A Lament of Moonlight

by Travis Simmons

  “We didn’t get them all.” Mari tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “We need to hurry,” Celeste said. “Once we get off this trail and into the open plains they will have a harder time finding us.”

  “Right,” Skye said. “Mari and I will cover our tracks.”

  When they’d last made camp with her, Celeste had set the sun scepter in the middle of the clearing and they had slept around it. That was before, when they were still in the comfort of Singer’s Trail. Now they were out of the Fey Forest, looking up into a clear night sky.

  There wasn’t any sign of clouds, which was good because at least they wouldn’t have to worry about being buried in snow during the night. The elves’ three sun scepters were sat up like a triangle around them, their golden light creating a barrier against any darkling that might happen upon them while the Sleeping Eye was high in the sky. A miasma of warmth settled around the camp from the scepters and Leona felt her muscles release for the first time in a while.

  Abagail was safe, and apparently she’d learned a tentative way of controlling the shadow plague from spreading. Rorick and Skye weren’t talking, but at least they weren’t at each other’s throats. Leona tried to ignore the fact that they were still tossing doleful glances at one another.

  How can someone chew angrily? She wondered, tossing a handful of seeds into her mouth. She watched the two men, a smile on her face.

  “The moon is full.” Mari was looking to the sky, her packet of seeds nearly forgotten at her feet. The moon shown down, bathing them all in silvery light, nearly causing the elves to glow. “You can recharge your scepter now.” She looked back to Leona.

  “I’d forgotten,” Leona admitted. She pulled the scepter closer to herself, the cold steel of the stave chilled her hand. “How do I do it? Are there any rituals or words I have to say?”

  Mari shook her head. “No.” She knelt before Leona and took the scepter into her hands. “This is the reason they say the scepters are open.” She gripped the spiraled tip of the scepter and turned it once. The moment she removed her hand, the head of the scepter flowered open to reveal a crystal in the center. “There. Now all you need to do is stand the scepter up where the light of the moon can reach it.”

  Leona took the offered scepter and stabbed it into the ground as all the sun scepters were. The moment the moonlight touched the crystal inside, a humming reached her ears.

  “Tomorrow I can teach you how to use it,” Mari said with a smile.

  “Are you really one of the best healers?” Leona asked.

  Mari tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and hung her head. A blush dusted her cheeks as she shook her head. “I don’t think so. But I understand how energy works, and that helps.”

  “Speaking of energy, we think Abagail might have learned how to control the shadow plague,” Leona said, speaking louder to include the entire camp in the conversation.

  “That’s great news!” Celeste looked up at Abagail. She didn’t smile though. Leona hadn’t seen any kind of happiness in Celeste since her sister had been killed. In part, Leona blamed herself. If she hadn’t killed Daniken though, the dark elf would have killed Abagail.

  “I remembered what you told me before, that the plague will try to tempt me to work with the darkness inside of me. I realized that when I attack, that’s when the plague spreads.”

  “It’s more than that,” Mari said. “You’re right that the plague will try to get you to do unsavory things in order to claim more of your body, but you can still attack.”

  “How?” Abagail’s eyebrows furrowed.

  “It all depends on what emotion it comes from. There are high and low emotions. Negative and positive. If an action comes from emotions like love, peace, protection, those are the higher emotions that will keep the plague from claiming more of you. I assume that you noticed the plague reverted its course when you did the protection spell before?”

  Abagail nodded, leaning forward and setting her packet of seeds aside. She was cautious of her afflicted hand. Without the glove she would have to be mindful not to touch any of the others with her hand.

  “That’s because it came from a higher emotion, a need to help others instead of yourself. When you’ve attacked before, it was from a place of fear or anger, right?”

  Again, Abagail nodded.

  “Those are low emotions. Those are the emotions the shadow plague feeds on. They will make it spread out of control. Darklings are going to try to scare you into using the darkling wyrd inside of the plague. When you use it from a low emotion, that’s when you’re in danger.”

