‘I can’t stand it any longer. I’m going in there –’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
The sweet woodsy scent of vetiver wafted into the room. A silhouette was standing in front of the tall undraped window, completely enveloped in a deep-green cloak. Ullanoth’s Sending had flashed into existence with no warning. A hand, pale as milk and wearing a ring of carved moonstone on one long, graceful finger, emerged from the folds of cloth and extended itself toward Conrig.
He hastened to take the hand, brushing the back of it with his lips. He carefully avoided any contact with the ring, which was a powerful sigil named Weathermaker. ‘Gracious Queen, welcome.’
Ullanoth of Moss unfastened her cloak and handed it to the High King as though he were a simple lackey. Except for the purplish shadows about her eyes, her face was as lovely as ever, framed by shimmering long hair that mimicked the pearly interior of certain seashells. Her gown was the same unadorned green samite as her cape, and her belt was gold, with a hanging purse. Around her neck hung a golden chain with a curiously carved small translucent pendant that glowed in the dim room like wan foxfire – the Great Stone named Sender, the third major sigil that she owned. Its power, invoked only at the cost of terrible pain now that her debt to the Lights was so heavy, enabled Ullanoth to inhabit a magical simulacrum of her natural body, in which her soul might travel anywhere in the world while her true flesh lay senseless. The Sending was no vaporous ghost, but rather a warm and solid replica with a full palette of physical sensation, able to carry from its point of origin all clothing and other accoutrements worn or held by the original. It could not, however, draw sustenance from food or drink at its destination, nor could it carry back any foreign object. And if the Sending remained in existence for more than a few hours, the true body would begin to deteriorate mortally.
There was another important limitation to the Sending that only the most advanced arcane practitioners were aware of: it could materialize only near a talented person, from whom it drew magical substantiation.
‘Then Risalla’s unborn child is free of talent!’ Conrig cried joyously.
Ullanoth nodded. ‘Yes. Tonight, I’ve used Vra-Stergos as my substantiator. Let us go to your wife now and determine whether the babe is male or female.’
The three of them went into the room where Risalla lay, but after a few suspenseful moments Ullanoth stepped away from the sleeper’s couch and shook her head. ‘Alas for your hopes, my king! Your wife carries a healthy girl, without arcane talent as all of her sex must be, unless they are of far northern human blood…or doubly descended from the Green Ones.’
Conrig groaned. ‘If the laws of Didion prevailed here, the lass might reign as their great Queen Casabarela did! But Cathra reserves its crown for male issue, and so must my Sovereignty.’
‘Unless the law is changed,’ Stergos put in with a hopeful smile.
‘Don’t be a fool, Gossy,’ the king exclaimed. ‘Why should the Lords of the South agree to change it now, when all save we three believe there are two legitimate male heirs to the throne? We can only hope for a better outcome to a future pregnancy, and meanwhile pray that no enemy learns the secret of my poor sons and I.’
‘There are only two enemies,’ Ullanoth said, ‘that need concern you now.’
Conrig and Stergos regarded her with open dismay, each thinking that she must have heard the rumor about Maudrayne and her son.
But the Conjure-Queen went on to say, ‘My little brother Beynor knows nothing of your own talent – not yet. But he’s up to some kind of mischief with the Salka. I’ve been too indisposed to spy on him closely with the Loophole sigil of late, but my ordinary scrying reveals him to be in a state of unusual excitement. I’ve told you that Beynor spends his time studying the historical archives of his monstrous hosts in the Dawntide Isles. I cannot read lips well, and the Salka have erected magical barriers that dim my unaugmented oversight of their citadel. But I believe that Beynor may have made some important discovery. And he may have shared it with your old enemy, Vra-Kilian Blackhorse, the former Royal Alchymist.’
‘But how?’ Stergos demanded. ‘Our wretched uncle was deprived of all talent by the iron gammadion before being confined to Zeth Abbey. Kilian is unable to speak on the wind himself, nor can he receive any windspoken communication from another. And no humans dare set foot on the Dawntide Isles, so there can have been no written message from Beynor delivered to the abbey.’
‘My brother may have been cursed by the Lights and stripped of his sigils,’ Ullanoth said, ‘but he still retains the strong natural talents he was born with. One of those is the ability to invade dreams. When we were young children, he used to torment me until I learned to shut him out. Fortunately, that defensive ability comes readily to those who are adept at the arcane arts.’
The king nodded thoughtfully, remembering that Snudge had also told him once of being harassed by Beynor while sleeping. ‘So you believe your brother communicates with Kilian through dreams?’
‘Zeth Abbey is well-shielded from windsearching, but I have been able to follow Beynor’s mental footsteps, as it were, to that place many times. I doubt there is any other person residing in the abbey who would be of interest to him.’
‘Beynor and Kilian!’ Conrig mused. ‘What common cause could the two exiles share nowadays? And yet they did conspire against me as I prepared to invade Didion…’
Ullanoth had learned some years ago that both villains shared knowledge of a mysterious hidden trove of sigils. But she was unware that the King already knew of its existence.
‘I shall have to warn Abbas Noachil about this at once,’ Stergos said. ‘He’s very old and ill, but he can order the Brethren to take special precautions against Kilian’s escape.’
‘That would be prudent.’ Ullanoth turned to Conrig. ‘Unfortunately, Beynor has also attempted to invade the dreams of some person residing here in Cala Palace. I learned of this only two days ago, as I scried him on the parapet of the Salka island fortress and followed his windtrace. I don’t know who his intended target was, only that the dreamer successfully repelled Beynor’s effort.’
‘God’s Teeth!’ Conrig exclaimed. ‘Could the bastard have been trying to enter my dreams?’
‘Were you aware of any such assault?’ Ullanoth asked. When Conrig admitted he could recall no such thing, she smiled. ‘Then you’re very likely safe. Your talent, meager though it is, would probably have alerted your sleeping mind to any attempt at forcible entry. Were you an untalented person, however, it’s possible he might have invaded you without your being aware of what was happening.’
‘This is a troubling piece of news,’ Stergos said. ‘If Beynor’s target was not the High King, then who might it have been?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Dream-invasion is an uncommon talent. Certain members of Moss’s Glaumerie Guild have used it in the past to gather information from the minds of ordinary folk, or as a means of subtly coercing dreamers into some activity. More often than not, the invasion fails of its objective unless the dreamer is predisposed to cooperate, is very young, or has impaired willpower.’
‘Will you continue to oversee Beynor’s footprints on the wind,’ Conrig besought her, ‘and warn us if he attempts some wicked ploy among the residents of Cala Palace? I would deem it a great favor.’
‘You ask the impossible. My surveillance of my brother is sporadic at best because I am so drained of strength. I only undertake it to protect myself and my kingdom from his evil designs.’
‘Then what can we do?’ Conrig asked.
‘Nothing except be on guard.’ Ullanoth took her cloak from Conrig’s hands and wrapped it about her once again. ‘It’s time for me to leave you. I dare not let my Sending remain here any longer, for I feel myself growing very weak. Be assured that I’ll notify Vra-Stergos