For a long time nothing happened. Then he felt a slow-growing warmth beneath the hand that rested on the frigid rock surface. One of his brothers gave a soft gasp of mingled fear and amazement. Orrion dared to crack open his eyelids for the merest instant and saw that the entire Demon Seat formation was aglow with an interior luminosity, at first dim as a will o’ the wisp, then increasingly bright. The heat beneath his right hand gradually increased. Before he could think what to do next, he felt a sudden thrust of pain smite his brain. Then there were voices speaking in unison, deep and inhuman, questioning him in an oddly hesitant manner.

Orrion knew instinctively that they spoke to his soul and were inaudible to the others.

WHO…WHAT…WHY?

He tried to keep panic from his response. ‘Great Lords of the Sky, my name is Orrion Wincantor. I’m here to beg a miracle of you, if you please. I – I ask your help because I have nowhere else to turn.’

HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT US? HOW DID YOU KNOW TO COME TO THIS PLACE?

‘My older brother read an ancient tract. It told how you had granted miracles to others many years ago.’

YES…SOME OF US FREELY GAVE BOONS TO HUMANS. WE REMEMBER NOW. WE HOPED TO GAIN AN ADVANTAGE OVER THE EVIL ONES. THOSE WERE STRANGE TIMES IN THE SKY REALM AND ON THE GROUND. THE TACTIC WAS NOT VERY SUCCESSFUL.

The demonic ramblings made no sense to Orrion. His hand, resting upon the stone, was beginning to feel uncomfortably warm. ‘Do I have your gracious permission to ask my favor?’

WELL…AT LEAST YOU ARE WORTHY, AS ARE THE OTHER TWO WHO COWER NEXT TO OUR CRAG…WHAT DO YOU WANT, ORRION WINCANTOR?

‘Great Lords of the Sky, if – if you will, grant me a miracle. Let me be able to wed my true love, Nyla Brackenfield, daughter to Count Hale Brackenfield, Lord Lieutenant of the Realm.’

There was silence. His right hand grew ever more painful, but he dared not lift it. Finally the inhuman voices spoke again, seeming puzzled.

WHY DO YOU REQUIRE A MAGICAL INTERVENTION MERELY IN ORDER TO MATE WITH YOUR CHOSEN PERSON?

‘I – Great Lords, I’m the High King’s son, heir to the throne of Cathra and the Iron Crown of Sovereignty. My father Conrig has picked another wife for me, in spite of my wishes. I must obey him for the sake of my princely honor.’

The demons fell into a silence that seemed endless.

Orrion forced himself not to cry out. The burning sensation in his hand continued to grow and was fast becoming unbearable. ‘Great Lords, if my request cannot be granted, then I humbly beg your pardon for having disturbed you. My brothers and I will depart from your mountain forthwith.’

WE THINK THE REQUEST IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE. IT IS HARD FOR THE SKY REALM TO INTERACT WITH THE GROUND BECAUSE IT UPSETS THE GREAT BALANCE OF POWER, BUT WE ARE WILLING TO HELP YOU. YOU WILL PAY A GREAT PRICE FOR THIS FAVOR. ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THAT YOU WANT IT?

‘Yes. Please.’

THEN LIFT YOUR RIGHT HAND FROM THE MOON CRAG AND HOLD IT ALOFT.

For a moment, Orrion didn’t understand. Then he realized he was being told to let go of that awful piece of hot rock. ‘Yes! Oh, thank you!’ In a paroxysm of gratitude, he thrust his arm heavenward and dared to open his eyes.

He saw blackness around him, and abundant diamond-sharp twinkling stars, as though night had inexplicably fallen and he hung suspended in the heavens high above the earth. A formless drift of multi-hued Light, that slowly took the shape of many mournful faces, shone among the familiar polar constellations. Then a blue flare blinded him as it engulfed most of his uplifted arm like a blast of silent lightning.

He fell from the sky into nothingness, feeling no pain.

‘Orry! Orry, my poor twin, are you alive?’

