more of you.” He let bitterness steal into his voice. “There is nowhere else for me to go, lord, except out of the Eastern Counties. No one of Skyeggo would employ me now. If you cannot trust me on a ship, let me chip barnacles off the hulls of rowboats. But I beg you not to send me away!”

The wizard nodded. “I see why Shea Sealord valued you,” he said. “I will not send you hence. Tell me—what do you feel for him?”

Rhune drank. “I hate him,” he said, and was not surprised to hear the words surge out with real truth.

“You have cause,” said Seramir. “Would you do him ill, if you could?”

Rhune said, carefully, “I came here to leave an old life behind, lord.”

“Well said,” said Seramir. “So, you would be a sailor, a captain, and not a traitor?” His tone sang with irony. “Do you like the taste of the spices in the wine? We mull it in our own kitchens.”

Rhune’s throat constricted. Mulled wine was heated. He set the cup down quickly.

“Is your thirst quenched?” said the wizard. “Mine is not. Drink, Rhune-the-traitor!”

Rhune’s right hand grasped the golden cup and lifted it to his lips. Helpless, he drank.

“That is excellent,” said Seramir. “Now, tell me truly why you have come to my island.”

Rhune began to speak, then stopped. His mouth felt full of cotton. His head ached. Then slowly, thickly, he told the Firelord exactly why he had come to the mountain, as the wizard’s dark eyes raked his face with flame.

* * *

It was dark; a soft, cool, safe darkness.

Hand in hand with Marisa, Rhune climbed the mountain paths. Breaking from him, she ran ahead of him, but he found her again lying in a hollow in the earth, waiting for him. Her hair burned red as fire. Above them the Firemountain hissed, a many-headed python whose tongues were made of smoky flame.

After their lovemaking, Rhune strained to hold Marisa at his side, but she broke his weak grip easily. “It is near dawn,” she said, “and I must go. So must you. Meet me tomorrow night under the Tower.” She ran, red hair shining, up the stony slope toward the red mouth of the volcano. A great weariness came over Rhune. He rubbed his eyes. He needed to sleep now, to sleep and sleep until midnight, when he would wake and leave his bed and find Marisa again.

He spent most of his waking hours with her. Rarely did he see the other inhabitants of the house. Sometimes his servants woke him and dressed him in rich clothes and led him through the halls of the house to a great room, and there he would see the Firelord. He dreaded those times, though he did not know why. The Lord always spoke gently and kindly to him, and gave him good things to eat and drink, and did not keep him long.

He stared at the sky. The light was growing. Low in the east the morning star faded, flickered, and vanished. Worry nagged him like a sore. He thought, I should be home in bed. They will not like my being out after dawn.

Rising from the hollow their bodies had warmed, he began to stumble slowly down the mountainside to the house. He was higher up and farther away from it than he had ever been before. The path was not clear to him; in the brightness of the morning he lost it several times. He had to wander higher along the slopes to find it. Finally he lost it altogether. Disturbed and exhausted, for it was now way past sunup and the sun lay full upon him, he thought of a way to find his path. He climbed with difficulty to a ledge, and looked from there for the cool, regular shapes of the Tower and the Hall.

He saw them, but he was very high, and he saw beyond them the glittering, swinging, blue-green coil of the ocean.

He sank down to the rock, and stared at it.

When his anxious servants found him, he was stumbling on the lower ridges of the mountain, far from his original trail. They took him down the mountain by the shortest way, and brought him, dazed as he was, directly to the Firelord. He seemed to hear and see them through a haze or dream.

“A touch of sunstroke, Lord,” said one of the servants, trembling. “He has been a night creature for so long that he cannot face the sun.”

The Lord sat in his great stone chair on a dais. “Bring him here,” he said.

Two men led the unresisting Rhune up the dais to the chair upon which the Firelord sat. “Kneel!” they said. He knelt. Dark eyes searched his face, and a hand came out to hold his chin. The touch burned like flame.

“You are weary, are you not?” said the soft, deep voice. “Where have you been? Your clothes are scratched and torn. Why are you back so late?”

“I lost the path—could not see—the sun—” Rhune slumped in the arms of the servants.

The fingers lifted from his chin. “Put him to bed and let him sleep. Which of you is responsible for permitting him to wander alone on the heights?”

There was anger in the question. The guards shivered and looked at one another. Finally one of them stepped forward. “I am, Lord.”

Seramir stood up, and someone cried out. In his hand swung a bright coil. The man who had spoken said nothing, but he shook on his feet.

Twice the length of a man, of searing flame, the lash beat at him. He flung up a hand to guard his eyes. Four times it struck him The fourth blow drove him to the floor. With a snap, Seramir coiled the fiery whip. “Help him up,” he directed.

“Tend him until he is healed.” Gingerly the men took their fellow from the hall. Rhune they took to his own room with the heavy black curtains across the windows They pulled off his boots and put him to bed, and went away. As usual, they left one of their company to stand guard outside his door.

Rhune heard them whisper awhile, and finally leave. Slowly he sat up. He rubbed his eyes with his fists, like a child. He was very tired, his eyes hurt, but he willed himself to stay awake a little longer. He wanted to think.

