Moonheart

by Charles de Lint

  Sara bundled up her clothes and the two of them, with Hoyw trailing behind them, returned to the tower, chatting like old friends.

  “No one knows who built this tower,” Taliesin said. “Mayis and Hagan lived here for two years before I met them. Mayis was living with her father when they found Hagan washed up on the shore, half dead, big hand clenching that axe of his. A wonder he didn’t drown, holding onto its weight! Hagan it was who decided that they should live in the tower. All it needed was some new wattling and turf on the roof. It was surprisingly sound, even after having stood deserted for who knows how many years.”

  He and Sara sat alone outside the tower, with their backs against the stone wall, a blanket over their shoulders and the broad vista of the ocean spread out before them. Sara wore a dress of soft doeskin that hung to just below her knees and warm leggings tied to her calves with finely braided grass thongs. Her wild curls had been tamed into two braids which, while they weren’t as splendid as May’is’hyr’s, still made her feel very much Indian.

  They had dined on roasted duck, corn meal cakes garnished with slivers of pine bark, and rosehip tea that Taliesin had laid in a supply of over the summer. Now May’is’hyr and Hagan were inside, Mayis working on a beautiful new blanket that was already half finished on her loom, while Hagan braided a fishing net, his big fingers deft and quick as they first worked the rough hemp into rope, then knotted the rope.

  Sara and the bard sat for a long time in the silence of the wood and the soft drum of the sea on the limestone cliffs below. The sky was clear, showing a dazzling display of stars. Northward, lights danced in the sky, every color of the rainbow, keeping time to their own magical rhythm. They reminded Sara of The Merry Dancers shop, which made her think of how she’d come to be here in the first place, which brought her around to Kieran’s accusations about the bard. And Pukwudji’s strange comment about trials.

  The day had been spent quietly, but now, with the night lying dark and secret about them, Sara decided it was time to have a serious talk.

  “The king’s druid who made you leave Gwynedd,” she asked. “What was his name?”

  Taliesin’s frown was lost in the darkness.

  “Tomasin,” he said at length. “Tomasin Hengwr t’Hap.”

  Thomas Hengwr. Sara sighed. So that much of what Kieran had told her was true. “Do you hate him?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, for what he did to you. Do you hate him? Would you try to kill him?”

  Taliesin shook his head, more from confusion than in reply. “Why should I?” he asked. “He is only a stone now, overlooking the sea.”

  “But if he was alive. . . .”

  “You must understand, Sara,” Taliesin said gently. “Tomasin was only the instrument of my exile. I would not say that he was a good man himself, but . . . how could I remain when I was no longer welcome in my own land?”

  “Kieran said you were born in the Summer Country. Where’s that?”

  The bard’s eyes almost shone in the darkness. “The Summer Country. The Region of the Summer Stars. It is everything that is good. It is magic and wild and gentle, fey as starlight, true as a friend’s heart. I’ve only walked its borders, Sara, but how my heart yearns to be there in truth.”

  For a moment he was quiet, then he added: “I have been told by others that I was born there‌—but I have no recollection of it. Not in the sense of a homeland that once I knew. Only as a homeland for which I yearn. I thought‌—when my coracle bore me west on Eil Ton’s waves‌—that it was to the Summer Country I was bound, for legend often spoke of it lying in the west.”

  Again he was still. When he spoke once more, the yearning had left his voice.

  “I do not hate Tomasin. Yet when the sea took my coracle and the Gwynedd shores fell away behind me, I laid that curse of stone upon him. I bade him watch the sea for so long as Gwyn ap Nudd still trod the fields of men. It was ill done, I admit.” He turned towards her, his face close to hers. “Why do you ask me this?”

  For the first time Sara told him all that had happened to her in the short time since they’d parted on that shore near Percé Rock. The only thing she left out was last night’s dream.

  “So he lives still,” Taliesin said. “In your land, in your time. I can only wish him well, Sara. Truly. This . . . this Dread-That-Walks-Nameless. . . . It is not I.”

