Moon Dreams (The Jeremy Moon Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “Go into the dreams.”

  Jeremy drew a deep breath. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  Kelada stepped away from him, tilted her head, studied him critically. “You won't do, really,” she said. “We mistook you for Sebastian, and there is a resemblance, but your hair is too short, you have no beard, and your clothing is all wrong.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Dream a disguise,” Kelada said.

  Oh. Of course. Nothing could be simpler.

  When Jeremy finally fell asleep, he dreamed first about the hair and beard. He had some memory of Sebastian's appearance, and he worked with that, dreamed himself in front of a mirror again, dreamed Sebastian's reflection instead of his own. Then he reached up to stroke the beard, found it real beneath his fingers, and woke himself up from sheer surprise.

  “Good,” Kelada said. “I watched.”

  The beard was still there. It tickled maddeningly, and stray parts of the moustache found their way between his lips. He thrust his tongue out, scratched his neck. “How did it look, when it appeared?”

  “You shimmered, going sort of purple. Small dream-whorl, I guess. Then when you were clear again, you had the beard. Sit up.”

  Jeremy lifted himself to his elbows. Kelada stroked his beard, arranging it, and then his hair. Her hands felt curiously gentle. “All right?” he asked when she stopped.

  She looked at him for another moment, then nodded. “Very good,” she said. “You are Sebastian now.” Her gray eyes widened. “You're better,” she corrected herself. “Sebastian's magic hardly worked in the Between, and his dreams held no reality. You have more magic now than he. In Thaumia such creations and transmutations would be the work of a master mage.”

  “But in Thaumia dreams won't do it,” Jeremy said.

  “No. Word magic there, or nothing. And one must study for years to perfect magic skills.” She reached out again, and with a delicate probe of her forefinger she swept the left part of his moustache free of his lips. “This will be no good,” she sighed. “Tremien will catch us. If Melodia thinks you're Sebastian, then Tremien will think so, too. We'll end up right back in the Between—or worse.”

  “We'll worry about that later,” Jeremy told her. “Right now I've got to create a robe. Describe Sebastian's to me—and be very particular.”

  She looked away from him, into her memory, it seemed. “It is long and full,” she said, her voice as distant as her eyes. “A deep purple, like the sky of three stars in the evening. Rich, thick fabric, with a sheen to it. The hood...”

  Like a schoolboy facing an examination, Jeremy leaned forward, hung on every word, and occasionally scratched ineffectively at the tickle of his new beard.

  The fifth robe was not satisfactory, nor the sixth. Something always was off, not right, about them—and the six came over a spread of at least as many days and nights, with other, different, darker failures in between. Jeremy tried on the seventh attempt to visualize the robe exactly as described, exactly as remembered, and instead found himself lost in the beginning of a nightmare, an old one in which he was late for an important examination in school. He knew what lurked at the end of that dream, and managed to wake himself up, trembling but otherwise whole.

  He swept the long hair back away from his face. “That's it,” he said to Kelada. “No more. I have less control each time. One of these will have to do.”

  They deliberated long over the choice of robe. The first was gossamer, insubstantial, clothing perhaps for a fairy prince but not for a mage. The second was the wrong color, the red of his pajamas. The third was the wrong shape, and too short in the bargain, though its color was better. They debated among the fourth, fifth, and sixth attempts, with Kelada pointing out the flaws in each, before both agreed, finally, on the fifth. Jeremy donned it, turned, posed, while Kelada clucked and doubted. “It will have to do,” she said at last. “But there is something wrong with the way the hood falls, and the sleeves are not nearly full enough—”

  “It will have to do,” he said. He stood, at the moment, on a vast empty gray card of nothing. Thaumia, it seemed, had one major difference from Earth: the world was flat, and its sun circled it, bringing day or night simultaneously to the entire planet. Here the result was fear or famine: the number of dream-whorls was much greater than in a comparable section of Earth's Between, for at any given time of the night there were simply more dreamers in Thaumia; but during Thaumia's day, the landscape was much more barren, for almost no one slept and dreamed during those hours.