  “How do you know all of this?” Leona asked.

  “Mari teaches higher classes of harbingers from time to time,” Celeste said.

  “That’s great!” Abagail said. “Maybe you can teach me?”

  Mari nodded, not meeting Abagail’s eyes. “Have you been having strange dreams?”

  Abagail looked to her hands.

  “That’s normal for harbingers,” Mari said, taking Abagail’s non-answer as consent.

  “I don’t understand why I’m having them,” Abagail said.

  “You’re not the type that gives in to flights of fancy I assume?” Mari asked.

  Leona laughed. “That’s an understatement.”

  Abagail frowned at her sister.

  “Right, so if you’re not letting these visions in, they will find a way in,” Mari said. “Normally through dreams.”

  “But all harbingers have these dreams?” Abagail asked.

  “Yes, most harbingers do. Others are more open minded about things, so they get impressions and precognitive visions outside of their sleep. But most of them are like you, from worlds where it is frowned upon to have anything to do with wyrdings.”

  Abagail nodded. “Could you teach me what to do?”

  Mari frowned. “I’m not used to teaching someone that’s just starting out. Typically I’ve gotten the students once they’ve gone through more training. I would say, tonight when you go to sleep, just be open to the dreams. Don’t fight them.”

  Abagail nodded.

  “What are your dreams about?” Leona wondered.

  Abagail shook her head. She wasn’t going to tell her. Leona recognized the set of her sister’s mouth. She wasn’t telling her because she worried that whatever she had to say would upset Leona.

  Leona let out a long sigh and shook her head.

  Just leave it alone, Skuld spoke into her mind.

  Instead, Leona wrapped herself up in her cloak and laid back in the snow. She let her mind wander for a while, the light of the sun scepters wavering over her like ripples on a shore.

  As she started to slip into sleep, she saw two ravens circling high above their camp.

  “So we are in a predicament,” the frost giant said. Gorjugan didn’t know his name, but he was the chief. Likely he’d learned his name before, but it wasn’t important. To him, all the giants looked alike. Tall, bulky, hairy, and blue with frost. Hence their names. This one had to be the chief though, because he sat at the head of the wooden hall in a large stone chair. A necklace of skulls hung around his neck. No one else had a necklace. “There are three elves with the God Slayer. And they are headed in the wrong direction.”

  “I assume they are headed toward the harbingers of light,” Gorjugan said.

  “We need to know how to proceed.” The chief batted Gorjugan’s assessment aside with a meaty hand. “It matters not where they are going.”

  “What do three elves matter to you?” Gorjugan asked.

  “Their sun scepters radiate heat,” another giant said. This one was smaller and less hairy. Most likely a woman.

  “Only if opened will the sun scepters radiate enough heat to harm you. None of the sun scepters have been opened as far as I’m told,” Gorjugan remarked.

  The chief leaned forward, shifting his considerable weight in the chair. “This one has been opened.”

  Gorjugan’s brow quirked up. “How? It r
equires blood. No light elf would allow such a thing.”

  “Not just blood. The dying blood of an unclaimed harbinger,” a robed giant said from the right side of the chief. This one was thin; sickly. It was apparent he was more used to working with darkling wyrd than any other. Most likely he fed more on wyrdings than he did food. His skin was darker blue, almost black, and whirled with shimmering eddies of power.

  “Certainly not!” Gorjugan said. Sweat bloomed along his upper lip. He dried his palms on his pants. “So the harbinger with them is dead?”

  “No,” the wyrdling giant said. “She still lives. I’ve seen it.”

  Gorjugan’s shoulder’s relaxed and he let out a deep breath.

  “Still, we need to know how to proceed.” The chief leaned back with a motion as if none of that mattered. He tugged on his white beard. “What would you have us do?”

  “What would you have me do?” Hilda asked him once. The dead man stood before him. Normally they were sickly old people who hadn’t died in battle. Those that had died a pitiful death as the Gods in the Ever After saw it. But this one was different. This one had killed. He was strong.

