The Moon Temple

by Mark Hare

****

  III.

  The old sexton had been astonished, then thoughtful, when Kai revealed their quest.

  His silence unnerved both Kai and Bane. The two shifted on the grass, looking at each other as the sexton, lost in deep thought, stared down at his gnarled fingers twitching and kneading them together. The sexton stood and beckoned. They followed him to an unused side room deep inside the temple. The sexton opened windows, flooding the room with light, and pointed to a large tapestry on the wall, asking Bane to help him take it down.

  “If we had the money, we would have plastered over this long ago,” he said as the tapestry came down, revealing a faded, colorful mural of a great city that took up most of the wall.

  “It looks so peaceful and beautiful,” whispered Kai. “Why cover it?”

  “Because the city fills the heart with dread, there are those who would forget or hide all trace it ever existed. Yet, it didn’t begin that way. You can see how it looked over a thousand years ago. They called it the jewel of the Eastern Sea, the oldest and most magnificent city of its day, the center of a mighty empire that ruled the far reaches of the East for six thousand years before its fall. It sat on the sea, with canals in place of roads, a hundred little hills and islets capped with lavish homes, buildings, terraces, squares, courtyards, temples, palaces, gardens, and walls of marble, granite, jasper, obsidian, and malachite, with a great stone tower at the heart and flowers everywhere.” He pointed. “There, in the tower, the temple of the moon, you will find the statue of the last of the elder gods, the nameless moon dragon, with eyes of white diamonds.”

  The sexton squinted at the mural in remembrance. “They say...they say the elder dragon god sleeps.” He gave his head a slow wag as if to clear it, motioning for Bane to help him put back up the tapestry. “If the old god wakes,” he continued, “legend claims you should never look at it.” Pausing, he rubbed a fingertip against his lips. “If you want to know more, you should ask the master archivist at the library of Skyros. I’ll write an introduction for you.”

  Bane asked if the mural was accurate. The sexton admitted it was very old, made at the height of Angor Drava, when the colonies and territories of its far-flung empire had been near by, and thus the chances were good the mural showed the city as it used to be. Bane thanked him and offered a donation if the sexton allowed a scribe to copy some of the documents they found. The sexton jumped with excitement and said he would have everything ready by morning if Bane left a list of what he needed.

  Kai was silent as they walked back to the ship. The sun dipped behind a hill, casting them in long, cool shadows.

  “Something wrong?” asked Bane.

  She smiled, hiding her thoughts. “No, it’s nothing,” she lied, unwilling to admit the sudden knot of anxiety that wrenched her heart with dread.

  They continued walking, slightly apart, and Kai examined him from under lowered lashes, finding him hard to measure. Beneath his inward exterior lurked a fine intelligence she respected, but he lacked the confidence to let it shine and kept his feelings tightly locked up, leaving her unable to guess what might pass behind his dark eyes. She wanted him as a friend, largely because he was the friend of her future husband and because she thought him to be a good man, enjoying his company if also frustrated by the thorns he kept throwing up when she got too close. Troubled, she wondered if he disliked her.

  Caught up in dark thoughts, Bane did not notice. Imagination painted the words from the manuscript into brands that singed his mind, impelling him with irresistible force to contemplate what he knew to be wrong.

  Sensing something amiss, Kai tapped him on the arm, holding out some sweets she had bought for Elsu. “Here, you can have this,” she said.

  “Eh?”

  “You’re scowling like one of my old teachers. The old goat always wore that look when I did poorly on my lessons. I always thought his bad temper came from hating sweet things. I don’t think I ever saw him smile.”

  “Sorry.” Bane accepted the sweets. “Thank you.” The sight of her face half lost in the shadow of the fading sunlight decided him to abandon the strange, perverse, indistinct impression that dominated his thoughts. She deserved better, he told himself. “I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.”

  Kai nodded and linked her arm with his, causing him to give a little jump. She laughed, amused by his reaction, and urged him to keep step with her as they walked down the twisting stone street to the bottom of the hill and all the way to the ship waiting in the harbor with furled sails.

  Elsu and Akahele, the captain, lit lanterns as Kai and Bane boarded. Elsu, excited as a puppy, grabbed her arm, pulling her over to the food prepared for their supper. “Good news! The Navigator’s Guild had maps we can use!”

  Kai blinked, disconcerted, vaguely off-put as if she expected him to say something else. “Oh.”

  “Not of the city, no luck there. We did find maps of the surrounding islands. No one lives within a hundred leagues of the city itself. Dozens of perfectly good nearby islands are uninhabited. Fear of the curse, I suppose. Still, it sits near the end of the Great Chain of islands, almost literally on the edge of the world. Past Angor Drava and its neighbors lies nothing for thousands of leagues until you reach the island kingdoms of Chzarak, Shahr, and Tulan and the west coast of Madripoor. No one except the Sea Peoples dare venture into the Empty Sea,” Elsu added in a thoughtful tone. “Still, there are important fishing grounds to the north and not far away to the northwest lies Skyros so there’s a lot of information about how to avoid the city, which gives us clues about the best way to approach it.”

  “That’s...that’s good.”

