Dark is the Moon

by Ian Irvine

  “There was an agonized silence. The terrible humiliation was plain on Bandiar’s face. The Myrmide prayed that he would deny it.

  “‘Master,’ they cried. ‘We do not hear this. Tell us that it is not true. Allow us to punish her for this vile deceit.’

  “They knew it was true. They could read it in his eyes.

  “What could he say? A word, even a gesture, would have been enough. Bandiar hesitated. He could scarcely bring himself to utter the lies they wanted to hear. His face looked about to crack apart along the seams of mouth and nose and eyes. Finally he spoke.

  “‘My dear Myrmide,’ he said, smiling a false smile. ‘How could…?’

  “Then Shuthdar lurched in, whooping, gobs of rusty slime dripping from his iron teeth.

  “‘It’s true!’ he cackled in unholy glee. ‘What a joke! The best I’ve had in a thousand years! And when it comes to the register of fools, the tale of Bandiar and the Myrmide will stand for another thousand.’ He gasped and wheezed, a peal of mad laughter echoing off the walls.

  “Bandiar could hardly deny it. He shuddered and stood up. “‘Yes, it is true,’ he said, and his face showed the contempt he felt for himself and for the Myrmide too. ‘I am a fool, and you are fools for serving me.’ Putting his weapons on the table, he walked down among them.

  “They could ignore the truth no longer. They fell on him and hacked him to death, every one of the Myrmide having a hand in it, save Nassi. She stood to one side, staring at the bloody corpse, shocked into immobility. She had cared for Bandiar. Surely he did not deserve this.

  “The Myrmide turned to the other two and would have done the same to them, but Shuthdar had seen what must come next. With his nails he slashed Nassi’s bonds and cried, ‘Come with me, child. There’s no place for you here anymore.’

  “She looked at the Myrmide and then at Shuthdar, and put out a plump arm. Shuthdar gripped it in his iron-hard claw, and with the other hand brought out the golden flute and put it to his lips. The Myrmide drew back in fear. Then Shuthdar blew one-handed a haunting melody, a tune that lived forever in those that heard it, and then he and Nassi vanished.”

  Still there was no sign of what Idlis might be thinking. The tale is already too long, Llian thought. Draw the moral, and finish it!

  “The Myrmide looked down at the red rags that had been their master, sickened at what they had become through serving and obeying without question. They had committed the ultimate betrayal.

  “ ‘We take no master ever more,’ they cried. ‘We are Myrmide no longer. We are Nunst now and forever. From nothing we came; to nothing do we return.’

  “Then they went back to the Ghâsh-ad-Nâsh, crouching among the rocks and snow, the fire, fumes and ice, and that is what they became, Nunst. Nothing! Creatures of shame and guilt and fear, no longer having the will even to be, and now they are gone to nothing. The Myrmide are no more. The only trace of them—a curious custom that still lives in that part of the far south—is that before each meal the people make their Atonement, though for what, none remembers any more.”

  So they do, Karan thought, crouching in her hiding place, remembering Hassien, that thin, dark-haired, strong-willed woman with the sibilant accent, who had done just that on the ride in Pender’s boat to Sith last year.

  Llian looked around at his audience. Had he done enough? Too late now, if he hadn’t. Rulke’s face was almost purple, but the Ghâshâd were very still.

  “And Nassi? She survived, though she did not stay with Shuthdar after they reappeared a long way away. She went alone out into the world, becoming a necromanter and a wise woman, and lived to a great age. She died at the time of the Forbidding, it is said, but the house that she founded at Saludith is still there. That is my tale.”

  Llian bowed to the three judges, to the assembled Ghâshâd, and to Rulke. Rulke did not bow in return. The allegory was not lost on him.

  “I notice you dared not say ‘every word of it is truth,’” he cried in a black voice. “That is no tale. It is a fable, constructed out of oddments to play on the fancy of the Ghâshâd. Ghâsh-ad-Nâsh indeed! Look at him, Ghâshâd—the chronicler is a cheat!”