‘He breathes. I can feel his heart beating. Draw closer to shield him from the elements.’

Slowly, Orrion Wincantor, Prince Heritor of Cathra, opened his eyes. A folded cloak pillowed his head and another covered his body. He was chilled but not otherwise uncomfortable. A cold drizzle was falling. His brothers knelt beside him.

‘Take a sip of this brandy,’ Vra-Bramlow urged, lifting him so he could drink. The fiery spirit burnt his gullet, then settled in a glowing pool in his belly. ‘Can you move?’

‘Yes. Help me to sit up.’

They assisted him. Orrion looked about and realized that they were still at the summit of Demon Seat and it was yet daytime – although the louring grey clouds now hung so close it seemed a man might reach up and touch them. Corodon was strangely excited, while Bramlow’s face was stiff with shock and his eyes red from weeping.

Orrion managed a reassuring smile. ‘Have I been senseless long?’

‘Perhaps half an hour,’ Bramlow said. ‘We – we were very worried about you. The change in weather came very quickly. It might snow. We were wondering how to carry you to a more sheltered place when you finally came to yourself – thanks be to God!’

‘Well, I’m quite all right,’ Orrion said. ‘It seems I’ve survived my encounter with the demons.’

‘What were they like?’ Corodon asked eagerly. ‘We saw nothing of them, only a sudden dazzling light, and then you were lying on the rocks.’

‘After I begged my boon, I found myself afloat in a dark sky. I saw a multitude of ghostly faces glowing among the stars –’

‘Zeth save us!’ Bramlow exclaimed. But he bit off the words he would have said next, not wanting Orrion to know that he’d very likely conjured the evil Beaconfolk, and said only, ‘Were they fearsome things?’

‘Not really. They seemed almost bewildered that a human being would call upon them. But I stated my request boldly, as you advised, and they asked if I was sure I wanted it. I said I did. There was a great flash of blueish light, brighter than the sun, and I remember nothing more.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose there’s naught left to do but wait to see if my miracle will be granted. Just help me to my feet, lads. We should get going.’

‘Are you in pain, my brother?’ Corodon asked.

‘Not at all. I feel healthy as a horse.’

‘Orrion –’ Fresh tears sprang into Bramlow’s dark eyes and he gave a wordless cry before turning his head away, unable to speak further.

‘What’s wrong?’ the Prince Heritor said in alarm.

His twin regarded him with a strange expression. ‘Brother, your miracle has already occurred, but not in the manner that you might have wished.’ Slowly, he pulled open the blanketing cloak so that Orrion’s body was exposed.

The Heritor looked down at himself and felt his heart lurch.

Impossible! There was no pain – indeed, he felt as though nothing at all had happened. The sleeve of his heavy leather jerkin and the woolen shirt beneath had been burnt away to a point just below the right elbow; his lower arm and hand felt as normal as always…but they had apparently been rendered invisible. When his left hand probed the anomaly he felt a smooth stump of healed flesh and bone at the end of his truncated right arm.

‘Gone,’ he murmured, transfixed. ‘Yet it seems as though it’s still there. I’ve heard of men losing a limb in battle expe-riencing a like phenomenon. Odd, isn’t it, lads?’

‘His mind wanders,’ Corodon said. ‘Poor devil.’

‘Don’t you understand what the cursèd demons have done to you?’ Bramlow cried in a voice choked with horror. ‘They have taken your sword-arm, Orry! By the laws of our kingdom – and Didion as well – such a wound makes you ineligible for the throne.’

‘You’re no longer Prince Heritor, twin brother.’ Corodon’s face was suffused with a terrible exultation. ‘I am.’ His gaze flickered and he looked sidelong at Bramlow. ‘Not our royal father, nor King Somarus, nor anyone else can deny me. Isn’t that right, Bram?’

The novice said nothing.

Corodon turned back to Orrion. ‘You and Nyla are free to wed. I offer my heartfelt felicitations and wish you every happiness.’ He paused with a judicious frown. ‘It would be best, I think, if we explained matters to Father and King Somarus face to face, rather than breaking the news at long distance. What do you think, Bram?’