  “Then what is it?” she asked.

  “If it were necessary for me to hazard a guess, I might say it was Arawn, the Lord of the Undead, come to bring Tomasin back to Annwn because he lives beyond his allotted lifespan. So I would say, were it not for this.” He held up his hand and his own gold ring winked in the starlight. “Arawn has no use nor need for a bauble such as this. For there is only as much magic in our rings as in any gifting ring. No more. Or if so, only because it was given to me by my master Myrddin who was the greatest bard the Green Isles ever knew. But its magic is a binding magic. It opens the paths of the Way, awaking power that is already present, rather than bestowing it.

  “I suppose,” he added thoughtfully, “this thing that stalks Tomasin seeks the ring for that purpose: to awake more power in itself.”

  “But what is it?” Sara asked.

  “I can’t even guess. It’s a riddle as tangled as any I’ve heard; the few clues we have mean nothing to me.”

  “I thought you were good at riddles.”

  “So did I,” Taliesin said.

  Sara sighed.

  And there was still another matter that needed talking out. She’d put off asking him about it all day, but she knew she couldn’t go to sleep with the question unanswered. Who knew what tonight’s dreams might bring?

  “Are there some sort of . . . trials in store for me?” she asked finally.

  Taliesin stiffened at her side. To his credit, he didn’t ask how she knew or what she meant. There was no room for lies between them. But her heart felt cold as though he could sense his grandsire’s eyes upon him, could hear again that old voice telling him:

  Leave her to riddle on her own or all the worth will be undone.

  “Yes,” he replied at length.

  “What are they? Or better yet, why are they?”

  “All who follow the Way face certain trials, Sara. It is how you face up to them that measures your growth, your worth.”

  “My worth? To who? To you?”

  He turned to her, hurt in his eyes. The darkness hid it from her.

  “You need never prove your worth to me,” he said.

  “Then to who?”

  “To the Old Ones. To the Horned Lord and the Moonmother. To the world’s taw of which ours is but an echo.”

  “What’s my trial going to be?” Sara asked.

  “I fear it’s already begun.”

  “You mean Kieran’s demon?”

  Taliesin nodded.

  “But that thing’s got nothing to do with me,” Sara protested.

  “There is no such thing as chance in the workings of the world,” he replied, repeating something he’d told her the second time they’d met on the shore.

  “What am I supposed to do?” she asked, her voice bitter. “Play John Wayne with some monster just to score points with your ‘Old Ones’?”

  “I don’t understand,” Taliesin said.

  Sara pulled away from him and stood up. She walked to the edge of the cliff, her back to the bard.

  “Pukwudji was right. He’s got good reason to worry about me. Shit, I am worrying about me.”

  “What has Pukwudji to do with this?”

  “He told me about your ‘trials’ last night.”

  “Sara. It is not through lack of love that this must be. But there can simply be no growth without a struggle of some sort.”

  She turned to face him.

  “Just what exactly am I supposed to do?” she demanded. “Defeat this Mal’ek’a . . . this . . . whatever the hell it is?”

  “I don’t know. You must seek the answer t
o that in your own heart.”

  “Damn you! Just more riddles. Aren’t you going to help me at all? I thought after last night that we were lovers‌—friends at least. I don’t understand what’s going on, Taliesin. I haven’t since this whole mess began. All I want is . . .”

  Her voice trailed off. All she wanted was what? She didn’t even know anymore.

  “What’s the big secret?” she asked in a more even tone. “I mean, last night I felt close to you. Like we had something to share with each other. But now you’re sitting there like you’re a hundred miles away from me. Why, Taliesin? Why does everything have to be a mystery?”

  Each word she spoke struck him like a dagger. It was hearing again his own voice raised in protest to his grandsire. He felt the distance between them, sensed the chasm that could become so wide and deep that they might never bridge it if he didn’t say something right now.

