The Spellstone of Shaltus Read online

  For the friends whose advice and encouragement made this book possible—Hank Davis, Gary Farber, Dave Romm, and especially Moshe Feder

  Published by

  Dell Publishing Co., Inc.

  1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza

  New York, New York 10017

  Copyright © 1980 by Linda E. Bushyager

  Illustrations copyright © 1980 by Janny Wurts

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Dell ® TM 681510, Dell Publishing Co., Inc.

  ISBN: 0-440-18274-3

  Printed in the United States of America

  First printing—May 1980

  One

  Something was wrong.

  Leah Carlton hesitated on the threshold of Castle Carlton’s entryway. While she listened to the lonely hum of crickets behind her, her eyes searched the shadowed hall. It was strangely dark and chill.

  Her fingers gripped the doorjamb. Then she stepped forward, letting the door shudder closed behind her.

  There was the same wrongness that Leah had felt when she’d left the castle a few days before. But it was stronger now and had taken on a tangible quality that assaulted her physical as well as her psychic senses.

  The normally damp air was dank and reeked with the faint odor of rotting vegetation. The air moved too quickly in a cold draft that whistled along the ancient stone walls. Even the torchlight seemed to be affected, as the unnaturally dim flames failed to keep deep shadows from spilling over the floor.

  Automatically she used her sorcery to seek the source of the wrongness that now seemed a threat. While her lips soundlessly recited a spell, she spun a probe outward in a thread that wove its way through the castle. The ritual words were almost meaningless, but they helped her channel her thoughts through the powerstone she wore as a necklace. The spellstone focused and enhanced her natural psychic abilities.

  At first she felt nothing unusual. Then she sensed a flickering presence. When she tried to explore it, it somehow eluded her magic. For a moment she was aware of an entity, powerful and dangerous, without knowing its form or origin. Then it disappeared, and she could not pick it up again.

  Leah blinked and stared at the reality of the murky hallway. It remained shadowed by the wrongness. Although the presence had hidden from her, it still waited within the castle.

  There had been something familiar in the menace of that brief touch.

  Brushing back a loose strand of her braided, silver hair, she tried to pinpoint the lingering impression of familiarity. Then with a shudder she recognized it—the wraith-being Shaltus.

  She shook her head. It could not have been Shaltus; he did not have the power to reach the castle, and, in any case, she would have recognized his touch instantly. Yet the similarity could not be coincidence.

  She hurried down the hallway to find her half-brother, Richard S’Carlton. He was a better sorcerer than she was—certainly he must have contacted the presence while she was away.

  As she reached the bottom of the main staircase, she hesitated, wondering if she should even mention it to him.

  When she’d told him about feeling a wrongness in the castle a week ago, he had scoffed, deriding her psychic talents. She really shouldn’t have been surprised or hurt by his reaction, for he found fault with everything she said and did, but it had stung her just the same—enough to make her leave the castle for a few days.

  She had gone to her father’s old hunting cabin. Increasingly since her father’s death two years ago, it had become a haven from the rejection and general hostility at Castle Carlton and from Richard’s obvious contempt. Since it lay halfway between the castle and the Sylvan forest of Ayers, it seemed a fittingly ironic place for her retreat, for she was half-Sylvan and half-human, and her mixed parentage was the heart of her human half-brother’s hatred and the cause of her ostracism by both worlds.

  Still, she knew she would have to speak to Richard, for if the Shaltuswraith were behind the threat she felt, it could be a danger to him and to her two half-sisters, as well as to herself. Shaltus had killed their father and had vowed to destroy everyone of S’Carlton blood.

  Having made up her mind, she moved forward, only to be halted by the sound of a mockingly solicitous voice behind her.

  “Lady Leandes—so you have returned from your trip.”

  Leah’s back stiffened automatically at the greeting, all too aware of the sarcasm in the title the man used. She was not a Lady S’Carlton like her half-sisters, but only a Carlton, and that surname was due to her father’s express command, not to any legal tie between him and her mother. Also, the man had used her full name, Leandes, which was of Sylvan origin, rather than the human-style nickname Leah.