The reply was curt. ‘I dare not windspeak such incredible tidings. No one would believe me.’

On one level of his mind, Orrion felt an eerie detachment, as though he were watching some fantastic drama enacted by the palace players that had nothing to do with reality. On another level he was coolly rational. The ramifications of the demons’ action were clear and irrefutable, just as Coro had said. There could be no waffling on King Conrig’s part, no talk of Orrion learning lefthanded swordplay to evade the restriction.

Corodon must be named Heritor.

Coro? Impetuous, happy-go-lucky Coro become heir to the throne? The notion had never occurred to Orrion. The miracle he’d hoped for would have simply changed his father’s mind, so that he might marry Nyla and in time make her his queen. But now…

Vra-Bramlow stood close to him. ‘I shall never forgive myself for this, Orry,’ the novice muttered. ‘Never.’ And he thought: What am I to do? If I tell Father the truth about Coro’s talent, the crown will pass out of the Wincantor family – to Beorbrook’s adopted son Dyfrig, or even to our wicked cousin Feribor Blackhorse!

Orrion climbed slowly to his feet. His expression was still strange, even though his voice sounded calm. ‘I was willing to pay any price for my sweet love. I’ve paid, and I shall accept whatever penalty Father metes out to me – even banishment. All the blame is mine, Bram. You have nothing to reproach yourself for.’

Vra-Bramlow shook his head. ‘Not true,’ he whispered, but could say no more.

‘We can never tell Father the exact truth of this affair,’ Orrion said. He was staring into the distance, as if contemplating some faraway event. ‘He’s a hard man, and I’ll not have him revenge himself on either one of you. We three must agree on a suitable fiction to explain my loss, and we must swear never to deviate from it.’

‘Of course,’ Corodon exclaimed warmly. ‘Bram’s the cleverest. He’ll think up a proper yarn for us to spin. And let’s not forget to plant the banner before we leave, as we planned to do.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Coro,’ Bramlow groaned.

‘I’ll do it for luck, if for no other reason.’ Corodon opened his pack, shook out the scarlet silk pennon of the Sovereignty with its four interlocked golden crowns (Conrig still claimed the overlordship of Moss, even though the Salka had conquered it), and began tying it to his own climbing staff. Bramlow and Orrion watched as he built a cairn of rocks behind Demon Seat and set about fixing the royal banner atop it.

Orrion spoke quietly to Bramlow. ‘Can you bespeak a message to the Zeth Brethren in Cala Palace for me, or are we too far away?’

‘At this great height, I should be able to do it. No natural barriers impede my windspeech. What do you want me to say?’

‘The message is to be given to Lady Nyla. In my name, beseech her to hasten to Boarsden with all speed and meet me there, for the sake of our love. Ask that she also bring her parents, and that they travel with the greatest possible secrecy.’

The novice frowned. ‘Orry, are you sure about this?’

‘She and I must be near one another as I confess my transgression to Father. If he spares my life, I mean to wed Nyla immediately. This is why she must bring her parents.’

Deeply troubled, Vra-Bramlow said, ‘It might be better if we first meet Nyla and the Lord Lieutenant and his lady elsewhere than Boarsden Castle, so you have an opportunity to…prepare them beforehand.’

‘You’re right. Perhaps near the border, at Beorbrook Hold in Cathra?’

Bramlow shook his head. ‘You’d never be able to conceal your disability from the earl marshal’s alchymists. They’d insist on examining the arm if we try to pass it off as a climbing injury that I’d already treated and bound up. We’ll be able to fend off your Heart Companions that way, but not real physicians…I have it – we’ll meet the Brackenfields at the Castlemont Fortress hostelry just across the pass in Didion. No one there will think it amiss if Cathran travelers keep to themselves. And it’s only a day’s ride from the fort to Boarsden.’

‘Very well. Bespeak the message, Bram, before Coro finishes.’

