Dark is the Moon

by Ian Irvine

  “And you can’t summon yourself,” said Malien. “Rulke wanted to move freely between the worlds; that’s why he made the flute. What we don’t know is why.”

  “He must have been desperate, to take such a risk,” Tallia observed.

  “How does it help us?” asked Yggur harshly, wondering if Shand was making a labored joke at his expense. “We don’t know how to make such a device.”

  “Or use it. That knowledge was lost when Shuthdar fell.” Shand resumed his seat. “So maybe Rulke hasn’t learned how to use his construct either.”

  “He can’t have!” said Mendark. “The Nightland is insubstantial. He can work its fabric into shapes such as his palace and his construct, and into food and drink that will sustain him there, but he cannot make anything real, for there is nothing to make it with. Anything he brings out of the Night-land will revert to the nothingness from which it was made. To make his construct he must come to Santhenar. We’ve got to know when he does.”

  “Unless he’s here already,” Malien muttered. She pulled aside the flap over the entrance. The wind had eased momentarily. “Perhaps he’s out there, hunting us.” She slapped the canvas closed again.

  “Gates can only be made to certain places and the Dry Sea is not one of them,” said Shand. “Neither can he make his construct without tools and materials, any more than you or I could. He will go to a place where such things can be obtained easily. Right here is the safest place on Santhenar for us.”

  “Well, Shand,” said Mendark, rubbing his beard, “your proposal interests me after all, though I can’t help wondering why you made it. What are you up to?”

  “I’m not up to anything,” Shand said softly. “I just want to go home to Tullin.”

  “I don’t believe you—you’ve manipulated things too carefully. We’d be happy to have you back, you know, even after all this time. You could still be one of us.”

  “No thanks,” said Shand. “I’ve retired.”

  “I thought you’d say that.” Mendark did not look upset. “Getting back to the point, can we find out how to use the flute?”

  “I often wondered why Yalkara took the Mirror and kept it for so long,” Malien said thoughtfully.

  “It was always said that she used it to spy and to twist the perceptions of others, but that never rang true,” said Shand. “Had it been said of Rulke or Kandor, or many a human who could have owned it, I would never have queried it. But Yalkara! She was proud, imperious, ruthless…” He spoke with admiration. “But she would not spy that way, or sneak, or betray. No! That story grew up after she disappeared and it was meant to hide something.”

  “Get to the point, pensioner,” said Mendark. “You ramble as though there was no tomorrow.”

  “We have at least fifty tomorrows before we get back to where Pender’s boat is, hopefully, waiting for us. I will tell the story in my own way. Long have I studied the Histories of this matter. I’ve delved into the ancient libraries; scoured the desert caves of Parnggi for their hoards of clay tablets, and crossed the wide lands from Tar Gaarn in Crandor to Kara Agel, the frozen sea, in the polar south; from the fjords and forests of Gaspé in the east to the bog shores of Lame. And I swear that I’ve read every inscription on every wall and standing stone in all that way.”

  How you exaggerate, thought Karan fondly.

  “Even then it was quite by accident, and just recently, that I found what I now believe to be the answer. It was seven or eight years ago, if I remember right, and I was at an inn in Chanthed.”

  Llian sat up suddenly.

  “I was at an inn,” he repeated, “listening to the young tellers from the college practicing their tales. They were young, mere journeymen and women mostly, but I had been long on the road with only my own thoughts for company and even their clumsy entertainment was welcome. The performances were mostly well worn, and after a time my mind wandered. Then suddenly I was called back by a strange song, a fragment of a tale but chanted in an old mode; one that I, and I fancy my audience, had never heard before. It was bad verse and indifferent music, though told well. It ended with the following curious lines. My translation captures the sense of it, though not the rhyme:

  “Twos on a darkling demon’s day

  That Shuthdar’s mournful call,

  Shivered time and space in Tara-Laxus.

  He vanished through the gateway

  Like a hundred times before,

  Sneering as he led them to their doom.

  But the flute knew what was coming;

  It betrayed the master player,

  The fabric of the world became unseamed.