  Bane, noticing her expression, jumped in. “I found a few things, too. Tomorrow, I will hire a scribe to copy what I found. It should take no more than a day or two,” he added when Elsu’s face darkened with impatience.

  The darkness in the face lifted almost immediately as Elsu clapped Bane on the back. “I knew you would find something! You always do! Come, let’s eat.”

  The food was delicious. Although not hungry, Bane ate until full. When Elsu begged Kai to play her shamisen, Bane joined him in asking, for Kai had learned to play from the best. While Bane did not care for the sound of the shamisen with its plucked high-pitched notes and temperamental strings, but Kai had talent to make it sing. Bane delighted in watching her play, her body relaxing as her hands moved feather-light across the three strings, sliding gracefully up and down the long thin neck, her face transfixed with rapture, eyes half-closed.

  Kai loved to play, though often nervous when performing for an audience. Music was the one thing her teachers insisted upon and the one thing she truly loved, which showed every time she touched the instrument. When she finished, Akahele thumped the deck in approval, as did Elsu and Bane. Embarrassed, Kai told them it was nothing and after playing a fourth tune, singing along as she plucked, she set aside her instrument, suggesting an early bedtime.

  The ship had little space or privacy. Beyond a tiny straw and reed hut set toward the stern, a refuge from storms, the decks were open, with canvas spreading from each side of the hut to give shade from the sun. Kai and the men undressed in the open, washed themselves down with water-soaked sponges, and let the warm summer breeze dry their skin. Kai was the last to wash because she insisted on cleaning up the remains of supper.

  There was enough light from the crescent moon for Bane to watch her bathe. He had seen her wash herself a dozen times; each time he watched the cold knot of yearning in the center of his stomach ached a little bit more.

  “Beautiful, isn’t she?” Elsu whispered in his ear, tickling it.

  Bane glanced over his shoulder. Elsu’s face was a blob lost in nighttime shadows. “Yes, she is,” he agreed, his voice thick. He shifted to watch Kai wring water from her hair, putting away the bucket and rag before patting herself dry with a towel. Yawning, she walked to her pallet a few feet away and threw h
erself on it, landing on her back, arms and legs spread wide.

  “You like her,” said Elsu quietly.

  “Huh?” Guilt sent a thin blade of pain through Bane’s chest and he shivered, wondering if Elsu would get angry.

  “I’ve seen the way you look at her.” He stretched, yawning. “Well, I think it’s natural: no man could come within sight of her and not fall in love. She’s a wonderful lady.”

  Bane let out his breath slowly. Elsu was not a jealous lover, seldom showing worry or jealousy over the women he romanced. “And how do you feel about her?” asked Bane, glad Elsu did not look at him.

  “She is as important to me as water or air. I can’t bear to be away from her. That’s never happened before,” he mused. “I’ve had women before. I’ve been in love before, but never like this.” Bane nodded to himself, agreeing. Elsu was one of those men for whom romantic relationships came too easily, so he treated them in a light and thoughtless manner because they came like clouds on a sunny day, passing by without heat or cold or tempest. If the relationship turned stormy, Elsu tended to leave with a smile, never seeing the pain he caused, blithely assuming both parties would find someone else soon enough. Elsu laughed at himself. “I can’t find the right words,” he added. “I get tongue-tied and my mind goes white. It’s pathetic.”

  “Why don’t you go to her?” said Bane, pitching his voice low, unable to keep the heat from his tone.

  “Well...”

  “It isn’t like you to be bashful.”

  “She is a lady, beautiful and pure. I...I don’t want to make mistakes. Not with her.”

  “Stop making assumptions,” said Bane, sick in his heart, tired of the need for pretense. If it had been any other girl, Elsu would have bedded her by now; his restraint irritated Bane, because it was so unlike him and because it showed Bane how much Kai meant to his friend. He recognized jealousy stirring inside, adding guilt to his discomfort. “She wants you – can’t you see that? – yet you’ve been cold to her. Kai can’t read your mind. She won’t know how you feel until you show her. She needs reassurance,” he said, making no effort to hide his annoyance.

  “I did not...” Elsu cut short his indignation, retreating into silence. He laughed softly, a rueful sound full of self-mockery. “Leave it to you to think of something I didn’t.” He roughly shook Bane’s shoulder. “Thanks. I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.”

  Bane wanted to say that was not what he meant, but swallowed it as he watched Elsu stride across the deck to Kai’s side, confident and proud as a young lion. Kai stared at Elsu in wonder and surprise. In the weeks at sea, Elsu had slept apart from her, citing propriety even though custom allowed it, confusing Kai because Elsu refused to explain further. Kai had been too shy to bring it up, taught that a maiden should not make her desires plain. Now that her stood there asking to join her on the pallet, her mouth turned dry as her heart began to beat a little faster. Weakly, she said yes. Elsu settled on the bed, looking at her with expectant eyes. Kai waited several long moments, pricked by indecision, until she made a hesitant motion to put her arm across his bare chest and one leg over his, tenderly nestling her head on his shoulder, soon falling asleep.

  Bane watched Kai and Elsu cuddle together beneath the slanting canvas tarp. Turning on his back, he looked up at the stars, unable to sleep.