A few minutes later, Prince Corodon climbed down from the moonstone outcropping, took his twin’s good left arm, and draped it over one of his shoulders. ‘That’s done. If any windsearcher should scry the mountaintop, the banner will confirm that we were here. Now lean on me, Orry, and we’ll start down.’ He offered a reassuring smile. ‘Don’t be downhearted. Everything will work out for the best. This happenstance is strange beyond measure, but we can’t deny that it gives both of us our heart’s desire!’

She had obtained a sheet of vellum scraped so thin it was nearly transparent, that might be folded into the most exiguous of hiding places and kept safe. From the desk drawer she took a silver inkwell and a crow-quill pen with a fine nib, so that her writing might be minuscule and take up the least possible room, yet still be be legible. These things she laid out just before midnight, after long hesitation deciding that the time had finally come.

It was the most important letter she would ever write. If it were intercepted, it would surely be her heart’s death, though no man laid a hand on her. But if it reached its intended recipient, all her years of suffering would have been well spent.

My dearest Dyfrig!

This missive comes to you after what must have been a perilous journey, undertaken by my most faithful friend. I pray you to reward her and shield her from the retribution that would fall upon her if her rôle in carrying the letter to you were discovered by the Sovereign or his agents.

The one who writes to you is your mother, Maudrayne Northkeep, once wife to Conrig Wincantor and former Queen of Cathra.

I know you thought me dead, and there were many times when I despaired of my life’s continuing, so bleak has been my existence, deprived of pouring upon you the maternal love you deserve. How I longed to see and know you, to watch you grow and thrive, to share your joys and comfort your hurts as a natural mother should! My only solace was knowing that you had been given into the care of good people, and this enabled me to hold fast in spite of all hardship.

I could not write to you earlier, whilst you were still a child. It was necessary to delay until you were an adult man grown, strong in health and mature in mind and character, able to understand and make wise use of the secrets I now entrust to you.

I am informed that you have achieved your twentieth year and a man’s estate, and have earned knighthood, and are esteemed by your adoptive parents and all who are close to you. It is time for you to know the truth about your heritage and decide how it may shape your destiny in years to come.

You are indeed the legitimate first-born son of Conrig Wincantor, Sovereign of Blenholme, by virtue of Cathran law. I was ever faithful to my royal husband, even though he betrayed me with another woman and has encouraged rumors vilifying my honor. He did not know that I carried his child when he divorced me for expedient reasons of state. My heart was so wrung with anger and grief at his earlier betrayal of me with Conjure-Queen Ullanoth and his subsequent willingness to set me aside so he could marry the Didionite princess that I withheld information of my pregnancy from him. Sinfully, I attempted to end both my life and your own by casting myself into the sea.

When my friend, the Grand Shaman Ansel Pikan, rescued me and took me away to Tarn, I was at first grateful. You were born in the isolated steading of a sea-hag called Dobnelu, whom you perhaps remember kindly. She and Ansel were both servants of a supernatural being called the Source of the Old Conflict or the One Denied the Sky. It was some years before I discovered that the loyalty of these so-called friends was first to this inhuman creature and only second to you and me.

High King Conrig learned of my survival and of your own existence. He sought to kill us because of the threat we posed to his heirs by Risalla of Didion – and for another reason, which I shall disclose to you anon. But the assassin he sent, one Deveron Austrey, who was the Royal Intelligencer, proved too virtuous and compassionate a man to do the king’s bloody work. Instead he engineered what he thought would be a compromise that would save both our lives. I was to live quietly in Tarn, and you would be adopted by Earl Marshal Parlian Beorbrook as a putative royal bastard of mine. The king accepted, then broke this agreement, secretly sending Tinnis Catclaw, Constable of the Realm, to kill me with poison and feign my suicide.

This Lord Tinnis, for a mercy, was one who had long loved me hopelessly from afar. After I pledged to keep silent and remain his secret captive and leman so long as I would live, he falsified my death. I was transported to a hunting lodge of his called Gentian Fell, situated high in the Dextral Mountains, some thirty leagues east of Beorbrook Hold. Here I have abided anonymously for sixteen years, together with my dear friend Rusgann Moorcock, who was once my personal maidservant. She will, I pray the God of the Heights and Depths, place this letter in your hand.