  His own stubbornness rose in him, as it had so many times before. His own arguments with Myrddin returned. He saw himself in Maelgwn’s court once more, calling down the moonsilver magic to bind silent the king’s bards and druids and so free his foster father after he’d been told to leave well enough alone by both Myrddin and his grandsire. He saw himself wandering the fey borders of the world, always in search of those mysteries that lay ever out of reach. And when he looked at Sara and saw the same struggle beginning in her. . . . Aye, he thought. Bedamned to the Old Ones.

  “If you want to follow the Way, you must accept this trial. That is the truth, and no mystery,” he said as earnestly as possible. “Decide what it is you want and whatever you decide, I will help you however I can.”

  For long moments Sara said nothing. She kept her back to him and stared out across the dark ocean. She felt the tension building up in her, muscles knotting in her stomach and shoulders. Please, she said silently. Do more than just sit there.

  Then slowly Taliesin arose and came to her. He put his arms around her and she shivered, moved in close.

  “I don’t know what I want,” she said. “I want you. I want to know that feeling again‌—of being a . . . a moonheart. But I don’t want to give up everything I am for it. Jamie. Blue. My old life. That’s all part of me still‌—do you understand, Taliesin? There is a whole lifetime of things and people that made me what I am and I can’t just turn my back on them either.

  “And then there’s the . . . demon. The whatever-it-is. If it’s there‌—if it’s been set up to be my trial, then I don’t think I want anything to do with your magics or your Old Ones. Mal’ek’a has killed people. It’s going to kill more. Your Old Ones shouldn’t play with people’s lives that way. It’s just not right.”

  Taliesin stroked her hair with one hand, held her tight with his other arm.

  “Don’t think for a moment,” he said. “Set it aside.”

  “I’m just so confused.”

  “You must make your decision with a clear head, my moonheart. If you want to go back to your own time, we’ll go back together. There will be no headaches this time, either. We’ll step across the years with harpmagic, as gently as a soft breeze.”

  Sara nodded against his shoulder.

  “I want to think about it for awhile,” she said, pulling away from him. “No. I’m not mad at you any longer. You go on inside. I won’t be long.”

  “Sara. . . .”

  She went up on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss. “I’ll be okay. Honestly.”

  He watched her go, indecision making a jumble of his thoughts. Then he told himself: The choice is hers. At least give her the time to make it. He wondered at this night’s talk with her, what his grandsire would make of it, how it would affect the outcome of her trial. For he meant what he’d told her. He would help her all he could, even if it meant forgoing the Summer Country for all time.

  Truly? he seemed to hear his grandsire ask.

  She will show you still, he replied. There are strengths within her that have no boundaries. You will see.

  Aye, his grandsire replied. We will see.

  Taliesin entered the tower and closed the door, May’is’hyr and Hagan looked up at his entrance but, after glancing at his face, said nothing. He crossed the room and took his harp from its case and brought it to the hearth.

  He ran his fingers down his harp’s strings, adjusting one or two of the tuning pegs with the brass key that hung from a leather thong about his neck. When he was satisfied he began to play, a slow sad air. Neither Mayis nor Hagan knew its name, but they had heard him play it many a time before.

  Sara heard the harping as she walked amongst the dark spruce. The night was different tonight‌—not filled with spirits and movements as it had been yesterday. She hummed the tune Taliesin played, naming it to herself. Lorcalon. Moonheart.

  It sounded so sad tonight. Shaking her head, she plunged on into the forest, calling softly: “Pukwudji! Pukwudji?”

  She listened, strained her eyes looking through the dark trees, and reached out with that quiet she’d discovered inside herself‌—her taw. Then she went on.

  By the Bearstone of May’is’hyr, a man stood in a cloak of oak leaves and mistletoe, a man who sometimes wore the shape of a stag. He listened to the tune his grandson played, heard the soft call of Sara’s voice in the forest, and nodded to himself. As he turned to go, the wind spoke to him, in a voice he alone could hear.

  Gwydion, it said. What are you doing here once more, so far from your own shores?

  Waiting, he replied. Waiting to see old wrongs righted.