The room was hot. He wondered if they kept it so to keep him sleepy. He could hear his guard whistling through the door. His dazed condition had been an act, and false. He had seen the path to the house at once, and had seen, too, a plausible place to wander and be lost in. His faint upon the dais had been false as well, and he had seen what, if he had seen it before, he had never remembered: the Firelash. He thought, Seramir does not know that I saw it, that I am awake. He does not know I saw the sea. I am Rhune. That is my name. I remember that now. I remember, too, that I sailed here across that sea from somewhere else, in a boat, with a design...

Need for rest numbed him. He did not know what kept him mindless and happy in Seramir’s power. Something in the food or drink...? He could not remember. But he
had
seen the sea. He remembered his name. He remembered, too, that he was a man accustomed to the light and air of day. Yet here on the Firemountain he slept all day, and lived at night.

He bit his lip, hard. The pain helped him stay awake. He was afraid that after he slept he would return again to mindlessness and play. He thought, I do not want to do that. He wondered why he was here, shut in this little room with no windows and a guard outside. He could not remember, and it was important that he
did
remember. Maybe it was indeed something in the food which kept him stupid. He had to sleep. He yawned. He could not stay awake any longer. He swore to himself, he would remember about the food. He would remember that he
had
seen the sea...

* * *

He slept, and woke, and slept again.

The first time he woke, the guard came in with a golden goblet filled with hot, spiced wine. “Drink this,” he said.

Rhune feigned sickness. “Please,” he whispered, “may I have some water?” The guard frowned and muttered, and brought him some. “Thank you,” Rhune said.

When he woke for good, they brought him more hot wine, and food. He poured the wine (a little at a time, so that they would think he drank it) behind his bed. He did not eat the food, but wrapped it in a cloth and hid it in his pockets, to toss to the owls and foxes that night.

At midnight, as was his custom, Rhune went out to meet Marisa. She came smiling to him, red hair glowing, body deft and quick as flame, and pressed herself against him. He kissed her, but he knew now what she was: no true woman, but an illusion, a being created out of magic and fire, and given shape and purpose by the Firelord. She had no soul, and daylight withered her, so that she had to run at dawn away from him, up to the fiery heart from which she came.

He could no longer trust her. Still, she was wild and beautiful, and it gave him pleasure to be with her in the starry night. Again as day began she broke away from him with a whispered promise to return.

When he woke from sleep again, he drank only water. His head cleared as his body grew hungrier. Maybe, he thought, something in this house can tell me who I am and what I am doing here. With some trepidation, he said to his guards. “I wish to walk around the house tonight, and see its wonders.”

They laughed at him. “What might a lackwit like you see?” said the one who was supposed to guard him that night.

“Oh, take him,” said a second. “We’re supposed to keep him happy, remember.”

The guard snorted. His name was Hraki; he was a smaller man than Rhune, and overquick with his hands. “I’ll keep him happy,” he said. “I’ll take you.”

“But I want to go by myself,” Rhune said petulantly.

“You? You’ll get lost. You’ll go where I take you.”

Rhune nodded, pleased. He had thought to be thwarted in his request, and it was being half-granted.

That evening he set out to learn the secret places of the house, and to look for traces of his mission in its halls. In the kitchen he sat on a stool, and watched the cooks and kitchen-maids at work. His guard grew bored, and went to talk with one of the girls. Rhune made sure that no one was looking at him, and then snatched meat and fruit from a table. He gulped it quickly, before Hraki returned. With this wholesome food, strength seemed to flow through his bones.

Hraki came back, scowling. “What are you doing?” he demanded, straightening his clothes. He did not look happy, and Rhune wondered if the girls had teased him.

“Nothing,” he answered hastily. He guessed that the drugs which suppressed his memory had also suppressed his strength. He recalled that once he had been counted a very powerful man, knowledgeable in the ways of weaponry and war. When he rose from the stool he was careful to look no different to his guard, but he moved with greater surety. He wondered again what it was that he had come to the Firemountain to do. He thought, They must fear me if they drug me to keep me weak.

Hraki dragged at his shoulder. “Come on,” he said impatiently, and Rhune wondered why the man was so impatient. They climbed a stairway to the second floor. Rhune went slowly, pretending to be weak. But his sharpening eyes looked at everything, and forgot nothing. He began to build up a picture of the great house in his mind, like the drawing of a map within his head.

All the windows were obscured by dark heavy curtains. Rhune tried to push one aside. Hraki backhanded him away from it. “You know you aren’t allowed to look out!” he said. Rhune stepped back, but as he did so he lost his footing and fell against the curtain, knocking it aside with his shoulder.

Hraki seized it and pulled it closed. “Clumsy fool!” He slapped Rhune, harder. Rhune kept his face unchanged, and as if emboldened by his silence, the guard hit him again. Rhune did not react, though his shoulders tensed. But through the crack in the curtain he had seen the reflection of fire and starlight on the surface of the sea. Ignoring Hraki’s brutality, he wandered along the corridor, smiling within the vacancy of his face.

On the third floor Hraki would not permit him to enter any of the chambers. “These are the Lord Seramir’s own rooms,” he said. “If we should enter them—” he shuddered. “Come on.”