Make no mistake: Tinnis has been as devoted and lavish a captor as any poor prisoner could hope for. My quarters are elegant and comfortable, for all that they are in a remote place. I have the best food and drink, books and music. During the calm moons of summer and autumn, before winter snows close the mountain tracks for weeks at a time, a few trusted female relatives of the Lord Constable visit me with their young children and vouchsafe the mysterious ‘Lady Mayda’ diversion and educated companionship. Under guard, I am allowed to walk the alpine meadows and even go a-hawking, a diversion close to my heart.

I freely confess that four or five times a year, for short periods, Tinnis Catclaw himself is here in residence and shares my bed. He is a kindly man in his way, ever gentle with me, and I have a lonely woman’s needs which you, my dear son, will one day understand and forgive. I thus fulfill my part of the pact I made with Lord Tinnis in exchange for my life.

The Salka invasion in Didion has made it impossible for him to make his customary visits this summer, since he must attend the ongoing Council of War at Boarsden. The consequent lapse of discipline among my guards here emboldened me to contrive a plan for Rusgann’s escape and, I pray, her transport of this letter to you. She will first seek you in Beorbrook Hold amongst your foster family, where I pray she may find you, since the journey is not long. If you are not there she will proceed to Boarsden Castle.

Now I will attempt to explain the darker reasons for Conrig’s enmity towards you and me.

Dyfrig, my son, we live in a world awash with sorcery. High Blenholme Island is no mundane human habitat as is the Southern Continent. Before Emperor Bazekoy dared to subdue it, this land was a domain of inhuman entities that fought viciously amongst themselves, using every manner of magic. The most abundant race, the Salka monsters, were linked in an unholy symbiosis with the Beaconfolk, those Great Lights of the Sky Realm, who channeled uncanny power to the ferocious amphibians through moonstone amulets.

After Bazekoy’s conquest and banishment of the Salka, which I have been told was accomplished while the Beaconfolk were distracted by quarreling amongst themselves, certain human settlers dared to mate with the Green Men of Blenholme, a race of very small nonhuman people, secretive and dangerous, who have large emerald eyes but otherwise resemble us closely. Like the other prehistoric island dwellers, the Green Ones possess inborn magical abilities. These they pass on to their parthuman descendants, even through many generations.

I do not have to explain to you the longstanding Cathran mistrust of magical ‘talent’. It dates to Bazekoy’s day and reflects his justified fear and antipathy toward the Beaconfolk sorcery used by the Salka as a weapon. The Didionites share a similar ambivalent attitude toward magickers, but the other two human nations of Blenholme are more broad-minded. In Tarn, the talented shaman-healers opted to focus their uncanny powers on activities that were mostly worthy and helpful. The land of Moss was a more sinister kettle of fish – a hotbed of malicious wizards who oppressed their untalented human fellows mercilessly until the celebrated Rothbannon whipped them into line and established the Conjure-Kingdom.

Moss retained a sizable population of Salka who largely shunned mankind. Rothbannon chose to live peaceably with the monsters rather than oppress them. He even became friendly with the Salka of the Dawntide Isles. After a time, the creatures so trusted this stern but scrupulously fair human ruler that they unwisely handed over to him their most cherished relics – a set of inactive moonstone amulets or sigils that became known as the Seven Stones of Rothbannon. These things were nothing less than physical channels of Beaconfolk sorcery. They gave tremendous power to the human user at the price of pain – and sometimes his very soul.

I do not have to reiterate the depressing history of Rothbannon’s descendants. They lacked his prudence and wielded the sigils in ways that often called down the wrath of the Lights. Your natural father’s paramour, Conjure-Queen Ullanoth, used moonstones to aid the establishment of the Sovereignty and further her own lust. The accusations made by Didion and by Cathra’s Lords of the South against Conrig and Ullanoth are shamefully true: the union of High Blenholme was built upon a foundation of unholy magic and adultery.

