The Path Leads Ever Northwsrds

It would be a long and difficult journey, taking perhaps a month, first through the sparsely populated eastern border region of Allaria, and then across the Calamari Desert, which Astra and - she presumed - Frederigo would not look forward to revisiting. Beyond that was the water barrier of the Chul Suz, and then the climate changed with startling rapidity as one entered the almost unknown Northern Wastes. What could have drawn the holder of the remaining piece of the amulet to such a desolate region, none of them could hope to guess. Even a sighted man would struggle to survive there, let alone one who wore a bandage over his eyes.

As they walked, Aethir recalled what the shade of the sorceress had told him through the amuler when the first two pieces had been joined. [9475] Knowing that Frederigo was Jarlath's brother, he asked him what he could tell them about the one whom the sorceress had called "the Broken".

Seeing no advantage to be gained through lying, Frederigo spoke truly: "I cannot tell you much that may be useful. He and I are the only surviving sons of Charles D'Honaire, the others all dying in infancy." The others nodded, unsurprised. Heavy infant mortality, even amongst the nobility, was a fact of life. "Jarlath was the seventh son of a seventh son, and perhaps that explains why even as a small child he was strange and precocious. Five years ago, when he was only ten, Jarlath decided that he wanted to leave home and go to the Tower of Ilxior to study with the mages there. This was a year or so before our father died, though he already seemed a broken man. Distrusting and fearing magic - a common enough attitude in Allaria, though Father's feelings seemed even stronger than most - Father forbade it. But Jarlath went anyway, and Father disowned him. There was one letter from Jarlath after that, seeking a reconciliation, but Father was already dead by then. I sent a reply telling Jarlath of his death, and inviting him to return home, but whether it ever reached him I don't know. At any rate, we heard no more from him."

"So what could have caused the scarring we saw on his face and the bandage over his eyes?" Aethir asked. "You would have been sleeping in the Tree when the Tower of Ilxior burnt down a year or so ago. News of that spread far and wide. The story went that none had survived the fire, but apparently Jarlath did - though at a cost."

Astra winced at the thought of how terrible it must have been for the boy to be caught in that fire, but she noticed that Frederigo seemed to be remarkably unmoved as he recounted the story. Had the brothers not been on good terms? She decided that it would be tactless to enquire.

Three more days passed on their journey without any incident of note occurring, but Astra found herself gradually getting more and more tense as the time for the full moon drew nearer. Now she knew that the next full moon would fall either tonight or perhaps the next night, and very soon she would discover whether or not her cure had been successful. If it had failed, then she knew that it was almost certain that she would never be free of the curse. The worst of it was that, whilst her rational mind found that a horrifying prospect, she knew that there was a deep-buried instinctual part of her that would welcome it. She could only hope that it was small enough that it hadn't jeopardised the cure.

If the cure had failed, then she couldn't see how she could continue as one of the party. Though Simon's power should prevent her from harming the others, she could hardly go off on three successive nights and expect to rejoin them each day, nor leave them for the whole three-day period and then catch them up again afterwards.

Nor could she see how she could hope to go back to living any sort of a normal life, either within the Aquilarian court or elsewhere. She could hardly disappear for three days every month, and the evidence to date was that any attempt to restrain her was unlikely to succeed. Her only options if the cure had failed appeared to be life as a hermit, far from humankind, or to commit suicide.

As she brooded, Simon spoke to her solicitously:

1. "You seem unusually quiet, Astra. I think perhaps I can guess the reason why."

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