  She gritted her teeth and then turned to smile politely down at Frederick Hillard, the chief steward. His eyes glittered with unconcealed enmity.

  Hillard had never been friendly, but while her father had been alive he’d at least treated her with a modicum of respect. Now Hillard had more reason than most to hate her, for she was half-Sylvan and his son had been killed during the recent trouble with the forest people.

  “Yes, I’m back, for a few days anyway. Is my brother in his rooms?”

  “Lord S’Carlton has just gone in to dinner,” replied the steward. “Lord Rowen and his party didn’t arrive until late, so dinner was held for them …”

  “Lord Rowen has arrived?”

  Leah felt a mixture of relief and anxiety. When her half-brother had finally admitted to himself that he was unable to handle the Shaltuswraith, he had sent for Michael Rowen, a sorcerer whose reputation was exceeded only by the fees he charged for his services. She hoped his reputation was deserved.

  “Thank you, Frederick,” she said, nodding a dismissal. Then she ran upstairs to her room.

  Realizing that her presence would be an embarrassment to her half-siblings, but determined at least to see the noted sorcerer and perhaps hear some of the conversation at the head table, she decided to slip inconspicuously into the dining hall. Because of the distinguished guest, the room was bound to be more noisy and crowded than usual; however, she knew that she would still have to do something about her appearance if she didn’t want to attract attention.

  She slipped out of her riding clothes and put on the rigid corset and stiff petticoats that human custom required. She hated the uncomfortable undergarments, but she had to conform. She chose a somber gown of dark brown wool and heelless slippers to minimize her height.

  Unbinding her two waist-length braids, she luxuriated for the moment in the freedom of having loose hair. However, women in Carlton did not wear their hair that way. Because she’d been ridiculed for the things she could not change, she’d learned to conform to those that she could. So she replaited her silver hair into a series of thin braids and wrapped them ornately around her head. Then she clipped on a brown felt cap that neatly camouflaged most of her hair.

  Finally she turned to the mirror above her dresser and scrutinized her features, silently cursing the combination of traits that had made her too human to be accepted as a Sylvan and yet did not entirely conceal her Sylvan heredity.

  At almost two meters she was too tall for a human woman; yet the forest people would have considered her short. Her cheekbones were too high, her lips too full, her skin too pale. Her silver hair was also unique, but at least it didn’t have the greenish cast of Sylvan hair.

  She thought she might have been considered beautiful, in an exotic way, if it hadn’t been
for her eyes. They were too large for her face, though not so large as a Sylvan’s, and she had normal pupils. However, she had inherited the odd-colored eyes of the Sylvan, and that was probably the most disturbing thing about her face—one eye was dark brown and one was turquoise.

  Leah quickly applied dark powder to her face. It made her look less pale and downplayed her cheekbones, but there was nothing she could do about her eyes. Still, the drab dress and cap and the makeup had made a difference, and she looked, if not quite ordinary, at least inconspicuous.

  With a slight slouch that further de-emphasized her height, she hurried down to dinner.

  As she had anticipated, the hall was quite crowded, so she quietly eased her way over to the tiny table where she always sat. Tucked between a massive pillar and the entrance to the kitchen, it was unobtrusive but placed her close enough to the raised dais holding the head table to hear most of what was said, even though its position against the far left wall didn’t give her a very good view.

  Although she had not been expected, the table was clear and unoccupied, as though her use of it had contaminated the spot.

  Glancing around, Leah noticed that dinner was only half-finished, so she called to one of the serving maids and ordered some wine and the current course. Evidently the larger-than-usual gathering and the overly elaborate meal had slowed the dinner’s progress.

  The noisy crowded seemed in good spirits; yet Leah sensed a subtle undercurrent of tension. She wondered how many felt the wrongness that still edged her perceptions.

