It was a nightmare journey to Mangalore even after the fear had gone. For nine days Master Kintore did not speak. He simply stared into space. Alain had seen him knock thieves of their horses simply by looking at them and change himself into a mighty eagle. Now he was as helpless as a little child – worse, a little child who had no will to live. Fortunately nobody interfered with them. Everywhere people were dazed with shock and grief and the countryside was covered in a sticky, sickly grey ash.
As they got further north and came on people who had not felt the terror that had come over the Red Mountains, there were those few whose love of drama and self-importance had overcome their horror, who wanted to talk and talk of the disaster. It was from them that Alain learned the meaning of it all - how Luisange, Dean of the White College of Magic in Moria, had joined with the White Colleges of several other lands to destroy two necromancers who had been troubling the coast of Moria; how unbeknownst to them, one of them, Jubilato, had recently brought a bound demon through into our plane; how the demon, Smazor, freed by his master's death burst forth in a frenzy of hunger that in a few hours had laid waste to all of Moria between the Red Mountains and the sea, before the United White colleges had managed to send him back to his own plane. In years to come the event would become known as Smazor's run.
Had the terror at the inn been an echo of the cry of horror from so many throats as the demon bore hungrily down upon them, or was it the terror all life naturally felts when close to such a destroyer? The question haunted Alain all though that journey.
Somewhere on the way home, Alain sat briefly outside a tavern with a priest who must have looked through a Bowl of Seeing. He described with knowledge the blackened, ashy land, the skeletons of trees and the endless piles of bones with flesh still rotting on them, like the leavings of a gigantic slaughterhouse. Somehow Alain knew that this was what Master Kintore saw before his staring eyes. Alain wanted to weep unmanfully for the green and peaceful land he remembered from their journeyings beyond the Red Mountains. Over half of Moria had lived on that fertile plain between the Red Mountains and the sea. The capital Ruinac had been there. The King had perished and all the court. All suddenly gone. And Ernundra, the beautiful land. ... Most the Klementari lived there. He wanted to weep for himself and his poor orphaned master, one of the few survivors of his race.
The priest continued contemptuously, "And Luisange has killed himself now, they say. Serves him right. Stuck up mages, now look what their meddling has done." Alain left him quickly before he gave in to his feelings and smashed a fist into his smug face.
Once he knew of the disaster, Alain watched his master closely lest he, like Thurre, try to kill himself. He wondered if Kintore would recover from the terrible shock and if, when he came to himself, he would still have his magely powers.
There was worse to come.
Though he had sent messages ahead, when they reached Master Kintore's house in Mangalore, the courtyard gates were locked against them and there were no lights in the windows. Alain knocked and knocked, but no one answered. But as he stood not knowing what to do, a woman stepped out of the shadows. It was Master Kintore's cousin, Mathinna, a plump jolly woman who had kept house for him. At least she had been plump and jolly. If he had thought of Mathinna at all it was with hope that she had not suffered from this thing as his master had, for though she was a full blood Klementari she had no magical powers.
But she had obviously suffered greatly. She had lost much weight and moved like one in pain and her voice was hoarse as if her mouth was full of ash. Yet Alain was so glad to see her that he threw his arms around her, a familiarity he would earlier not have dared.
"Duke Henri has confiscated Master Kintore's house," she told him. "He says since there is no longer a Klementari nation, there is no need for a Klementari embassy. He has been confiscating much property these last few days and dismissing my people from their positions. It has been foretold that soon he will drive us from the city."
"He cannot dare do that," cried Alain.
"He has pronounced himself King," she said, "and the Electors, those who are left, have agreed that it must be so."
This was terrible news. Not only did Duke Henri hate the Klementari, but he disliked mages as well. He thought the only place for them was in the church being priests.
Mathinna had taken refuge in the house of a healer and this was where she now took Alain and Kintore.
The healer, Nesta was a short dark woman, but she had the high cheekbones and dark eyes of the half-Klementari none the less. She showed Alain a bed for Master Kintore and where to get water to wash him.
"I will make something to ease his grief," she said.
But when Alain returned with the water, he saw that Master Kintore had come back to life at last. He and Mathinna were weeping in each others arms.
"I was left behind," he was crying. "Oh Sweet Mother Earth I was left behind. I want to die, Mathinna. I want to die."
They were the first words he had spoken, these nine days. Alain was relieved to see his tears and yet at the same time it was beyond measure painful for him to see a man he had always looked up to reduced to such a state.
In the other room, Nesta was pounding seeds in the pestle. Her face was tired and wounded looking, but determined. Alain stood and watched her for some time before she noticed him.
"Where is Mathinna?" she said and then, "You left them alone together? You stupid man!"
She rushed into the inner room to find Mathinna standing over the bed uncorking a poison bottle. With a magical blow, Nesta dashed it from her hands and it smashed on the floor sinking instantly into the stones. Mathinna began to scream hysterically.
"You babies," Nesta shouted at them. "How can you even think of it? How can you leave me alone?"
"I want to die," cried Mathinna crouching on the floor dabbing her hands at the poison. And Master Kintore lifted up his face with his swollen red eyes leaking tears and said quietly, "There is no place in the world for us now. The Istari are dead. We are alone."
Alain would have let them take the poison, but Nesta slapped both their faces.
"Hear this," she said. "The end of the Klementari is not here. We have another destiny now without the Istari and it will be revealed in time. And we must live and grow and help each other till that time so that our ways are not lost. I speak with the voice of Foretelling. I saw the vision this very morning and so have others."
Later when they were both safely in drugged sleep and Alain was helping Nesta clean up, he remembered how Nesta had struck his master and he turned to her with a small-minded anger in his heart.
"You lied in there, didn't you?" he said. "I don't believe you saw any such vision."
She gave him a hard determined look, a look that made him feel petty for speaking so.
"It doesn't matter if you believe it, as long as they do," she said.
Chapter 1
(Gallia. Over 100 years later)
Sitting dozing against the dark shed wall, I had another dream of the hungry woman and her glowing red eyes. Only a waking dream, thank Tansa! The fright woke me easily. In a jump I found myself back in Woolly the Meads rickety cowshed sitting cross-legged on the smelly straw with a crick in my neck. Grey light was seeping in through the cracks in the walls and from outside came the sound of raucous birdsong greeting the fresh dawn. Woolly was leaning over the stall chirruping at something and when I staggered stiffly to his side, I saw that the calf was up taking its first drink.
"A fine young lassie calf," beamed Woolly. "You've brung us luck again Madame Dion. Here."
Sleepily