  “It is a tale,” said Llian, “and based on truth. That is the sacred code of the teller. The teller is free to tell his tale in whatever fashion he choses, the only burden being that the story may not be improved at the expense of truth. There is a Ghâsh Peninsula; there were a people called Myrmide, that served Bandiar and killed him, and are now gone. The Atonement is still made, in that land.”

  He looked toward the judges. They consulted one another.

  Karan held her breath. If he succeeded in this she would never doubt him again.

  “We lived in the south. We know the facts to be true. We judge it to be a tale,” said Idlis after a long pause.

  Rulke’s face went very hard. “Then cast your vote,” he said harshly. “And remember this, Ghâshâd! Twice you failed me with Maigraith. Do not fail me again.”

  There was a moment of absolute stillness. The globes on the walls bathed the room in a brittle ice-blue light. Llian heard a small noise below, the sound of a door closing quietly.

  Jark-un spoke. “My vote is for the tale of Rulke,” he rasped. Llian had expected that.

  Rulke looked to the second. “Llian of Chanthed,” Yetchah said with a sigh, her almost pretty face distorted under the strain.

  Every face turned to Idlis. He had a nose like a hatchet blade—big, sharp and curving. The rest of him was as hard. I am the least of the Whelm—so I must strive the harder. That was how he had described himself to Karan long ago. How would he strive this time?

  Karan vainly tried to restrain her thrashing heart. Idlis was an honorable man, though his code was impossible for her to fathom. She tried to reach out to him but only met blackness.

  Llian could see that Idlis was twisted on the horns of his conflict, duty versus honor. The scars on his face grew purple, the flesh around them white beneath the gray skin. The planes of his face flexed. How to reconcile duty to his master and his requirement to judge fairly?

  “There is little to choose between the two,” Idlis said. He spoke very slowly and distinctly. The one is the tale of a fool, and the other the tale of a fool. I choose the tale and not the fool.”

  “What is your vote?” shouted Rulke, quite unsettled.

  “I judge Llian’s to be the better.”

  The silence stretched out like the moment before the hangman’s trapdoor opens. Jark-un slid off his stool, turned and smashed Idlis down with a tremendous blow to the face. “The president is indisposed,” he said. “His vote is invalid. I cast his vote. The challenge is lost”

  Idlis crawled off, blood dripping from his lip. Jark-un drew back his boot. The Ghâshâd let out a collective hiss and he turned away. “Healer, heal yourself,” he said.

  “The Great Betrayer!” Llian sneered at Rulke. “Your tale reveals you, just as much as your servant’s actions. A self-indulgent fool whose folly puts all at risk and then must make himself the hero to save it. That is not the kind of master that the Ghâshâd waited for, all those centuries.”

  Jark-un’s fist swung again and Llian found himself on the floor, spitting blood.

  “Enough!” snapped Rulke. He strode to one side of the room and pressed a tiny plate. The slab behind which Karan listened swung up. She tried to dart away, but was stiff from hours of crouching there, and Rulke had already touched another plate. A second slab fell behind her.

  “Take her!” he roared at the Ghâshâd. “Take them both.”

  The subdued Ghâshâd hesitated, shamed. Rulke had offended against their honor. He was their perfect master no longer. But still their master, and they obeyed.

  48

  * * *

  THE TEMPTATION

  OF KARAN

  They were thrown into a dark room that was very cold. Llian was dazed from the blow; it was some minutes before he even knew where he was. Cold seeped through his side where he
lay on something icy, but his head was cradled in warmth and softness.

  He opened his eyes. They were in a gloomy room, the only light coming in through oddly shaped slots in the wall. His head was in Karan’s lap, her hands running backwards and forwards through his hair. Realizing that he was himself again, she smiled and put a cool hand over the bruise on his cheek.

  “The wheel turns, and turns again,” he said. “Isn’t this how we met?”

  She kissed him on the forehead and on the eyelids and then on the mouth. Desire for him burned like a furnace. She kissed him on the throat, toying with his shirt buttons with her free hand.

  “Ah, but I didn’t know you then and admired you too much. Talk about the tale of a fool! Was there ever a bigger pair than us? You overlooked the obvious defect in your plan—that you bargained with the Great Betrayer.”