  Legions fell, but too late, the failing was begun,

  And the Twisted Mirror watched it from the wall.

  “What doggerel!” Mendark sneered. “The tellers plumb new lows.”

  “Tara-Laxus?” said Yggur, puzzled.

  “The name struck me like a thunderbolt, for Tara-Laxus was the name of an ancient city in Dovadolo, near the Burning Mountain, Booreah Ngurle. It was the place that Shuthdar fled from, immediately before he fell.”

  “The Twisted Mirror?” exclaimed Yggur.

  “The failing means the Forbidding, does it not?” Llian cried, temporarily perked up by these insights into the Histories.

  “I think so. Though it can’t mean that the Mirror actually saw the Forbidding, for that did not occur at Tara-Laxus, but days later at Huling’s Tower on the Long Lake,” said Shand.

  “If the Mirror was there when Shuthdar used the flute to escape,” Mendark said excitedly, “perhaps it retains the image of how he used it. Tensor!”

  Tensor slowly focused on Mendark.

  “You can begin to atone for your crimes,” said Mendark. “Does the rhyme make any sense to you? How can Shuthdar have had it?”

  “Atone,” Tensor said in a voice that was the merest husk. “I will atone. My crimes must be scarified from the earth.” He turned his piercing eyes on Llian, who retreated again. “All crimes must be paid for!”

  “Tensor!” Mendark’s tone could not be ignored.

  “Tara-Laxus? We called it Snizzerlees. I believe that my predecessor, Kwinlis, dwelt there for a while. He had custody of the Mirror then and took it everywhere with him.”

  “Kwinlis may very well have met with Shuthdar,” said Malien.

  “Doubtless that’s why Yalkara stole the Mirror,” Yggur observed. “And why Faelamor fought her for it. And maybe how Yalkara came to find the flaw in the Forbidding.”

  “When the song was sung I spoke to the singer,” Shand continued, “for I was curious to learn where he had found the lines, and if there were any more. But come,” he said, gesturing to Llian, who this time had retreated right into the darkness on the far side of the cavern, “you can tell the story yourself.”

  “Yes, come out,” cried Mendark cheerfully. “Earn your keep, chronicler!”

  Llian did not move. Karan was surprised at his reluctance, since that was his trade and his livelihood. But the ordeals of the past week had hurt Llian badly; he just wanted to crawl into a dark corner and hide.

  “I remember the time,” said Llian. “I did not know what the Twisted Mirror meant then. Curiously, it is not recorded in the Histories. At least, not in those I had access to in Chanthed. I had forgotten the song, although now that I’m reminded I can, of course, recite the whole of the fragment.” He stopped abruptly, moving back in the shadows.

  “Anyway,” Shand went on, “I’m sure that’s why Yalkara wanted the Mirror. Somewhere, buried within its myriad memories, its age-old secrets, there may just be the image of Shuthdar using the flute. Perhaps that’s how she found her way through the Forbidding.”

  “But to make the flute…” Tensor rasped from the back, “you must have gold! Only gold from Aachan will suffice.”

  His head sank down on his chest. Karan noticed Yggur staring at Tensor, his hand trembling. Mendark bore an enigmatic expression. Was he thinking of the ruination of his onetime friend, or of the o
pportunity that beckoned?

  “But there is none to be had,” Tensor went on in a subterranean rumble. “That essence which enabled it to be formed into devices like the flute was inimical to the gate. It could not pass between the worlds. Some of us were lost that way, before we realized…”

  “Do you say, with surety, that there is no Aachan gold to be had?” Mendark demanded.

  Tensor had lost interest. Once again his head sagged onto his chest. His eyes closed. They all stared at him.

  “You can’t just leave it there,” said Karan.

  His voice came muddy. “I knew only of the flute, and it is destroyed. Perhaps there is more; perhaps someone found a way to bring gold afterwards. In Aachan it was accounted a precious substance, and rare—far rarer than here. I took no interest in gold after the flute. We should never have meddled in the forbidden knowledge. I should have refused. Inquisitiveness was always our downfall.” The rambling voice died to a whisper, then swelled into a toneless cold that made them all shiver.