  He was a murderer

  He was the warrior. And today he would owe Gorjugan a favor.

  “He will come in handy,” Gorjugan said. In his voice skirted a question. Was this the right answer? Was this what Hilda expected him to say. He glanced up at his rotting sister sitting on her throne of bones and scalps. Her face betrayed nothing.

  “Is that your answer?” she flicked her wrist toward the warrior.

  “When the time of the rising comes, when the path to Helvegr is set, he will aid us,” Gorjugan nodded. He tightened his hands on the arm rests of his chair.

  “Very well,” Hilda said. She snapped her fingers and the shadows from the rafters descended. A black tendril stabbed through the warrior’s chest and he screamed out—

  “Well?” the chief asked. All of the giants were staring at him now. He shook off the memory.

  “Overwhelm them with numbers. Smash the scepter. Bring them all to me.” This time he wouldn’t let Hilda down. This time he would have the God Slayer.

  The first thing Abagail saw when she woke up was her sister’s face and the moon scepter poking up over her shoulder. It was glowing now, silver and full of power.

  “We need to go.” Leona’s voice was low. Where she gripped Abagail’s shoulder her hand quivered.

  “What’s wrong?” Abagail stretched and yawned. She sat up, noticing that everyone was up and ready to go. Daphne bobbed around their heads, her light flickering frantically. There was a chiming noise coming from her as if she were trying to hurry them all on. “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”

  “I tried,” Rorick said. “Most of us tried.”

  “There’s no time for this. We need to move out,” Celeste came over to them from where the elves were huddled a few feet to Abagail’s left.

  Before she could ask why, the same quivering harp strum carried through the chill air to Abagail’s ears. She shot to her feet, checked her sword on her waist, and cast around to see if there was anything she was forgetting.

  There wasn’t.

  While she was asleep clouds had blown in, covering the moon. She searched the sky for any sign of light from above, but there was none to have.

  Ahead of her there was nothing but an endless frozen expanse. Nothing dotted the way. Through the gloom the sun scepters glowed like ghost lights calling her forth, showing her the way. She hoped Celeste knew where they were going.

  The elf turned to her then. Snow was starting to fall.

  “Mari tells us a storm is blowing in,” Celeste said. Her eyes were distant though, on the way behind them. “The elle folk are traveling more than with feet. It feels like wyrd is speeding their steps. They will be on us soon. We will need to prepare for the inevitable.”

  “And that is?” Leona asked.

  “A celebration.” Abagail scoffed. “Seriously Leo, what do you think we need to prepare for?”

  Leona blushed.

  “They will attack before there’s light. Darklings work best at nighttime.”

  “But you can do that light thing again, right?” Rorick asked.

  “There’s something different this time,” Celeste told them. She was now walking flush with the humans. “There’s another presence with the king and the harpist. I don’t recognize it, but it’s dampening our powers.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Leona said.

  “Not good at all,” Celeste commented.

  “Alright, well, there’s just two of them and six of us. We can take them.” Rorick glanced behind them, his hand gravitating toward his hammer.

  “We don’t know what kind of wyrd they have at their disposal,” Celeste said. “The All Father only knows what they are capable of.”

  A few moments later the twang of the harp came again. The note shivered down Abagail’s spine, prickling her flesh.

  “That was close,” Celeste said. “Keep going.”

  She hung back. Rorick hesitated for a moment, turning to watch the elf through the swirling snow. Abagail grabbed his hand. It was warm in hers, damp from where he had clutched it in a fist for the last few paces.

  His blue eyes found hers. They were nearly as cold as the night around them.

  “She will be fine,” Abagail told him, not really feeling too sure of herself. He nodded and allowed her to tug him onward.

  Abagail looked back in time to see a flare of golden light. When the light rippled toward them Abagail felt a concussion on the air.

  Celeste caught up to them faster than what Abagail could have expected.

  “Skye, Mari, we need to make a protective barrier!”