  Then he was gone, and the wind sighed in a voice that only trees understood.

  Chapter Two

  10:00, Thursday evening.

  Superintendent Wallace Madison sat at his desk, chewing on the end of a government issue ballpoint pen and wondering where you started cleaning up a mess like this. Spread across his desk were all the progress reports on Project Mindreach‌—about as confusing a collection of information as he’d ever run across. The initial thrust of the operation had never even gotten off the ground. And now . . . now the whole project had fallen to pieces around his ears.

  First Hengwr had vanished, then Foy‌—their only leads. They’d lost Paul Thompson to some boogieman, Dr. Hogue to God knew what. Sara Kendell had vanished. And now both Tucker and Dr. Traupman. Not to mention this other report. There was some kind of force field surrounding Tamson House, denying entry to the squad he’d sent down when Tucker’s car had been found abandoned outside.

  He shook his head. Jesus, Tucker. I can’t give you a week anymore. I can’t even give you another hour. But where the hell are you?

  He’d been called in to see the Solicitor General this afternoon and told in no uncertain terms that Project Mindreach was being scrapped. There would be no discussion. It was to be dismantled as soon as possible, all personnel being transferred immediately to new positions. Preferably to positions where they would have no contact with one another.

  What was that supposed to mean?

  Granted, they’d been butting their heads against the wall for the past few months, but now, just when something was breaking, why was the operation being scrubbed? What about Thompson’s death? What about Tucker and Traupman? Was he just supposed to pretend that they’d never existed? And then there was the force field around Tamson House. The implications of its existence put a whole new relevance on the project’s importance. But when he’d tried to bring that up with Williams, he’d been cut off before he could even begin.

  “Let’s understand one thing, Superintendent,” Williams had said. “Project Mindreach is finished. In fact it might just as well never have existed.” He’d lifted his hand to forestall a further interruption. “There’s no need to cry ‘cover-up,’ Madison. It has simply been decided that we’ve wasted enough of the taxpayer’s money on this ill-fated project. There is nothing covert involved, I can assure you.”

  “But I’ve got a man out there . . .” Madison began.

  “Then I suggest you bring him in.”
>
  Madison could feel his blood pressure rising. “Sir,” he began again. “If you would just reconsider for a moment this new information I have‌—”

  “No, Superintendent. You reconsider. How do you like the Northwest Territories?”

  “I . . .”

  “If you haven’t got this whole affair cleaned up by tomorrow morning, 9:00 A.M. sharp, I’ll have you transferred out to the most godforsaken post we have up there. Do I make myself clear, Superintendent?”

  Too clear. But Madison had let it lie. He insisted on having his orders in writing. Once he had them, he’d return to headquarters to begin dismantling the operation. But the whole while he took it apart, half his mind was caught up with Tucker’s disappearance.

  “Damn!” he cried, snapping his pen in half. He stared at the two jagged ends and pitched them across the room.

  “Sir?”

  He looked up to see Constable Collins standing in the doorway of his office, his arms weighted down with a carton filled with files.

  “Where do you want these, sir?”

  “Against the wall, Dan.” Madison waited until Collins had deposited his burden, before adding: “Anything new?”

  Collins shook out a cigarette and lit it before replying. “Nothing, sir,” he said. “Not a damn thing. I did a follow-up on that number you gave me. Margaret Finch hasn’t been seen since she left the courthouse on Nicholas Street late this afternoon. One of her co-workers heard her tell a cabbie she wanted to go to Patterson and Bank. That’s where‌—”

  “Tamson House is,” Madison finished. So they had Maggie, too. “Did you check Traupman’s place again?”

  “He hasn’t turned up. But that’s not too unusual, according to his next-door neighbor. She told me that he doesn’t keep very regular hours.”

  Madison nodded. “Thanks, Dan. Is that it for the files?”

  “There’s one more box.”

  “Well, when you’ve brought it up you can go.”

  “Sure.” Collins took a long drag and exhaled, blue smoke wreathing his face. “What about the Inspector, sir?”