  The occupants of the head table seemed especially troubled. They tried to mask their anxiety with a forced gaiety that only underlined the tension.

  Leah studied the stranger sitting at the far left seat on the dais, closest to her. From his appearance she guessed that he was one of Lord Rowen’s party, but not the sorcerer himself. His dark gray trousers, lighter gray tunic, and black half-cape dangling from his shoulders were sturdy but unadorned. He was about twenty-five or thirty, with close-cropped charcoal-colored hair streaked with premature gray. He was thin, bearded, and rather ordinary looking, except for the fact that he wore spectacles, which was something of an oddity.

  To his right sat Richard’s garrulous wife, Mary-Esther. She had engaged the man in a one-way conversation that allowed him to do nothing more than nod occasionally. A polite half-smile was pasted to his lips, but every so often it slipped into a worried frown.

  Between Mary-Esther and Lord Richard sat Bishop Merion. Leah was rather surprised to see the N’Omb priest in attendance—he and Richard had not gotten along well since her half-brother had decreased the Church tithe, after her father’s death.

  A few hundred years ago such an act would have been unthinkable—the N’Omb Church had been all-powerful then, controlling almost every aspect of daily life. But with the discovery of spellstones and the subsequent rise of sorcery, the Church’s influence had declined. Although the Church first condemned sorcery as it did the forbidden old magic of science, it had been unable to prevent its use. Eventually the Church accepted sorcery’s inevitability and began to use for its own purposes. Now the Church sought out spellstones and trained its priests as venerated Sorcerers.

  Bishop Merion was himself a modest sorcerer. Leah wondered what had made him come to Carlton. Perhaps he was concerned more with ridding the countryside of the Shaltuswraith than with prolonging the dispute over the tithe. At the moment he was paying more attention to his food than to her half-brother’s attempts at conversation.

  Evidently the tall, auburn-haired man on Richard’s right was Lord Michael Rowen. Leah wished that she could see him better, but her sidewise view showed only his profile, and she was some distance away.

  Leah’s unmarried half-sister Barbara sat to Lord Rowen’s right. When Barbara leaned forward Leah could see that her older sister wore one of her best dresses. Her black hair was pulled up in an elaborate coiffure of curls ornamented with gold and ruby combs, and she wore a matching ruby necklace. She looked quite beautiful. She’d apparently gone to some trouble to impress Lord Rowen, an eligible bachelor.

  There was another man to Barbara’s right, but Leah couldn’t see anything more than his nose bobbing up and down whenever he took a sip of wine, which was often.

  When the kitchenmaid brought supper Leah asked the girl for the names of the guests and learned that the fellow with spectacles was Timothy Fletcher and that the man at the far end of the table was called Rusty. The maid knew nothing more about them except that they had both ridden in with Lord Rowen.

  As she ate, Leah tried to overhear what was being said at the head table, but the noise from the diners and a group of minstrels lustily singing a ballad drowned the conversation.

  She concentrated on her dinner. This course consisted of an apple compote with chopped walnuts, some finely ground bread with blueberry jam, asparagus, and chicken sauteed in wine. Before she had time to do more than taste the chicken, it was replaced by the next course of a heavily spiced venison stew topped with a flaky crust. She decided that it would have taken several days to prepare such a sumptuous feast and that word of Lord Rowen’s arrival must have come just after she’d left the castle.

  When the minstrels finished their song, one of the people seated near the front of the room rose and bowed to the visiting sorcerer.

  “Lord Rowen, we’ve all looked forward to your arrival very much. I’d like to toast your success in destroying the Shaltuswraith.”

  As he lifted his glass, those around him loudly chorused their approval. Many jumped to their feet to drink, while others in the back of the room stamped and pounded their tables in jovial agreement. Although they were suspicious of sorcery, they were realistic enough to favor its use against an enemy. And since the ruling S’Carltons were sorcerers, they’d been forced to accept its use in everyday life.

