tarnblaze, having lengths of tarry cord protruding through their nozzles. The door opening onto the roof was only latched.
Outside, he saw the sun descending behind jagged black peaks while the snow-covered slopes of Demon Seat glowed pink with lavender shadows. The air was dead calm. Smoke from the castle chimneys and from buildings in the town beyond the outer ward and the curtain wall rose straight in blue-white columns. The first spunkies, like infinitesimal earthbound stars, began to sparkle in a patch of marshy waste ground below the castle’s knoll. He heard a dog bark. Someone down in the inner ward cursed a squealing horse. The shrill laughter of women came from the covered colonnade around the castle spring.
Snudge clapped hands over his ears, shut his eyes, and let the wind bear him away.
And immediately found watchers. Not one, but two!
Then came the difficult part. He felt himself sinking to his knees, finally flopping prone as the strength drained from his body and empowered his mind. He followed the thread of the first watcher, whose windsign he recognized too well, for hundreds of leagues northward.
The scene seemed hazy, as though obscured by thin gauze, since he viewed it at such a great distance; but the details were clear enough. Snudge seemed to soar over flats of black quicksand exposed at low tide toward a ramshackle castle nestled between crags above a misty estuary. The place was Royal Fenguard, seat of the rulers of Moss. This time there was no blocking cover-spell at the terminus of the trace, as had invariably been the case when he attempted to spy on her previously. Invisible as the wind, he seemed to pass through the bubbly glass of an illuminated window in the tall south tower.
And saw her: Ullanoth sha Linndal, daughter of the Conjure-King, only eighteen years of age but having the imposing presence of one much older. She was standing motionless in the middle of a room crowded with books, alchemical apparatus, and arcane objects of unknown function. On one side of her stood a tall candlestick, but the indistinct object it held was not a candle, although it glowed weakly.
The sorceress wore a flowing gown of leaf-green satin, the skirt and sleeve drapes gold-embroidered in an elaborate pattern of bulrushes. Her long unbound hair, almost luminous in the candlelight, was a strange pale hue—silvery with the kind of faint rosy undertone found in the lining of certain seashells. The narrow face had prominent cheekbones, an elegant long nose, and milk-white skin. Her eyelids were closed to enhance her oversight of Castle Vanguard, their thick dark lashes resting upon her cheeks.
After a time her thread of watching snapped and she opened her eyes. They were large as a doe’s and at first appeared to be green, but almost immediately their color changed as the sea does in late evening, becoming slate-grey, and then turning to an uncanny black. She smiled and refreshed herself with a drink from a golden cup, then took down a long cloak of midnight blue that hung from a wall peg. Donning it, she pulled its hood closely over her bright hair. Finally, she pulled something from the bosom of her gown—a small pendant on a chain that shone with the same faint radiance as the object on the candlestick.
At one wall of the room was a peculiar piece of padded furniture that resembled a narrow couch raised on end by means of a frame. It was tilted at a sharp angle and had rails at the side and a footrest to keep one from slipping off. Ullanoth arranged herself upon this and gripped the neck pendant tightly. Her mouth moved in soundless speech as she pronounced some elaborate spell, and even though Snudge could read lips, the words were incomprehensible to him.
He watched in awe. The small pendant in her hand blazed up like some miniature greenish lamp. Its nature was impossible to discern. The princess uttered a deep groan of pain. Her body seemed to shimmer, expand… and become two identical cloaked
Outside, he saw the sun descending behind jagged black peaks while the snow-covered slopes of Demon Seat glowed pink with lavender shadows. The air was dead calm. Smoke from the castle chimneys and from buildings in the town beyond the outer ward and the curtain wall rose straight in blue-white columns. The first spunkies, like infinitesimal earthbound stars, began to sparkle in a patch of marshy waste ground below the castle’s knoll. He heard a dog bark. Someone down in the inner ward cursed a squealing horse. The shrill laughter of women came from the covered colonnade around the castle spring.
Snudge clapped hands over his ears, shut his eyes, and let the wind bear him away.
And immediately found watchers. Not one, but two!
Then came the difficult part. He felt himself sinking to his knees, finally flopping prone as the strength drained from his body and empowered his mind. He followed the thread of the first watcher, whose windsign he recognized too well, for hundreds of leagues northward.
The scene seemed hazy, as though obscured by thin gauze, since he viewed it at such a great distance; but the details were clear enough. Snudge seemed to soar over flats of black quicksand exposed at low tide toward a ramshackle castle nestled between crags above a misty estuary. The place was Royal Fenguard, seat of the rulers of Moss. This time there was no blocking cover-spell at the terminus of the trace, as had invariably been the case when he attempted to spy on her previously. Invisible as the wind, he seemed to pass through the bubbly glass of an illuminated window in the tall south tower.
And saw her: Ullanoth sha Linndal, daughter of the Conjure-King, only eighteen years of age but having the imposing presence of one much older. She was standing motionless in the middle of a room crowded with books, alchemical apparatus, and arcane objects of unknown function. On one side of her stood a tall candlestick, but the indistinct object it held was not a candle, although it glowed weakly.
The sorceress wore a flowing gown of leaf-green satin, the skirt and sleeve drapes gold-embroidered in an elaborate pattern of bulrushes. Her long unbound hair, almost luminous in the candlelight, was a strange pale hue—silvery with the kind of faint rosy undertone found in the lining of certain seashells. The narrow face had prominent cheekbones, an elegant long nose, and milk-white skin. Her eyelids were closed to enhance her oversight of Castle Vanguard, their thick dark lashes resting upon her cheeks.
After a time her thread of watching snapped and she opened her eyes. They were large as a doe’s and at first appeared to be green, but almost immediately their color changed as the sea does in late evening, becoming slate-grey, and then turning to an uncanny black. She smiled and refreshed herself with a drink from a golden cup, then took down a long cloak of midnight blue that hung from a wall peg. Donning it, she pulled its hood closely over her bright hair. Finally, she pulled something from the bosom of her gown—a small pendant on a chain that shone with the same faint radiance as the object on the candlestick.
At one wall of the room was a peculiar piece of padded furniture that resembled a narrow couch raised on end by means of a frame. It was tilted at a sharp angle and had rails at the side and a footrest to keep one from slipping off. Ullanoth arranged herself upon this and gripped the neck pendant tightly. Her mouth moved in soundless speech as she pronounced some elaborate spell, and even though Snudge could read lips, the words were incomprehensible to him.
He watched in awe. The small pendant in her hand blazed up like some miniature greenish lamp. Its nature was impossible to discern. The princess uttered a deep groan of pain. Her body seemed to shimmer, expand… and become two identical cloaked
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