  “That was what brought the Charon down on us in the first place. Aachan was not enough for us. We thought we were alone in the universe, and we were lonely. We looked beyond Aachan, desperate to find another sentient species, though we were well acquainted with the rules of life on our own world. Eat or be eaten, only the fittest survive.

  “Xesper—Curse his name for all eternity!—found a way to look into the very spaces between the worlds. But just to look into the void changed it and left a track that led back to Aachan. Our world was hidden no longer. We found that we were not alone at all, nor fittest! The Charon came. Would that it were not so.”

  The silence stretched out to minutes. Llian opened his mouth, then closed it again. Karan knew what he was thinking. No one knew the Charon’s origins, before they took Aachan from the Aachim. Tensor had revealed a precious snippet and Llian was desperate to find out the rest of the story.

  Karan was not. The void was a nightmare of savagery, as far from her poor but placid life in Gothryme as anything could be. She had nightmares enough already.

  “Nooooo!” Tensor gave a great bubbling moan that rang out above the wind. “All the troubles of the worlds have come from such meddling, and twice I had a hand in it. You cannot even dream what it will lead to. No more! You hold ruin in each hand.”

  He lifted his head, straining with his arms, his dark face darkening more with the fury of his exertion. He forced himself to his knees, but will alone could bring him no higher. Two of the Aachim came hurrying but he gestured them away, a savage sweep of the arm that almost had him down again.

  “You, girl! We are in this together. Come with me. There is something that I must confess.”

  Afraid, wondering, Karan took his arm. They went slowly out into the storm.

  18

  * * *

  PRECIOUS BANE

  Llian rose to follow them, dreading what Tensor might do to Karan in his despair. Shand dropped a hand on his shoulder.

  “Stay, Llian! That’s not your affair.”

  “I’m worried,” said Llian, staring at the door.

  “There is much to be settled between them. Tensor will not harm her. Besides, we need you here.”

  “Why?”

  “To think through this proposition,” said Mendark. “Come down the back, Llian.”

  “You would discuss such things in front of a spy?” said Yggur incredulously. “I don’t trust him!”

  “And I don’t trust you,” Mendark retorted. “We need what Llian knows.”

  The five of them—Mendark, Yggur, Tallia, Malien and Llian—went up to the other end of the cave. Selial looked up like a white-haired ghost as they passed, but made no move to join them.

  “This plan is senseless!” said Yggur. “We don’t have the skill or cunning of Shuthdar. Likely there are secrets of his trade that we can never know. And perhaps the flute simply can’t be made here. It was forged on Aachan, remember.”

  “And once made, we may lack the subtlety to use it,” said Tallia perceptively. “As Rulke himself did.”

  “Such things are often closed to the strong and the wise,” said Malien. “Sometimes the operator must be rude and untutored, relying on intuition or a native talent; a sensitivity. But even that needs some training.”

  “So! The venture may not be possible,” said Mendark. “Do we try, and risk wasting all our energies, when they might be better employed with more conventional defenses?”

  “I say not,” said Yggur. “The flute is the past. It can never be recreated. The wheel has turned too far and not back to its starting point.”

  “But we must have a weapon to use against Rulke,” said Mendark.

  “Then let us make a different one!” snapped Yggur. “This flute is a thing of Aachan, not of Santhenar.”

  “It is a thing of Aachan and of Santhenar,” replied Men-dark, “for Shuthdar made it, and he learned his art here. Shuthdar was human, remember! One of us.”

  “No—still no!” said Yggur. “It’s fighting Rulke with his own weapon.”

  “What can you offer us, Yggur?” Mendark said coldly. “You ever look to the past for security, employing the archaic way rather than exploring the new.”

  “That was behind our earlier disagreement,” said Yggur with a flash of venom. “And one for which I will yet be paid.”

  “I doubt it!” Mendark’s sneer told how little Yggur bothered him anymore. “You can’t even master yourself now.”