  Kelada and Jeremy had no way, of course, to determine the passage of time, except to await events. While they did, Kelada spoke of Sebastian and Melodia. “Melodia is the daughter of a wizard of great talent,” she told Jeremy. “When the travel spell created by the songs of the great bard Dylan had almost worn out its mana, Melodia's father found a way to alter the wording of the spell and replenish it. He grew very wealthy from this—”

  “Wealthy,” Jeremy interrupted, “from magic?”

  “Of course. Anyone who wished to use the travel spell had to pay a small tribute to Walther—”

  “Walther being Melodia's father.”

  “Yes, true, and of course everyone finds it much easier to use the travel spell than to transport themselves or their goods on foot or by cart. That was the only Great Magic that Walther ever performed, but it made him one of the most wealthy and influential of all the chief magi.”

  “All right,” Jeremy said. “Melodia is rich and spoiled. Now tell me—”

  “Please,” Kelada said, but her voice was anything but pleading, “will you allow me to tell the story in my own way?”

  Jeremy stroked his beard—a habit he had fallen into early—murmured “Sorry,” and she began the story again.

  Melodia inherited or learned a good bit of magical talent herself. Though her mother had died when she was still young, her father, Walther, doted on her and raised her himself, offering her anything she desired, indulging her whims, and trying to shape and increase her magical abilities.

  Melodia, like the great Dylan, was a poet and musician, and her spells often were sung to the accompaniment of a lute. At ordinary magics, like bringing light or starting fires, she was no good whatever. She was better at minor creations, though hers were all inanimate. She could not conjure up so much as a living butterfly. True, some of her simulacra were real and delicate enough to fool an observer, but her talent clearly lay in another discipline.

  She found her true forte in healing spells, and most particularly in the soothing and healing of animals. Before she was twenty, she had made her reputation locally as a great and powerful physician. Now—or at least when Kelada had been exiled from Thaumia, no telling how many Thaumian years ago—Melodia was about twenty-five, world-renowned, and a recognized talent.

  But she was also still a spoiled and headstrong little girl.

  Once, some three or four years ago, an insistent pounding on the door awakened Melodia late at night. She sighed, snuggled deeper into her rose-scented sheets, and waited for her father's servants to open the door.

  None did, and the knocks resounded louder and louder. Melodia, irritated, hummed a little silence spell, wrapping each knock in quieting cotton, shushing all sound.

  But when the knocks penetrated even her sung magic, she realized why no one else was answering the door: the sounds were themselves magic, meant only for her ears, and they summoned only her. Melodia rose then, threw on a filmy white robe, shook out her dark hair in front of the mirror, and went to the door, softly singing a grooming spell on the way so that she opened the door looking rested and beautiful, a tall woman with black hair curling to her shoulders, arresting blue-green eyes tilted up at the corners, and a full, red mouth.

  She threw the door open to storm and night. A man stood on the threshold, not an exceptionally tall or broad man, but one whose stance bespoke strength. His face was hidden in shadow, his figure disguised by a dark wind-whipped robe.
Still, Melodia had only to look once at him before bowing her head in respect. “My lord,” she murmured. Lightning flared behind the stranger, and cold rain lashed his figure.

  “I think,” he said, “my horse is dying.” He spread his cloak like a dark wing. “Come,” he said, and to the exploding music of thunder Melodia passed into its shadow.

  When finally the robe swept aside, the two stood in a dry, sandy-floored cavern illuminated by wizard-light. They were deep, so deep that the thunder from outside barely penetrated, became only a low-pitched grumbling almost too soft for the ear. Before the two of them the horse lay on its side, its raven flanks speckled with sweat and with patches of adhering sand.

  Melodia knelt beside the stallion, ran her hand over the sleek neck, feeling taut muscle beneath the prickle of hair. “This is no natural sickness.”

  “No,” the stranger agreed. “It was magicked on me. I diverted it to Nightwind at the last moment. There was no other receptacle about—but I would not have him die.”

