Circle Of The Moon Part 35

"Of course it's possible." Puahale put her arm around Shaldis's shoulders, hugged her like a sister, like her own family back on Sleeping Worms Street. "You'll find how it works best for you, the same way you found how your power works best. Look!" She turned and pointed out to sea. "There they are. The whales."

Shaldis stood in the froth of the surf, gazing across the moonlit ocean at the far-off shapes of monstrous flukes, of black curving backs glittering as they dived. The djinni, she thought. Adjusting to their new lives, in exile from the magic that had been theirs.

Could they, like she, source magic from the sea?

Would they, like Pontifer Pig, gradually strengthen in their new shapes and one day become something more than a shadow in someone else's mind?

It was time to go home. The surge of the wave washed around her knees, dragged on her white robe where she'd kilted it high. The sun was rising above the Yellow City, as the last of its light flickered and slipped from the sky above the endless sea to the west. The cras.h.i.+ng of the waves seemed to gather her up, to bear her back through the darkness. Having touched the strength of the limitless waters, having heard the sea, she felt that she could do anything, learn anything, conquer anything.

Anything except the yearnings of her own heart.

And maybe, she thought, waking and turning her head to see Jethan still sleeping beside her in the sun-streaked quiet of the Citadel of the Sun, maybe even those as well.

She reached across, wanting to touch his hair, like rough dark silk pillowed on her arm, but not wanting to wake him. And as she moved her head, she saw on the other side of the room her white novice's robe, lying where she'd discarded it last night across the little table beside the door.

Its hem, she saw, was soaked with seawater, just beginning to drip down onto the tiles of the floor.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Barbara Hambly was born in San Diego on August 28, 1951, and grew up in Southern California amid daydreams, Beatlemania, and Flower Power. She attended the University of California, Riverside, where she obtained a master's degree in medieval history and a black belt in Shotokan Karate. She later taught a year of high school, waited tables, taught karate, shelved books in the local library, and was "downsized" out of the aeros.p.a.ce industry two days after signing her first book contract in 1981. For many years she was best known for writing sword-and-sorcery fantasy, with occasional excursions into vampire tales, Star Trek and Star Wars novels, but has recently branched out into a series of well-reviewed historical whodunits as well. A world traveler, she has served as President of the Science Fiction Writers of America, is the holder of a Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times BOOKclub Magazine, and at one point in her life wrote scripts for cartoon shows. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

CAPTIVATING FANTASY FROM BARBARA HAMBLY.

SISTERS OF THE RAVEN.

The Yellow City is in crisis. Men have always possessed the magic that sustains civilization, from healing the sick to calling the rains to keeping mice from the granaries. Now the rains are weeks late, the wells are drying up, and the Sun Mages cannot summon the powers that the empire needs to survive. When magic appears-inexplicably-in the hands of a few women, the men react swiftly and furiously. Raeshaldis, the only girl ever accepted to the College of the Sun Mages, finds the mages won't teach her the spells. Corn-Ta.s.sle Woman's budding powers can't protect her from an abusive husband. And the Summer Concubine must play the dutiful consort even as danger looms for her Raven sisters. For while famine threatens and fanatics riot, someone is killing the most gifted female magic-workers...

PRAISE FOR.

SISTERS OF THE RAVEN.

"Smart, thoughtful... keenly imagined... vividly convincing."

-SUZY MCKEE CHARNAS,

author of The Slave and the Free.

"This is Barbara Hambly at the very top of her form... Read this one!"

-HARRY TURTLEDOVE,

author of the American Empire series.

Returning to the wondrous world of Sisters of the Raven, Barbara Hambly presents a suspenseful new story of a fledgling group of women who must develop their own magic abilities-before the demons of the past return to kill again...

A MAGIC WOMAN'S WORK IS NEVER DONE The laws of magic have changed-no one knows how or why. And with that change, new perils have arisen: deadly water monsters from the depths of the Seven Lakes and a plague of madness in the desert. In the strongholds of human safety, anger and greed bloom as n.o.bles and landchiefs fight for power. Raeshaldis, the only woman formally trained in the old systems of male magic, allies herself with the beautiful concubine Summerchild to found the Circle of the Moon-a motley group of women whose powers are unknown and unreliable. Faced with an attempt by the landchiefs to oust the king and with the efforts of her family to re-enslave her, Raeshaldis must play a deadly guessing game with untested spells and questionable allies, while an even more terrible threat awaits...

"Couldn't put it down until the end...a great fantasy."

-MyShelf.com.

ALSO BY BARBARA HAMBLY.

Sisters of the Raven.