Moon Chosen

by P. C. Cast

  “I hope he’s drugable,” Sora said, waggling her fingers at Mari and Rigel. “Sweet dreams.”

  “Sweet dreams,” Mari whispered as she curled up with Rigel before the hearth on their makeshift pallet. As the firelight faded to a red glow, Mari watched Nik and began cataloguing questions for him in her mind, but the questions kept slipping away as she studied him, distracted by the way his blond hair gleamed in the dim firelight. She looked from his hair to his face, and was even more intrigued. His features were so different from those of the Clansmen. Nik was more refined, with strong cheekbones and full lips. Had his jaw not been so square and his neck and shoulders not so powerfully built, Mari would have been tempted to call him pretty.

  He moved fitfully, brushing one of the coverings from him so that his arm, golden tan with long, lean muscles, lay naked against the pelt. Mari felt a fluttering low in her stomach as a warm rush of desire flowed through her body.

  Almost without thought, Mari went to Nik. She rearranged the pelt so that it covered him again. Then she glanced surreptitiously at the empty doorway to the back room. Sora was definitely in bed. Slowly, Mari reached out until just the tips of her fingers caressed his hair.

  Soft—it’s so soft!

  A muffled snore from the back room had Mari retreating to the fireside where Rigel joined her, resting his head on her knee while they both continued to watch Nik.

  “Want to know a secret?” she whispered to the pup. “I think he’s beautiful. But do not tell Sora.”

  Rigel huffed several doggie laughs before stretching out beside her and falling asleep. Mari found sleep more slowly, and when she did she dreamed of gleaming blond hair, long, tan muscles, and softly waving pine trees …

  37

  “I can’t believe this. It’s gone! It’s really gone!” Nik was staring at the wound in his leg. Just the night before it had been putrid and black with deadly blight, and now it was pink with health and obviously healing. “And the one in my back? That one, too?”

  “I already told you it’s free of the blight.” Mari smiled at him as she finished packing his wound with more of the indigo poultice and closed the bandage.

  “But will it come back?”

  Mari met his gaze. “Trust me, Nik. It’s gone for good.”

  “I do trust you. I promise I do.”

  Nik’s bright gaze went from Mari to Sora, who was watching Mari with a strange, knowing expression in her gray eyes. He ignored the Scratcher and focused on Mari.

  “You won’t be gone too long, will you?” Nik asked.

  A loud snort came from Sora. “Oh, don’t pretend like you wouldn’t relish the opportunity to grab Mari’s creature and run back to the Tribe.” The young Clanswoman frowned severely at him and Nik frowned back at her.

  “I can’t run anywhere. I can barely walk. And I wouldn’t do that. I would never steal someone else’s canine!” he said.

  “Right, just like you wouldn’t kill someone’s mother? Or father? Wait, you don’t think Scratchers are someone. You think they’re something, so killing them is fine,” Sora said.

  “I don’t think you’re a thing, and I—” Nik began, but Mari cut him off.

  “Nik, I’ll be back soon. We’ll both be back. But you’re going to need to drink this so that I don’t have to worry about whether you’ll be here when we do return.” As usual, Mari sounded rational and reasonable, unlike Sora, who he had silently dubbed her crazy Scratcher friend. So when she handed him a mug full of a noxious-smelling potion, he drank it in several long gulps.

  “Whoops, I might have put some nightshade in that tea. Was that the wrong herb, Mari?” Sora said with mock innocence.

  Nik’s stomach clenched. Nightshade wouldn’t kill him, but it would definitely make him vomit, and the wound in his back would hurt bad enough that he might wish he were dead. He stared into the mug, wondering and worrying.

  “Stop it,” Mari told her crazy friend, then she turned to him. “She wouldn’t really do that, but I made the tea. There’s nothing in it that will hurt you, though you are going to sleep. You know we’re Healers. We have to check on our other patients. We won’t be gone long.” She bent and hugged Rigel. “Stay here with Nik. Don’t let him leave.”

  The young Shepherd licked her face and thumped his tail. She kissed his muzzle and then she and Sora, carrying packs filled with herbs and poultices, left the burrow.