  “Yes, but how did you like the tale?” he asked weakly.

  She laughed. “What an ego you have! I thought it well enough, though I probably would have voted for the other.” Then she pursed her lips, frowned like a schoolteacher and spoke, deliberately pedantic. “Yet since you ask, there were several points I would bring to your attention, thus: the beginning was unsatisfactory, both because of length and for its dubious relevance to the theme; there was much repetition of phrasing and of ideas; the parallel between the Myrmide and the Ghâshâd, and between Nassi and Idlis, was far too unsubtle; your reference to the ritual of Atonement was incorrect in a technical sense; the ending…”

  “Enough!” cried Llian, pretending rage, though one hand was busy at her waistband. “Have you nothing good to say about it?”

  “Well,” she replied, helping him with her fastenings, “as a cautionary tale it was well tailored to its audience. The other points I pass over, all save one. The challenge is finished; we are still here. What do you have to say to that?”

  “Hmm,” said Llian. “I knew there was something that I’d forgotten.”

  Karan burst out laughing, and Llian was smiling too. One of the Ghâshâd looked in through the peephole to see them laughing and fondling one another, and thought them a very strange enemy.

  “I can’t help wondering if you might not have distorted the truth a little in your tale,” she said shortly.

  Llian reluctantly raised his head from her breast, pretending to consider the question. “Perhaps I did… cheat a little. I told no falsehood, but the fragments I wove together did not all belong, and I embellished them somewhat. I think that, on balance, I have severely broken the first Rule of Telling.”

  “Rule of Telling!” snorted Karan, pushing his head back down again. “Only the totally amoral, such as chroniclers are, would seek to so mystify and entangle what is, after all, an act that every one of us engages in. In any case, to cheat your enemy is not a crime. I would do it without a thought. But to cheat the Great Betrayer—I think the chroniclers might even make a tale of that. But only a minor one,” she amended hastily.

  “Telling is an ancient and noble art,” said Llian pompously. “What the vulgar masses do is not telling.”

  “Am I one of the vulgar that you sneer at?” she asked with a wicked grin. “And yet, there is another act that everyone engages in. Do you call that vulgar too?”

  “Not when I engage in it,” he retorted.

  Karan rolled him onto his back. “Enough,” he cried, “I submit.”

  Sometime later, tracing his fingers down her naked throat, Llian realized that something was missing. “Where’s your silver chain, Karan?”

  “I pawned it in Thurkad. It nearly broke my heart.”

  He just looked at her. “For me? Back then when you so mistrusted me?”

  “I still loved you. I was afraid. I spent the lot on bribes, trying to get you out of Yggur’s dungeon.”

  “How much?”

  “Three gold tells.”

  “Oh!” he said, quite stunned. “What a waste.”

  “I’d do it again.” They lay in each other’s arms for a pleasurable while, then Karan said, “Actually there was something about that chain that I was going to mention ages ago. I’d forgotten all about it.”

  “What was that?” he asked drowsily.

  “The maker’s mark—I know how interested you are in old writing.”

  Llian wasn’t particularly interested in hallmarks of obscure silversmiths, but he opened his eyes. “How did it go?”

  She traced a complicated sigil in the dust of the floor. “No, that’s not quite right. She rubbed it out and did another. On the third attempt she got it right.

  Llian sat upright, staring at the mark.

  “I’m sure I know that sigil,” he said, scratching his head. “Was that all?”

  “There was also a name, although it seemed to have been put there later, for the engraving was rather quavery. The hallmark was perfectly engraved. Fia—Fiam—Fiachra! That’s it!”

  “Fiachra!” Llian literally leapt in the air. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. The name was as clear as new, so it can’t have been worn for long after it was put there. The hallmark was worn, though. Who was Fiachra? Another of your girlfriends?” she murmured slyly from under her lashes.

  “The crippled girl who was murdered in the tale!” he exclaimed. “And the hallmark—I remember it now. It’s the ‘s’ glyph—Shuthdar’s trademark.”