  The other two elves turned to her with a nod. They unfastened their scepters and took position around the group.

  “Remember what I said,” Mari spoke over her shoulder. “It depends on the emotion behind the wyrding. Higher emotions will work against the plague.”

  Abagail swallowed past the lump in her throat. She nodded, though no one was watching her. The cold stung her shadowed hand and power shivered up her arm. Her shoulder throbbed with the darkling wyrd.

  Not this time, she thought. She couldn’t be afraid. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  A harp string plucked again. Cold dread slithered up her spine.

  Abagail shook her head.

  “What do we have here?” a wicked voice asked.

  Abagail opened her eyes to see the elle folk king standing before the glow of the sun scepters. Daphne was fluttering around Leona’s head like a halo of purple light.

  “You think to keep us out with that?” he pointed at Skye’s sun scepter.

  The pixie streaked at the elle folk, a bloom of purple light taking him in the face. There was a flash of white and a spark of light when the purple light made contact with his malevolence. The king stumbled back with a curse.

  Mari stepped away from where her scepter was jammed into the ground. Abagail started to see the transition at the edge of the elf’s being. Golden light infused her body as if it radiated from her skin. Just as her physical form was starting to melt away to honeyed light, the harpist plucked a string violently.

  The music burst through the air, and the light that Mari was transforming into shivered and scattered into the darkness of the night.

  Mari collapsed to the ground.

  “No!” Leona yelled out. She flourished the moon scepter. With a metallic clang she snapped her fingers against the weapon and a beam of silver light struck the harpist in the chest, knocking her end over end.

  The king pointed at Leona. “That might be the last thing you ever do.”

  Pain lanced up Abagail’s arm. She clasped her uninfected hand around her wrist and willed peace and calm into her arm, but it wasn’t happening.

  Leona lifted the scepter again and made a show of smacking her fingers on it once more. This time when the silver beam of light cut across
the snow, it struck the harp, snapping the instrument in two.

  “Or not,” Leona remarked.

  The old man seethed, and lifted his hands like talons clawing at the sky. From the depths of the snow arose shadows darker than the night around them.

  “Darklings,” Celeste said. The sun scepter was in her hand, but Abagail could tell she was nervous about using it.

  Abagail didn’t have long to consider what the elf did and didn’t want to do, because as the shadows from the ground gave way to towering darklings, her arm flared once more. The pain was white hot, and blotches of blindness blossomed to the surface of her eyes. Abagail bent forward, breathing deeply.

  But the pain was too much. The fear of the darklings too great. How could she be so weak? Why hadn’t she gotten this yet? She knew what had to happen, and here she was, still giving in to the darkling wyrd.

  Daphne took after the darklings summoned from the ground. She didn’t last long. The elle folk king lashed out with his cane and batted her from the sky. She vanished in a puff of snow into a nearby bank. Her violet light faded. She didn’t rise.

  Skye stood near Mari. His arms were spread wide, his sun scepter clasped loosely in his right hand. Constantly he snapped his fingers against the stave, and constantly the light ebbed forth. The darklings hesitated before the power of the sun scepters.

  Leona eased forward, her confidence bolstered by the moon scepter in her hand.

  The darklings neared Leona, but she didn’t back down. Like the elves she was drumming her fingers on the stave, but her light wasn’t flaring as bright. She was afraid. Abagail could tell by the set of her shoulders. Her fear was working against the wyrded staff just like Abagail’s was crippling her arm.

  The king raised his cane, but Rorick dove forward, knocking the man back with the hammer. He chased the king back into the darkness of the night.

  Abagail pushed to her feet. She had to help them. She couldn’t cower in the background. She aimed her hand at a darkling easing nearer Leona, one that her sister couldn’t see. Her palm opened like an eye waking from slumber, an old wound splitting from stress. But it didn’t hurt, instead it was a release of the pain that was crippling her arm. The pain surged forward, golden light illuminating the darkness. When it struck the darkling, the being vanished in a puff of dust.