  Rigel went to the closed door and sat, whining fretfully.

  “Yeah, I know how you feel, boy. But at least you know where we are.” Rigel looked over his shoulder at Nik, and then turned back to the door, whining again. The tea was going to kick his ass soon, but at that moment he felt completely invigorated. Mari had healed the blight! He wasn’t going to die! No one in the Tribe would ever have to die again—all he had to do was to talk Mari into sharing her poultice secret with him.

  “And that’s something I’ll talk to Mari about when her crazy friend is out of hearing range. That woman is a thorn in my side,” Nik grumbled. But not even the Scratcher could dampen his mood today. He wasn’t going to die of the blight! “Hey, Rigel, how about we explore a little. And I do mean a little. I definitely have enough energy to hobble to that desk. Sitting at a chair, even for a few minutes before Mari’s awful tea knocks me out, will seem like a great adventure.”

  He could feel Rigel’s eyes on him as he used the edge of the sleeping pallet to steady himself. Nik managed to shuffle the few feet to the desk, and then sat heavily with a groan. His wounds felt better, but the movement had caused stabbing pain to return to his back and a dull throbbing in his leg that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. He sat very still, trying to slow his breathing and fight the dizziness that was already tugging at him.

  The pup’s muzzle was wet and cool, and wonderfully familiar when it poked him. Nik smiled and opened his eyes.

  Rigel was, indeed, a handsome boy. Nik caressed his sable-colored head and smiled into his intelligent eyes.

  “I haven’t had the opportunity to thank you for saving my life. I don’t know how you got your Mari to come to me, let alone to bring me to her home and heal me, but I thank you. My father, Sol, would thank you, too. You remember Sol? The Sun Priest?” Rigel wagged his tail and smiled the panting, tongue-lolling version of a Shepherd smile, which had Nik grinning in response. “I’ll bet you do remember. I’ll bet you remember everything, and still you choose to be here—to stay with her.” Nik’s grin turned bittersweet. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of you. Your Companion is a lucky woman.” Rigel licked Nik’s hand before padding back to the door, yawning, and lying down in front of it at his normal, watching position.

  “Well, I guess I’ve had enough adventure. Time to make my way back to my pallet.” Nik put a hand on the desk to help himself up, accidentally scattering the papers on which he’d seen Mari writing notations. Nik sat back down, meaning to straighten the pile and leave it as it was. He glanced at the neat writing. It was a journal entry about his wounds and what Mari had packed them with, how often she’d changed his dressings, as well as comments about the extraction of the spearhead and the potions she had been brewing to help him sleep and, he noted with surprise, help him heal.

  Feeling a prickle of excitement, he quickly read through the annotations, looking for any mention of the ingredients to the poultice she’d used to cure the blight. Nik sighed in frustration. “She hasn’t written that part yet,” he mumbled to himself. “But she will, and all I need to do is to read and remember what she writes.”

  Steal it—all I need to do is to steal it and get back to the Tribe with the recipe.

  Nik felt a hot flush of guilt. No, he wouldn’t do something so dishonorable. He would ask Mari to share the poultice with him and his people. It was only if she said no that he would consider a less trustworthy alternative.

  He had to have that poultice recipe. For the Tribe. He had to have it.

  Nik’s attention went back to the stack of notes. He read through them again
, making sure he hadn’t missed anything, and from beneath the blank pages waiting to be filled with Mari’s neat handwriting, he saw the corner of something that didn’t look the same as the others. He pulled the thick sheet of paper free and sucked in a quick breath of surprise.

  It was a sketch of Rigel, and it was exquisitely drawn with such talent that it could have been created by one of the Tribe’s Master Artists. Trying to fight off the dizziness that Mari’s tea was causing, Nik quickly paged through the rest of the papers, hardly believing the beauty they held. He looked up at the paintings that decorated the hearth’s mantel, and the few others that were scattered between sections of glowmoss and glowshrooms.