  Melodia crooned a wordless tune, pulled some of the poison into the very tips of her fingers. She knew for a cold instant what death would be like when it came for her, and for that instant she knew despair and emptiness as few have done. Then the moment passed.

  “I will do what I can,” she said.

  “Send it back,” the stranger ordered. “Turn the spell on the sender.”

  “No. Not that. If I can pull the spell out, I will disperse it into this cave. That will make the cave an evil place for many years to come—but I will not destroy a living creature, no matter what it did to you or to Nightwind.”

  “Then that will have to serve.”

  An observer wandering into the cave would have thought it a strange vision indeed: a great black horse stretching its length on the ground, a dark-robed man standing with arms folded above, and between the two, kneeling, a white-gowned woman swaying and singing softly. It did not look like struggle.

  But struggle it was, with the sorceress walking strange magical paths, tugging at strong lines of force and change, feeling the pain that is deeper than pain, the agony of touching the work of a great wielder of ancient power. The stallion's breathing grew shallow and desperate, and the great cords of its neck stood out stark beneath the flesh. The hooves stirred restlessly, and the dark eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.

  And at last there came a time when Melodia stiffened, threw her head back, and cried out in discord. The wizard-light in the cave dimmed, the horse snorted, screamed, and wobbled to his feet, splaying its legs and trembling like a colt finding its stance for the first time.

  “Ah, God,” groaned Melodia, crumpling at last into her own pain, “it is done.”

  The stranger spread his dark wing over her, and for a time she knew no more.

  When at last she recovered her senses, she lay in an upper room of some great house. A breakfast waited for her, and she fell to with an appetite. Only when she had finished eating was she aware that she was not alone. A man, dark-haired, dark-bearded, stood at the foot of the bed, arms folded, head bowed.

  She began, “Is Nightwind—” at the same time he said, “Nightwind is—”

  They broke off, looking into each other's face, and both laughed. The man sat easily on the foot of the bed. “He is well,” the man said. “I have brought you to Mountain Keep. It was the only place I could think of where you would be safe.”

  “How long?”

  “Three full days and nights. This is the morning of the fourth day. Your father seeks you.”

  “I must go to him.”

  “How shall I reward your for your work?” the man asked.

  “With your name, to begin with,” she said.

  “It will not be a welcome one. I am Sebastian Magister.”

  “My father is not one of your enemies.”

  “Yet,” he said, his smile wry. “I seem to sow enemies as a farmer sows wheat, and I fear the harvest is still to come. But my name alone is not a sufficient reward. What else will you have of me?”

  Melodia twirled one strand of her black hair around and around her finger. “Your purpose,” she said.

  Sebastian's dark eyes burned. “To find the limits of words,” he said. “To wring the last drops of magic from them, and then to squeeze again. To bind and bend the power of syllables, to work my will and wonders to the utmost of my power.” The light in his eyes flickered. “That has earned me enmity enough, and I suppose it is a dangerous ambition. My mother told me long ago that if the world were balanced precariously on the point of a great mountain, I would tilt the balance, just to see what would happen, never mind that Thaumia would smash. She was a wise woman. And yet, the words are there, and the power.” Sebastian stood. “But you are playing with me, Melodia. My name and purpose are no fit recompense for your service to me and to my steed. Come, what may I give you that will be of value?”

  Melodia stretched both arms, hands linked, high over her head and sighed deeply. Then she held her arms toward him. “A kiss,” she whispered.

  So it began. After three more days Melodia returned to her father's house to find him frantic with worry. The storm that broke then, the storm of disapproval, accusation, and recrimination, put the tempest in which Sebastian had arrived to shame. At the end of the scene Melodia had left her father's house for good—and, as he had all but prophesied, Sebastian had gained in Melodia's father a new and powerful enemy.