This was made possible by the fact that Conrig himself has inherited a small and nearly indetectable portion of magical talent, which gave him a fatal affinity with the beautiful Mossland witch. Even more dire, Conrig holds his Iron Crown under false pretenses: by law, no talented man may be Cathra’s king.

You, my dearest son, have no stain of talent whatsoever. I was assured of this by both Ansel Pikan and the sea-hag Dobnelu. Thus you are the rightful Sovereign of Blenholme, and no one – human or inhuman – may deny you’ your heritage…if you should choose to take it up.

There is one credible witness who may attest to your freedom from talent and to Conrig’s attainting. He is the same Deveron Austrey who resigned from his post as Royal Intelligencer after his conscience was sickened by Conrig’s treatment of me. I am told that he was convicted of treason but escaped to the Continent, where he has lived in obscurity for long years. Whether you seek him out and use his testimony to your advantage is up to you.

My beloved child, your future is in your own hands. If some day you ascend to the throne of Cathra and I still live, I hope we may be united on this earth. If this is not to be, I look forward to our eventual reunion in paradise and assure you of my prayers.

I am your mother,

MAUDRAYNE, Princess Dowager of Cathra

She sanded the parchment, took scissors and trimmed the sheet to its smallest possible compass, folded it, and sealed it with three tiny drops of unstamped wax. It was now a thing scarcely an inch square.

From her jewel case, filled with valuable baubles bestowed upon her by Tinnis Catclaw, she took a flat golden locket just large enough to contain the letter. Her desk yielded a small tin of cement, a sticky substance that dried hard and waterproof, used by the lodge’s guards to refasten loose fletching on their arrows. She had begged it from one of the kinder men, saying she wished to use it in binding a book. But instead, she carefully daubed a thin line of the black stuff around the edge of the locket, sealing it shut. No harm would come to the letter now, no matter how wet its messenger became.

Rusgann would decide where to hide the locket on her person when they met at breakfast and completed plans for the escape.

Maudrayne snuffed the candle on the desk and slowly rose. The only light now came from a low-burning oil lamp on a night-table beside her tester bed. Outside, the wind moaned and sleet rattled faintly against the heavily shuttered windows.

She began to disrobe for bed, standing before a long pier glass. The doughty noblewomen of Tarn scorned the hovering bodyservants of more effete southern ladies, and she was accustomed to deal with her own garments and hairdressing except when some special occasion necessitated elaborate attire.

She was two-score-and-four years of age, tall but fine-boned, and of unusual strength thanks to her love of walking, riding, and bow-hunting. The skin of her face was still creamy, unlined save for a faint crease between her brows. This imperfection, together with her dark-circled green eyes, like forest pools forever shaded from sunlight, were permanent legacies of her suffering.

She unfastened her opal necklace and golden plait-clasps and put them on the dressing table, then doffed the myrtle-green wool surcoat and girdled gown of apricot silk, arranging them neatly upon wooden perches. After removing low-cut houseshoes and gartered stockings, she let slip to the floor her sleeveless linen underkirtle and drawers and stood naked before the mirror, unbraiding her abundant copper tresses. Her breasts were still high and firm and her belly was unmarked by the stress of childbearing. Her shield of womanhood was as blazing bright as the hair of her head.

‘You are still comely, Maude,’ she whispered, gazing upon herself for a long moment before the reflection was blurred by an upwelling of tears as sharp as acid. ‘Your besotted gaoler adores you and showers you with every gift save liberty. So why does the memory of him, and him alone, still heat your blood, even though you try to crush and deny it? Is there no way your heart will ever escape his thrall?’

She went to the bed, drew up the covers, and pinched the lamp’s wick with moistened fingers. In the darkness, warm beneath a swansdown comforter, she found no comfort.

She thought: The letter will bring an end to it. Surely it will! I’ll be rid of this perfidious bond, this shameful yearning that should be revulsion, this love for him that should be hatred. It’ll be over. Dear God, let me forget Conrig and be at peace…else I’ll have to go to him.

And do what I must do.