  “Those are good, but not as good as these.” His gaze went back to the sketches. There was a small, almost unnoticeable signature at the bottom of each sketch. Nik squinted and made out the name, Mari. He kept looking through the pile, eventually coming to the last sketch—the one that had him holding his breath. It was of a Scratcher woman clutching an infant swaddled in the fronds of a Mother Plant. She was smiling up at a tall, handsome Companion and his Shepherd, who gazed at her with an expression that was filled with love.

  “That’s Galen. It has to be. And that’s Mari’s mother, with Mari as an infant.” Nik shook his head. “I see this—and I see the grown-up Mari—and I know the truth, but it is hard to believe. All of this is just so hard to believe.” Slowly, Nik reorganized the papers, stacking them as neatly as they had been. Then he hobbled carefully to the pallet and collapsed there, breathing heavily and feeling ridiculously weak.

  As his eyes closed he was thinking of Mari and wondering what his father would say when he told him all that he’d learned about her, and about the Earth Walkers.

  Nik knew what his father would say. He could almost hear his voice there in the burrow as he fell into a drugged, painless sleep. Bring her home to the Tribe, son. Bring her home to the Tribe.

  * * *

  “It’s really hot today.” Mari paused, wiping the sweat from her face and taking a drink of water from the skin they’d brought with them. “And summer isn’t even here.”

  “It hasn’t rained for days. It’s nice not to have to trudge through mud, but this heat is terrible,” Sora said.

  “Well, the birthing burrow is always comfortable and cool, and there’s that nice little stream that runs down beside it. I can’t wait to dangle my hot feet in it.”

  “Sounds wonderful. The women in the burrow always have the best food, too. Have you noticed that?” Sora said.

  “I guess I haven’t thought about it, but you’re probably right. Pregnant women eat a lot, so it figures their food would be extra good,” Mari said. She smiled at Sora. “And that just made me want to hurry.”

  “Well, we’re almost there. Hey, I have a thought. I’m going to see if I can get shoots from their herb garden. Yours is sadly lacking for edible herbs, which means what I’ve been cooking for us is sadly lacking in seasoning,” Sora said.

  “I’m fine with whatever you want to cook and however you want to cook it. You’re a good cook,” Mari said.

  “Thank you. I like to cook, probably because I’m a big fan of eating.”

  “Whatever the reason—I’m glad. Mama was better at it than I am, but you’re really good.”

  “Yes, I am!” Sora grinned, then her expression sobered. “Hey, what are you going to tell the Clanswomen about all of that?” She made a finger-fluttering gesture that took in Mari’s short blond hair, her delicate features, and her clean, uncamouflaged skin.

  “I’m going to tell the truth,” Mari said resolutely.

  “The whole truth? As in telling them about your creature, and by creature I mean Rigel and not Nik.”

  “Nik isn’t mine, but no. I’m not going to tell them about Rigel or Nik. At least not right now. I think finding out about me will be enough for them to take in without adding a canine and a wounded Companion,” Mari said.

  “You might never want to tell them about Nik,” Sora said.

  “What I’m hoping is that one day very soon I’ll have to tell them about Nik because they’ll need to know the reason why the Companions aren’t enslaving the Clan anymore.”

  “You know, I thought you were a complete pessimist at first, and you can be. But you’re also oddly idealistic. I think you must get that from your father,” Sora said.

  “I don’t know, Leda always looked at the positive in every situation,” Mari said.

  “So, you’re actually an idealist. Well, I try to be a realist, so do you mind if I’m the teacher for once and give you a little advice?”

  “I don’t mind,” Mari said.

  “Don’t tell Nik how to cure the blight. Ever. Don’t ever tell him or anyone from their Tribe,” Sora said.

  “But they can’t cure it anyway, even if they know how to make the poultice. They can’t draw down the moon,” Mari said.

  “What if they can draw down the sun, though? I watch you do something like that when your skin glows. Aren’t you just drawing down the sun then?”

  “Maybe, but I haven’t asked Nik about that yet.” Mari thought about the jolt of heat and energy that had sizzled through her the day her mother had died and she’d accidentally set the forest on fire. “I think you’re right, though. The glowing is a reaction to the power of the sun. I just don’t know anything about controlling it.”

  “I’ll bet the Tribe does,” Sora said.