  Yggur balled his fists. Llian looked from one to the other. Every day Yggur grew more alienated, more bitter, and Men-dark’s evident contempt only made it worse. Yggur was terrified of Rulke, and Llian was terrified of Yggur. But Men-dark was not finished yet.

  “The past has failed us! The Nightland is revealed to have been flawed from the outset; deliberately so. We must look to the future and make a new flute using a new pattern.”

  The fellowship of the company seemed irreparably broken. Tallia, however, was moved by an urge to conciliate.

  “Listen, both of you! It doesn’t matter who’s right. Surely we must look at all approaches and find the way that best suits our needs and our strengths. If that be the flute, new or old, let us take it and put off the settlement until Santhenar be won—or lost beyond recovery.”

  Shand nodded.

  “Very well, I will put aside my misgivings,” said Yggur, though it was clear that he had not. “But where are you going to get the gold?” He gave a sideways flick of his staring eyes that seemed to say, “but this will not end the way you think, just see if it does.”

  Malien spoke from her crevice. “We Aachim must also take responsibility for our situation. Always we sought to delay the future by taking refuge in the past, just as you have done, Yggur. And too often we abdicated our responsibility, giving in to Tensor when we should have directed him. Our past is gone now; we have no choice but to make a new way in the world. And if we fail… Well, what have we to lose? We will aid you, Mendark.”

  “How can you help us?”

  “Small amounts of gold were brought to Santhenar. And we know how to work it.”

  “Really!” said Mendark, with a great gust of a sigh. “How is it that Tensor did not know?”

  “Of course he knows!” Her voice dripped scorn. “Pitlis had a circlet of it that he wore about his brow. All the time that he was leader at Tar Gaam he wore it, and even after the fall, though not into exile.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “Pitlis would have been careful with it. There was another reason why little gold was brought here—anything taken from one world to another is liable to transmute and become perilous to use. As with the Mirror, so too this gold. But if the circlet passed to another of us it is not recorded. We have ever felt that Rulke took it when he slew Pitlis at the gates of Alcifer.”

  “Maybe so, but Rulke did not have it with him when he was taken,” said Llian, speaking up more boldly than in a long time. “I know those Histories well, and can even r
ecite the inventory of his possessions.”

  “Doubtless he hid it beforehand,” said Mendark. “The gold was one of the precious things we sought, even then. But gold is easily transformed and hidden. Besides, there was not enough to make a flute; not near.”

  “Though enough for a good start,” said Yggur darkly, “and Rulke probably had more, since he knew the value of it better than any. What else do you know, Malien?”

  Malien hesitated. “There was more—a small golden idol, brought by the second wave of Aachim to come to Santhenar. They came of their own accord, not as Rulke’s slaves. The statue is a most ancient and precious thing, the heart of the Aachim of Nastor—a region in the north of Aachan,” she explained. “It was kept in the library at Stassor, in the far east. Doubtless it’s there still, though it’s the grossest blasphemy to even think of using it.”

  “Was there any more?” asked Mendark.

  “Not that we know of.”

  “Might the Charon have brought some?”

  “Rulke and Kandor came with the first wave,” said Malien. “They brought nothing.”

  “Why nothing?” asked Yggur.

  “Because nothing could be brought the first time,” Llian explained. “Save the flute, of course, but it could be said to have brought itself, since it opened the way. It is recorded several times how they came naked to Santhenar.”

  “And the second wave?”

  “After the Charon had been here for some time—perhaps fifty years—and realized that the hunt for the flute would be a long one, they sent back to Aachan for aid,” replied Malien. “So came the second wave, many of us, and a number of blendings of Aachim and Charon. But as a rule they did not share the long life of either Charon or Aachim. Most are dead without issue, for such blendings were generally sterile—mules!

  “Separately, a host of Aachim came of their own accord. They found a way to bring certain small things that they treasured, ornaments or jewelry or small devices that were useful. That’s how Tensor brought the Mirror here, I imagine, for he also came at that time. As did my people, but they certainly brought no gold. That’s all I know.”