Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [16]
Angrily she pushed the book aside, knowing that it didn't contain the things she desired to know. She paced before the great shelf, examining scrolls-The Ballad of Cymrych Hugh, by the famed Greater Bard Dolsow… Mastery of Arcane Transformation, a stack of parchments containing essays by many of the mightiest wizards of Waterdeep… a fresh scroll, barely ten years old, containing the epic poem called The Darkwalker War, by the bard Tavish of Snowdown.
Deirdre knew Tavish well, having called this loyal friend of her parents "Auntie" since the days she could say her first words. This, the bard's greatest ballad, related the tale of Tristan's rise from the small kingdom of Corwell to his status as High King. Several years ago, Deirdre had confounded and embarrassed her parents by analyzing the structure of the verse and comparing it-unfavorably, and in Tavish's presence-to Dolsow's earlier work on Cymrych Hugh.
But none of these volumes, nor any others around her, answered her purpose of the moment, for in truth Deirdre sought neither knowledge nor wisdom. Her hunger was simple and well focused in a fundamental craving for power.
Anger flared within her-the old, familiar anger, mostly directed toward her older sister. Alicia was flippant and irresponsible, far less diligent than Deirdre. Yet one day Alicia would be queen! The bitter injustice rose like gall in her throat, and she paced the library, unable to contain her agitation. Power! That was the door, and knowledge was the key that would open it.
For a time, Deirdre had sought this power through the mastery of sorcery. She studied the tomes of the mages. She pleaded and begged with Keane to teach her the beginning elements of sorcery, enchantments she had mastered with an ease that had amazed her tutor.
Then suddenly Keane had told her that he would teach her no more. He offered no acceptable explanation, making some lame excuse about "time away from her serious studies," which she knew to be a blatant falsehood. Yet the man had evaded her every attempt to draw an answer from him, all the while refusing to aid her in any further development of her magic-using skills.
This had left Deirdre to labor on her own, and to this end, she used the library. For long hours, sometimes all through the night, she squinted at sorcerous sigils, straining in the light of a sputtering lamp to decipher the instructions left by some long-dead practitioner of enchantment. This was where Deirdre had found her solace-and where also, she sensed, she would discover her future.
Still, she couldn't bring herself now to sit and read or even to meditate. She continued to pace the room, crossing to each window in turn and gazing across the moor, seeing the rain falling in sheets, still miles away but creeping inexorably closer.
Finally her pacing worked some of the tension from her muscles and she collapsed into a soft chair, facing the open window. Slowly, reluctantly, she closed her eyes. In a few minutes, she slept, but it was not a restful slumber.
Instead, she twitched in the chair, clenching and unclenching her hands, groaning between taut lips or kicking restlessly with her feet. As she slept, the storm crept closer, and tendrils of mist reached forward like clutching fingers, struggling to pull Callidyrr into the clouds' rain-lashed embrace.
One of the tentacles probed at the castle wall, swirling like a miniature whirlwind beyond the open window of the library. It probed inward, wisping around the sleeping princess, caressing her long black hair. It poised there only for a moment as huge gray clouds massed, and then the rain swept across the city and the castle and bay, swallowing the small tendril. Yet, as proven by the thunder and by the exultant,