  “You’re right. I’ll take your advice. I won’t tell Nik what I used to make his poultice. At least not yet I won’t,” Mari said.

  “If it was up to me, you’d never tell him or any of them. Knowledge is power, Mari. Keep your power.”

  Mari nodded in somber agreement.

  They walked on in silence, both lost in their own thoughts, until Mari heard the happy sound of water bubbling over smooth stones. “Oh, look—there’s the stream. The burrow is just around the bend. Do you smell food? I don’t smell food yet.” Mari sniffed the air.

  “I don’t. I’ve never been here when there hasn’t been something delicious all ready to eat.” Sora sniffed the air, too.

  The two women rounded the bend and then began climbing up the boulders that had been arranged as wide steps, making the door to the burrow easily accessed. Mari looked up, smiling in anticipation, and the smile slid off her face.

  The door to the burrow was broken. It hung drunkenly, as if a giant had flung it open. The fecund Goddess that was carved into the doorframe had been cracked as the door had shattered so that it looked disturbingly as if she had been cut in two.

  Sora hurried up the last of the stairs, stopping at the doorframe. Her fingers traced the ruined image gently, as if she could smooth away the destruction with a touch.

  “Wait, Sora.” Mari spoke softly, taking out her slingshot and several smooth stones. “Let me go in first.”

  “Oh, Goddess!” Sora whispered, sending frightened, furtive looks inside the darkened burrow. “You don’t think there are Clansmen in there, do you?”

  “Don’t know,” Mari whispered back. “Wish Rigel was here, though.”

  “I never thought I’d say it, but I wish he was here, too.” Sora stepped aside and let Mari go before her.

  Mari had been to the birthing burrow many times with Leda. It was basically one huge, cavernous room with a large hearth and many comfortable pallets. The burrow was usually filled with the sounds of women and infants, but all was silent and still within. Like all Earth Walkers, Mari’s eyes quickly adapted to the dim light inside. She saw that the hearth fire was unlit, then she cast her eyes around the room. The entire place was a disaster. Beds had been thrown against the curved walls of the burrow so that their splintered wooden frames littered the floor along with the thick pelts and blankets that should be cradling birthing women.

  “I don’t see anyone. Do you?” Sora whispered from several feet behind her.

  “No, but there’s a large pantry back there. I need to check it.”


  “Not alone you’re not.” Sora strode forward, pausing only to pick up the broken leg of a bedframe, which she brandished like a club.

  Together the two women walked through the devastation of the burrow until they came to the rear of the room. The best artisans of the Clan had woven the tapestry that was used as a curtain to divide the main room from the pantry. It had depicted a scene that showed a group of Clanswomen circled around an exquisite, fertile Earth Mother idol that was rising from the mossy ground, bedecked in flowers and ferns. All of the women were smiling and holding healthy, happy infants. Now the tapestry clung to the wooden rod by a few strands of cloth—its lovely woven scene had been ripped and shredded. Mari brushed aside the ruined cloth.

  “No, please, don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything you want, just don’t hurt me!”

  “Oh, Goddess,” Sora said in a hushed voice. “It’s Danita.”

  Mari stared at the girl, hardly recognizing her as the young woman her mama had so recently called before the Clan as a candidate for Moon Woman apprentice. But she looked up at them with gray eyes, glassy with shock, proving she was, indeed, that same young woman.

  Sora pushed past Mari to go to the girl, who was cowering in the far corner of the pantry, wedged between broken, empty shelves and the rubble that violence and theft leaves in its wake.

  “No! No!” The girl screamed, covering her face with her arms and curling into a tight little ball.

  “Sssh, Danita, it’s me, Sora. And Mari’s with me. You’re safe. Everything is going to be okay now.” Sora knelt by her. The girl peeked up through her arms at Sora. She started to drop her arms from her face, but her frantic gaze found Mari and she began to cry in little panting sobs, scrambling back, attempting to wedge herself farther into the corner.

  “Hey, it’s just Mari!” Sora said, touching the girl’s trembling shoulder gently. “I cut her hair for her—that’s why it’s short. And she washed it and herself. Finally. Remember how dirty she used to be?”