Woman Who Loved the Moon by Elizabeth A. Lynn Read Free Book Online

third time, and Rhune trembled at the fierceness of the laughter. “Fool you think me, Seramir Firelord. Shall I indeed go with you to your chambers, the heart of your kingdom? For that alone I should bind you living to the seabed.” His hands moved. “Watch!”
    And the ocean behind them lifted from its rest and fell upon the cone-shaped mountain. Inexorable and unbreachable, it grew into a tremendous wave, higher than their heads, higher than treetops, higher than the Tower of the Firelord’s house. The wave raced like a hurricane toward the shore, and the water screamed as it poured upon the stone, and so did the people of the house, cowering with terror as the wall of water crashed over them. Down it fell, like the sundering of the sky. Then it sucked back, and with it came the palace: stones, rugs, drapes, furnishings, and people, in a great vortex of ruin. The debris swirled by them and out to sea.
    Seramir stared at the scar in the earth where his home had been.
    “It is gone,” said Shea softly. “All your devices of magic are gone. While I live the sea will not give them up. No more of your power have I ever desired, than this. Your servants and all the folk of your house live, and are swimming back to shore. Your palace you may rebuild. Your ships I have not touched. Still will the dragon-ships ride through the waters, and the merchants of Ryoka will pay their toll.” He sheathed the knife. Rhune released the Firelord’s hands. “And if you can, Seramir, you may still bind men into your dungeons of fire, or drug them to oblivion in your tapestried halls.”
    A small sailboat came scudding round the rocks from the harbor. It was Windcatcher, sleek and trim. Rhune caught the rocking ship and steadied it.
    Sealord and Firelord matched gazes in silence.
    At last, Seramir turned away. “Ryoka has again defeated me,” he said. “O Shea, you have grown strong. But you will bear my marks on your body for as long as you wear it, and, when you sleep, your nightmares will be of fire.”
     
    * * *
     
    Under the turning stars, pushed by an enchanted wind, Windcatcher rode steadily and surely westward.
    Shea sat in the stern. Rhune lay in the bow. His head felt light with exhaustion, and his belly with hunger. Over him the winter stars played their patterns against the night. Three months I have been captive in Seramir’s halls, he thought. Damn all wizards!
    Querulously he said, “How long will it take us to reach land?”
    Shea answered, “Current and wind will have us home within ten hours.”
    Rhune scowled.
    “Is that so slow?” said Shea.
    “No.”
    “Then tell me what it is that makes you look so discontent.”
    Rhune raised his eyes to the Sealord’s face. “I have no home,” he said.
    Shea said, “I will give you one.”
    Rhune said, between his teeth, “I will take nothing from you.”
    Shea pursed his lips. That look, part sadness, part relief, brushed over his face. He said, very gently, “Rhune—tell me, if you can and will—what did Osher offer you to tempt you to turn traitor, beside wealth, lands, fleet?”
    Rhune said, “Don’t you think those are sufficient?”
    Shea said, “Was there something else?”
    Rhune sighed. “He told me he would teach me magic.” A hope he had thought was gone quivered inside him. He lifted on an elbow.
    Shea said, “Ah.” The soft syllable sighed like the sea-wind. “He lied to you, Rhune. He could no more do that than he could call the sea. The power cannot be taught, and it is not in you.”
    The hope died. Rhune bowed his head, staring at the planks of the sailboat. Finally he said, “I am not your fleetmaster now, nor am I traitor, or ocean—what am I, Shea? What is left of me?”
    Shea said, “You are what you have always been. You still have the strength to break a man’s neck between your hands. You have the guile to fool a sorcerer face to face. You spent a year as an ocean, and rose from it stronger. You have the courage and love to