Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [35]
Hesitantly she approached him, knowing the lightness of his words yet wanting to disregard them.
"But how long must we wait?" she asked.
"Already you learn great things and do not even realize it," he said reassuringly. "Here, let me show you."
Her visitor went to one of the great tables and picked up a long taper. "This is a power I'll wager you do not even know that you possess." He drew a knife and whittled some shavings from the candle onto the stained planks.
"Come, girl. Sit beside me here," he encouraged as he touched the flame to the shavings. To Deirdre's surprise, a cloud of dark smoke spurted upward, floating as a circular mass in the air.
"Now," said the golden-haired man, "think of someone you know-your mother, for example. Call a picture of her into your mind."
Deirdre imagined High Queen Robyn as she had looked at dinner that night.
"Pass your hand through the smoke."
She did so, then gasped as the thick cloud slowly seethed and coalesced, until at last it formed the image of her mother, floating in the air before them.
"Did I do that?" she gasped, amazed and delighted.
"Of course. This is just one proof of the things you are learning, the powers that will become yours."
Deirdre wanted to question him further, to learn more about the things she would know, but suddenly he seemed strangely preoccupied. He scoured the tomes and scrolls and the shelves while she followed eagerly behind.
"Here," he said, finally drawing down another book, also bound in the red leather that signified a tome by one of the wizards of Thay. "When you have finished Dudlis, you should read this. I will return when you have completed it."
Deirdre's heart quickened. "This means you'll be back soon?"
He smiled patronizingly. "This one, I suspect, will take you a good while to read. But fear not, dear child. I shall return when you are ready."
"Please!" she cried, her voice louder than it should have been. He raised a hand, his expression pained, as she continued. "Can't you stay for a little longer? We have to… to talk. I need to know more about you! Please stay!"
But the wind puffed through a window that was already empty.
* * * * *
Deep within the darkened confines of Kressilacc, the weight of the sea fell so heavily that the press of the storm was as nothing. Yet even here, far beyond the reach of sun and air, the coming of Gotha was seen. The priestesses of Talos knew this, and so they told their king.
"The treasures-take them forth!" commanded Sythissal, waving a webbed hand tipped by five claws. Each of the talons was a foot long and studded with rings. He gestured at the gold-encrusted swords and jeweled shields his warriors had claimed by plundering a trading vessel of the Ffolk.
"No! We must choose carefully!" Nuva, his favorite of the yellow-tailed priestesses, argued persuasively. "We should not give all the treasures-not in our first offering."
"But how shall we choose?" The great king, reclining in his throne made from the bow of a shattered longship, scowled, his long, fishlike mouth twisting downward. His eyes, milky and opaque, gaped dully at the slender female who coiled affectionately in liquid circles around him.
"It has been given me to see in a vision," she whispered, her voice like oil on the turbulent waters. "We should take these swords, these that bear the sigil of the King of Moonshae, and place them on an island to the north."
"Which island? Do we meet the messenger?" Sythissal disliked these instructions, feeling himself once again drawn into the schemes of the priestesses.
"I will show you where. I do not know if the messenger of Talos will be present, yet the placing of these items will commence the plan of our god."
When Sythissal remembered the vividness of his own dream, the premonition of a messenger's arrival, he could only agree.
Thus it was that, hours later, King Sythissal emerged from the surf at the shore of Gotha's island at the head of a column of his warriors. They bore with them several swords from the Ffolks' merchant vessel.