  Lord Rowen stood and nodded his thanks, but the grim line of his mouth made Leah think that he had some doubt as to his ability to defeat the wraith. She wondered just how much Rowen would be able to accomplish. No one knew the full extent of Shaltus’s power, only that it was malevolent and deadly.

  Leah’s throat tightened as she thought of her father. He had fought Shaltus.

  At first he hadn’t recognized the nature of the strange blighted area in the Blue River Valley that had appeared at the end of the S’Shegan War. Trees began to grow at odd angles on farms with stunted crops; terrified farmers whispered stories of deformed calves and disappearing livestock. Then men vanished.

  Her father tried to destroy the wraith, but its defenses were too strong. Gradually the evil hole grew into a twenty-square-kilometer blight of destruction that threatened Castle Bluefield in southern Carlton, and Lord S’Carlton’s sorcery could only slow its growth. A little over two years ago he had finally engaged the wraith in an all-out duel.

  Lord S’Carlton had died, and Castle Bluefield had been taken over by the strange Shaltus force.

  Although Richard had taken his father’s place as Lord of the kingdom of Carlton, he’d been unable to match his father’s necromantic ability. So the area affected had increased even faster than before. Death or madness touched any nonsorcerer entering the region, and so far no sorcerer had been able to get closer than a kilometer to the Shaltus spellstone at its heart.

  Leah studied Lord Rowen, who remained standing in acknowledgment of yet another toast. He was a very large man, tall and massively built, yet not overweight.

  With his thick shoulders, long arms, and oversized hands, he looked quite powerful, but his finely chiseled features and confident bearing gave an overall impression of intelligence rather than brawn. He was clean shaven, and his reddish-brown hair was almost shoulder length. He was younger than she’d expected, perhaps in his early thirties.

  The sorcerer wore a forest green velvet tunic embroidered with silver and gold over a silver-colored shirt and dark trousers. The matching green and silver half-cape was trimmed with verdant green osmur fur. A dark bro
wn belt with a large silver buckle and a sheath knife circled his waist. The fineness of the materials and workmanship were a testament to Rowen’s success as a sorcerer.

  Around his neck hung a sizable amethyst-colored crystal. It was a powerstone, and like the smaller gem in the necklace Leah wore, it could amplify the psychic powers of its owner. A certain amount of psychic ability was necessary to use the spellstones, whose power was dependent on the person’s natural capabilities and on the length of time the person used the stone. Since no one was quite certain how the stones worked, they were controlled chiefly by the recitation of ritualized spells that helped focus the user’s thoughts through the stone.

  Different superstitions and myths tried to explain the power of the stones. Some sorcerers believed the spellstones drew energy from the sun and moon, and they devised elaborate rites to try to pull more power from these sources. But Leah doubted either really powered the stones, for they worked just as well on cloudy days as on clear ones. Her father had speculated that the stones linked the earth to another dimension and drew energy from there. And the N’Omb Church doctrine said that N’Omb himself supplied the power, which was why the stones had been found only in certain taboo areas consecrated to N’Omb.

  While some sorcerers feared their spellstones almost as much as the commoners did, Leah accepted hers as she accepted her hands and used it as naturally.

  Suddenly Rowen turned toward Leah as though he had felt her stare. Self-consciously she shrank back against the pillar, out of his line of sight. However, the sorcerer continued to gaze curiously in her direction. Then the start of a toast addressed to Lord S’Carlton distracted his attention. Rowen sat down as Richard stood.

  Leah’s half-brother was also an imposing figure, but he was not quite so tall as Lord Rowen nor so heavily built. The long-sleeved red brocade tunic he wore emphasized his broad shoulders and slim waist. Like Barbara, Richard had lustrous jet black hair and deepset brown eyes. His hair just touched his collar. His beard was short and neatly trimmed.

  Smiling at the assembly, he answered the toast to his health with one of his own. His deep voice cut through the noisy room like a knife: “To Lord Rowen’s success and to our kingdom’s prosperity.”