  The story became widely known. Melodia moved to a far district, and a lonely one, where she continued her healing work. She was watched by unfriendly eyes, and so she remained inside, in the little cottage she took or in the adjoining stable, seeing the outside world only through windows or through doors quickly opened and as quickly shut. She lived a lonely life but a safe one, for ancient and very powerful magics made one's home inviolate save to those invited inside, and Melodia grew suspicious enough to be very careful indeed about whom she invited in, or what animals she chose to treat.

  But the same prying eyes that kept Melodia in also kept Sebastian out. She heard about him from time to time, travelers’ tales of the evil wizard and his companions, about the power-hungry outlaws led by Sebastian Magister. There were tales, some of them chilling, of the Hidden Hag of Illsmere, of the Life-Taker, and most of all, of Sebastian himself. Usually the tellers of the tales would spit and line themselves upon mentioning his name, an ancient and probably useless bit of folk magic intended to ward off evil influences.

  The watch, not the ceremony, warded off Sebastian. Melodia lived alone for months, refusing her father's letters, admitting only those folk whose animals truly suffered, accepting payment in gold or in foodstuffs for the healing she wrought. Then, according to the tale, on a frosty morning a farmer showed up in an oxcart. An old and ailing dog lay in the cart, and the farmer, himself seemingly crippled with twisted joints, limped inside. After some time the dog came out healed and whole, followed by the still-limping farmer. From the cart the farmer took a man-sized flat package, carefully wrapped in the tatters of blankets and tied with the raveled cords of old ropes. This, a watcher would assume, was the farmer's payment to Melodia.

  Except, of course, it was the mirror.

  Magic is like a tricky fluid. It seeks always to run away, to disperse itself, to return to the nonmagic that preceded first creation. It takes a great mage indeed to freeze magic, to prison it in words and bend it to purpose. It takes a greater one to instill it in material things, to give it a fixed home and habitation. But Sebastian's talent was equal to the task. The mirror was his portal, and after that he was able to visit Melodia when he willed.

  The watchers knew that they had been tricked, and they cursed their luck. Still, the old prohibitions held, and they could do nothing directly. But they wove spells of subtle strength, laid deep and hidden traps, and bided their time.

  Of all those who opposed Sebastian, the greatest was perhaps Tremien of Whitehorn Mountain, an aged wizard but a very powerful one. Tremien no longer work
ed visible wonders. Instead he rested in his ancient castle among the white peaks, snowy in summer as well as winter, and sent his spirit out into the world to feel how it went. Like a wise harvest spider, Tremien knew every tremble of the web that was the world; no vagrant gust of wind could fool him, no false stirring of a footfall could move him. But such shaking and tugging as Sebastian made—well, that bespoke to Tremien danger for the web, and for the whole world as well.

  Somehow—Kelada did not know the whole story—Tremien had tricked Sebastian and had trapped him. Melodia, too, was involved in the tale, and she appeared with Sebastian before the tribunal of magi who considered the case. She was guilty of nothing more heinous than love, and so she was released.

  The magistrates exiled Sebastian forever, sent him to the Between. There, wild and wandering, he had met Niklas and Kelada, had told them the story—the story from his point of view, at least—and had used them.

  “That's the worst of it,” Kelada finished in a dull voice. “Sebastian cared nothing for us, made promises he had no intention of keeping. And I knew it, even if Niklas would not believe what I said. Sebastian cares for only one person—and that is Sebastian himself.” She shuddered. “There is no telling what evil he has brought into your world.”

  Jeremy took a deep breath. “He'll find the going hard there,” he said. “His magic won't work, and no matter how smart he is, he'll have a tough time convincing everyone that he's me. I think he'll be safe enough—if we can get to him in time. Time. That's the key, isn't it?”

  Kelada nodded. “Well, anyway,” she said, rubbing her arms, “when Sebastian first came through, I know Melodia's dream-whorls always appeared near here. If her father hasn't reclaimed her, or if she hasn't moved away, this is the place we will find her.”

  “And convince her to open the way for us back to Thaumia.”

  “If we can.”

  “If she still has the mirror.”

  “If it still works.”

  “If—” Jeremy broke off. “You look cold,” he said.