Free Conqueror’s Moon by Julian May Page A

telling him he had only imagined the bodiless shadow. The magicker was mind-mashing him!
    He was a wiry little old fellow bald as an egg, with a deeply lined face, as though he had experienced great pain. He wore the dirty white pantaloons, waxed leather jacket, and folded high boots of a sailor. Around his neck hung a short gold chain with a square stone pendant that glowed as faintly as foxfire. The sorcerer’s eyes were golden-orange, like an eagle-owl’s, and the boy had never seen their like in a human head. Within them shone the glint of talent, the same fugitive spark perceptible to him in the gaze of anyone possessed of arcane ability: easy to discern in Stergos and the other alchymists and windvoices of his acquaintance, more elusive but nonetheless a tell-tale sign in the eyes of certain others, such as Prince Heritor Conrig Wincantor.
    “I’m… Oddie, the scullion,” Snudge said.
    “What do you want?”
    The boy lifted the bucket. “Here’s w-water for washing. I’ll just put it here and go.”
    The spy started toward Snudge, an ingratiating smile spreading his furrowed lips. His teeth were decayed brown stumps. The pupils of his amazing eyes expanded until all trace of their fiery color had been obliterated by blackness.
    “Bide a moment, lad. I’ll take the bucket.” He held out a hand, striding quickly through the scattered chests and packs of Skellhaven’s retainers.
    Snudge felt a terrifying splinter of ice prick his throat. He cried, “Oh!”
    “Don’t be afraid.” The sorcerer spoke in a wheedling tone. His eyes had become gleaming jet beads, enormous and compelling. Magic stiffened Snudge’s tongue and rendered him mute. He felt his fingers freeze. A wave of cold began creeping up his arms. His feet tingled painfully, then lost feeling and seemed rooted to the floor. Snudge’s mind screamed:
    Damn you! You won’t! You won’t do that to me!
    He drew arcane power from somewhere, fending off frigid paralysis, and flung the iron-bound bucket overhand, dealing the spy a glancing blow on the side of his head. The man blinked, breaking the spell of encroaching ice for a moment, but kept coming. The fatal cold took hold of Snudge again, and he hit his adversary in the face with the hot lantern, which promptly went out. The sorcerer tottered and crashed over backwards onto the wet, slippery stones, visible only because of the faint gleam of his amulet. Snudge leapt on top of him, using his fists. Neither of them uttered a sound.
    The small man struggled like a mad thing in the dark, exerting uncanny strength. Straddling his adversary’s torso, Snudge felt sinewy fingers seize his neck. Thumbs with nails like steel pincers dug in on each side of his voicebox, bringing pain and roaring dizziness and a red fog pulsing behind his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. His pummeling fists had no effect. He fumbled desperately at his waist, found his little dagger, and grasped it in both hands as he felt death closing in on him. Time for one strike—only one—and instinct or something else taught him the appropriate place to drive in the blade, the sure route to the sorcerer’s heart. He knew how to thrust up under the breastbone, bury the dagger to its hilt, and twist…
    Then came an abrupt relaxation of those claw-like hands, the melting of the muscle-fettering ice whose power he had kept at bay for a few critical seconds.
    The eerie glow of the sorcerer’s pendant showed Snudge a face contorted with incredulous rage. His heart torn and stilled, the spy bucked upward in a last spasm of agony as all thinking ground inexorably to a halt. There was a rattling exhalation of breath, followed by a blare of windspeech:
    Beynor!
    A call?
    How did the boy do it? How? How? How?
    Each soundless demand was fainter than the last, until there was only silence on the wind. The furious glint of talent in the sorcerer’s eyes dwindled to blank nullity and his soul fled to an inaccessible place, leaving only dead flesh