  He limped back and forth in a state of high excitement. “The chain must be ancient, if Shuthdar made it. He must have given it to the girl just before he destroyed the flute. And that must be why Kandor designed the Great Tower of Katazza following its pattern. I wonder why? I’ve got to find it, Karan.”

  “It’s gone,” she said, slightly bothered by this obsession.

  “When we get out we’ll ask Shand where he pawned it. Maybe the broker still has it.”

  “Maybe,” she said doubtfully. There was only one way that they were ever going to get out of here, but Karan did not want to think about that.

  They had a few more hours together, then two guards burst through the door and tore Llian from her arms.

  Karan was alone with her fears for half an hour, whereupon the guards came for her too. They led her back to the room where the construct squatted in the air. She was just in time to see Llian dragged onto a metal plate set in the floor. Karan lunged against her guards but was powerless.

  Rulke stood on top of the construct, brandishing his fist. She did not hear what he said, for the machine shivered the air and Llian disappeared. Almost immediately Rulke and the Ghâshâd held a hurried conference, the realization dawning that the construct had not worked as planned, that no one knew where Llian had been sent to.

  Just thinking his name was like a cry of abandonment. Cold fear made her stomach ache. Rulke shouted at squat Jark-un, who scratched his hefty backside then climbed under the construct, pulling at something dangling there. The result was not successful. Finally Rulke got down to see for himself. There was much loud talk and taking apart pieces of the construct and putting them back together again. Karan had time to compose herself. She would not let him know that she was worried about Llian, even that she cared.

  Ghâshâd ran back and forth. She recognized several of them from her adventures in the caves of Ashmode. Idlis, of course, now with scabbed lip and swollen cheek, scrawny Thassel, Rebban the pink-eyed albino and a wild-eyed, shavenheaded, fanatical young woman whose name Karan did not know.

  The difficulty seemed to be resolved. Rulke gave orders, inspected the work, leapt back up again and caressed his levers. He smiled—evidently the repairs had been successful. The Ghâshâd filed out; she and Rulke were alone. She watched him with narrowed eyes, knowing that he would expect another attack, but she was planning nothing. What was the point of escape? None, until she achieved what she came here for. She was not afraid for herself any longer. She had gone beyond that fear.

  In his dealings with Llian, Rulke had often worn an expression of amused contempt, but he was watching her so warily, stood so cat-li
ke on his toes, that she was suddenly struck by the incongruity of the situation. Karan smiled: he was afraid of what she might do next. Well, perhaps not afraid, but uncertain. She did not fit the pattern of his other enemies. And having heard his tale she understood why her appearance worried him. If he only knew how fortunate she’d been before, how little an enemy she really was.

  He looked disconcerted by the smile. Evidently he wanted something from her and wasn’t sure how to get it.

  “Why do you smile?” he wondered aloud. “My power over you is absolute.”

  “And yet you’re uncertain,” she replied. “You worry about what I’m going to do and it amuses me to see it. I’m like an archer who has shot her only arrow and can but wait with empty hands.”

  He said nothing to that and after a long interval she asked softly, “What do you want of me?”

  Now it was Rulke’s turn to smile, for her voice had cracked on the last word. He took her by the shoulder and led her to a couch on the far side of the room, where a small table was set with dishes of food. She sat down as far away from him as she could get, rigidly upright. That amused him too.

  “I might put you to a number of uses,” he said, giving her an ambiguous glance.

  Karan stared right into his eyes. “Be sure that if you try, my knife will cut lower than Elienor’s did,” she said coldly.

  Instantly he trapped her two hands in his and, smiling at her helplessness, relieved her of the knife.

  “Don’t mess me around!” she said furiously. “You brought me here for a reason. You think that I may have a talent that you need. If you cannot even send Llian where you want, how can you hope to direct the construct to those far-off places that are your real destination? That’s why you want me.”

  Rulke’s smile thinned. “They briefed you well.”

  “No one briefed me. What else could you possibly want me for? Sensitives are rare. I also know that my abilities cannot be compelled. I’m no use to you unless I’m willing.”