Somewhere close, the tide of whispers was growing again. She twisted around. Rade had joined Niree and Brant. All three wolves faced outward, a growling wall of fangs and muscle. Feena spun back to the other members of the vanished pact.
"What is the darkness?" she asked. "Was Dhauna right? Is it heresy? Does Selune really want the New Moon Pact reborn to fight heresy in her faith?"
"Yes and no," said Tyver. "No and yes," said Qualise.
"All things come," said Enshu, "in their proper time." Feena looked at her. She was a stout woman with a strong face crossed by a scar. She reached out thick hands and drew Feena forward, guiding her to the chair beside the table. "Dhauna Myritar tried to move too fast. Now your time is too short."
"I don't understand," Feena gasped.
The whispers pressed in on all sides. The New Moon Pact was pulling together to make a circle around her. A look of urgency crossed Enshu's face.
"Some things should never be understood," she snarled and shoved Feena hard back into the chair.
Feena woke to voices. Real voices.
All thought of the dream vanished. Someone was at the door of the archives. Nomore than just someone. Feena caught sour tones. It was Velsinore.
The clergy of Moonshadow Hall had returned. How long had she been asleep? Feena stifled a curse and touched the paperweight, dismissing its glow with a thought. The white book was still on the table, just as it should have been. Feena flipped it closed, then scrambled out of her chair and flung herself silently in among the shelves, sliding deep into their maze. When Velsinore's voice became more than a whisper, Feena stopped and pressed herself down against the floor. The robe billowed loosely around herloose enough to accept a change in form. Narrowing her eyes in concentration, Feena shifted and became a wolf. Sharp ears twitched, listening.
Out in the center of the chamber, Velsinore spoke a prayer and light blossomed.
"Gather them all, sisters!" the tall priestess commanded. "They'll go in the vaults with the others."
Priestesses murmured, and Feena caught the slither of parchment on parchment. They were gathering the scrolls and books Dhauna had left laid out on the table. Someone grunted under a weight. The white book! However flawed the account might be, it was the only record of the New Moon Pact. Feena's ears pressed back and a low growl escaped her.
One of the priestesses gasped in alarm and parchment crackled sharply.
"Velsinore!"
Feena tensed in alarm, but Velsinore only grunted, angry. "Be careful, Chandri! It might be something among them that drove Dhauna and Julith to madness." She grunted again, and said, "Perhaps it's time these archives were purged."
"Velsinore," asked one of the other priestesses timidly, "what will happen to Julith now?"
"Selune will judge her, Tam." Velsinore's voice was calm. Her footsteps retreated. "After the funeral, when the moon is waxing againSelune will judge her."
"What about what the Sharran told her?" bleated Chandri.
Velsinore's footsteps stopped.
For a moment there was silence, then Velsinore said, "Attend to your work, sisters. When Selune waxes, we'll put an end to the Sharran and his kind. Now hurry there's a lot to do."
Her footsteps began again, marching out of the archives. Other footsteps scurried in her wake. After a moment, the archives were silent once more, though Velsinore's light remained.
Feena put her jaw down on her paws and allowed herself a thin growl. Obviously Julith and presumably Keph along with her had been captured, but she wondered what the young man could have said to put Tam and Chandri into such a state of alarm. She whined and slapped her tail on the floor. She needed to get out of the archives and find out what was going on. Feena started rise, to change back into a woman.
Silver flashed in the corner of her eye.
Feena sank back down and peered in at the lowest level of the shelves she crouched beside. Back behind dusty, cracked scrollsthere was something there. Something that shone with silver, but that only a wolfs sharp eyes might see and even then only if the animal was stretched out on the ground. Feena made her transformation, then knelt down again and reached blindly past the scrolls. Her fingers closed on a slim book, its leather binding furred and soft with age. She pulled it out carefully.
The book's cover was black. The silver that decorated it was dull and mostly tarnished, but the hair-thin ring that stood in the center of the cover was still somehow bright.
"Moonmaiden's grace," Feena breathed.
She rose and moved out into the light. Drawing a shallow breath, she opened the cover of the book. Leather that should have crumbled held firm. There was magic at work.
Cramped, heavy script filled the first page. The book bore no title, but it began with a date: Feast of the Moon, the Year of Lost Wayfarers. Feena bit her lip. That was five months after the suppression of the New Moon Pact. Eyes wide, she read:
Feast of the Moon, the Year of Lost Wayfarers. To the one who comes
Hear the tale of the New Moon Pact, destroyed by lies. In Selune's name and by her grace, I make this record. All around me, the tales of the Pact are wiped away day by day. My pack is gone, but by Selune's hand I survive. By her will, I carry its ancient history in my heart. On this day dedicated to the honored dead, I begin my secret record. Bright Lady of Night, grant me the years to finish it.
The priestesses of Moonshadow Hall know me as Asha the Silent. Six months ago, I had a different name and a different form. Until Selune laid her hand upon me, my name was Halftail and I was a wolf.
When the time is right, I pray that you read what Selune granted me human hands and mind to record. I pray that you restore the name and lore of the New Moon Pact, charged by Selune in the earliest nights of the world to watch and defend against the darkest shadows. What time has consumed, not even gods can recall, but know thisthese words were spoken by those who first made pact with the Moonmaiden, just as they were spoken by the last. This is the sacred rite of the New Moon.
Feena closed the book and squeezed her eyes shut. Her dream… the New Moon Pact…
"Oh, Dhauna," Feena murmured. "Bright Lady of the Night, have pity on a tortured spirit."
CHAPTER 14
The shadows seemed to go on forever, bleak and black. Cold, their touch was like a dark sea fog rolling across Keph's body and spirit. Variance was gone. He was aloneand helpless. There was nothing he could do but… drift…
Sound came back to him first.
"The call went out at dusk as you instructed, Mother Night," Bolan's voice said. "The faithful are assembling now. They will bring weapons."
"Good," replied Variance. "Go make what preparations you need to for yourself."
"I've been preparing for this for years, Mother Night." Bolan sounded like he might actually cry. Keph could hardly imagine tears breaking out on that cold white face. "I have a chest filled with formulas I thought I might never use. The poison Cyrume took was the least of what waits for the Selunites."
Smell… Recognition of an odor that had been in his nose for some time filtered into Keph's consciousness: raw, cold stone. He was in the cliff tunnels. In Shar's temple. His heart clenched and his eyes opened.
Darkness weighed upon the air. The only light was a dim glow, a single candle that burned on the other side of the temple. Against it, Bolan and Variance were silhouettes, the alchemist squat and nightmarish, the Calishite woman tall and stiff. Her arm reached out and came down on Bolan's wide shoulder.
"This is the time we have been waiting for. This is what the Temple of Old Night sent me to Yhaunn to oversee. The Selunites' attempt to steal Keph from us was only the final blow."