Dark Moon Daughter

by J. Edward Neill

  The moment she set foot into Rellen’s grand, high-ceiling hall, she stopped in her tracks. The hall. She glimpsed the long tables lining the floor, the food piled high, and the smiling faces of the scores of folk awaiting her and Garrett’s arrival. A feast! They knew we were coming!

  “You knew about this?” she asked Garrett, who looked not the least bit surprised.

  “I knew.” He took her hand and led her into the heart of the hall.

  “But why trick me?” She squeezed his hand. “You are the guest of honor, the one they have been waiting for.”

  “Perhaps,” he said with a smile. “But this feast is for both of us. Me, for returning in one piece. And you, for your betrothal.”

  Four Goblets

  No one knew it, but Garrett found it difficult to enter the hall of Gryphon Keep. To see it so full of living, breathing people felt strange, and to feel the warmth of their smiles upon him stranger still. They love me here. He walked toward the tables with Andelusia at his side. They love her even more, though they know nothing of us. I wonder what they would say if I told them what happened three years ago in this very room. They would not like it so well, I think.

  Hard as chiseled marble, his raiment dusky and weather-worn, Garrett cast his gloom aside and made his way to the largest of the tables. Emun Gryphon’s table. He regarded the long plank of polished oak, the platters and goblets laid across it. And now Rellen’s.

  The lord of Gryphon awaited him at the head of the table, a broad, almost impish smile on his face. Rellen looked exactly like Garrett remembered, only thinner, and maybe paler. Rellen’s hair was like windblown wheat, his flaxen beard short and neatly-trimmed, while his smile and the red flush in his cheeks suggested he was already a few cups into his mead. The young lord had turned out in his finest blues and golds, his tunic and sleeves taut as the pennants flapping from Gryphon’s towers.

  Garrett saw two empty seats nearest Rellen. Andelusia flitted to one, and he assumed the next. Many Gryphon folk fell silent with his passing, looks of awe on their faces. Ande told them stories, he knew. And no doubt she exaggerated.

  “…killed every Fury east of Mooreye.” He heard an old man say to his wife.

  “…sank all their ships, and slew enough of them to turn the water red,” murmured another as he took his seat.

  “…with a sword of fire,” whispered a woman, closest to the truth of them all. “Killed their king, he did.”

  He closed his mind to the rumormongers and sank into his seat. Steaming platters of roast swine lined the table before him, along with bowls of leeks, buttered potatoes, and small mountains of piping hot bread. He could not deny his hunger, but stayed his hand from the food out of politeness. Beside him, Andelusia kissed Rellen on the cheek, but her fingers grazed Garrett’s forearm, and through his sleeve he felt her shiver. The betrothal, he remembered. She was not expecting this.

  “Did you know, Rellen dear?” Andelusia faced him, smiling and trembling at the same time. “This one tricked me.”

  Rellen looked ready to burst into laughter. “I know. It was my idea.”

  “It is true,” Garrett admitted. “I rode in at sunrise.”

  “And you were already gone, love,” Rellen told her. “So we sent him out after you. We thought you might like the surprise.”

  “I did.” Her eyes were moist with tears. “I liked it plenty.”

  Garrett thought to brush her tears away, but forced himself not to. She is not mine, and we are not alone. When all became quiet and the dinner guests ceased their small conversations, he knew what he expected to happen. Rellen will announce the betrothal. Everyone will applaud. Ande will weep with joy, and then we will eat.

  The gathered folk of Gryphon Hall stood as one. He started to rise with them, but Rellen shot him a smirk, and he remained in his seat. There were some seventy guests within the hall, and when Rellen raised his fist, they cheered, but not for the betrothal. Their practiced ovation, echoing amid the vaulted rafters, is for me.

  “Hail! Hail! Long live Garrett Croft!” they shouted in unison, and the hall shook with the sound. “Long live the champion of Grae! Long live the destroyer of the Furies! Hail! Hail! Long live Garrett! Long live the last man standing, the brightest star in the darkest night, the flame who never will die!”

  They sang it twice, and afterward the hall fell into reverent silence. When they sat, he stood and bowed to them, and the feast began. The people dove into their meals as though starved, and the sound of forks, knives, and laughter made the hall seem a battlefield.

  “Take you off your guard, did it?” he heard someone at his table say.

  Saul, he knew the gruff, scratchy sound. Saul of Elrain. He caught sight of the burly man on the opposite side of the table, two chairs down. Saul’s beard was more prodigious than ever, his brown ringlets of hair hanging well past his ears, and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes grown long and deep.

  “Nor did I expect you.” He nodded to his old friend. “I thought you might go home.”

  “And leave all this?” Saul spread his arms. “This is home now, Garrett. Rellen is my lord, and these people my family. Ah, but enough of that. It is good to see you. The years have been long, and we began to wonder…”

  “…if I would ever return.”

  “Aye.” Saul tilted his goblet and took a shallow swig. “And now you are back, and we are whole again.”

  He tipped his empty goblet toward Saul and sank into the feast. The guests passed platter after platter before him, each plate piled high with Gryphon’s finest fare. It was more food than he had seen in ages, and enough to feed everyone here twice over. From each platter he took a modest sum, and when the plump fellow beside him slid two decanters near, he chose the one with water.

  He speared a strip of roast with a silver fork, but an instant before taking his first bite, the clamor in the hall died again. Every guest became still a second time, their forks and drinks suspended in their hands.

  “Not more applause, I hope,” he murmured to Andelusia.

  “I… I am not sure.” Her nervousness paled her.

  The betrothal, he remembered again. The poor girl. He made her wait so long, and now in front of all these people…

  Rellen stood once more, grinning ear to ear. Everyone else remained in their seat, waiting for the lord of Gryphon’s words.

  “Rellen,” said Andelusia, “Should we eat first? I think everyone would…”

  Rellen never heard her. He hoisted his brass goblet and swirled it, somehow spilling nothing. “Guests of Gryphon!” His voice was more powerful than Garrett remembered. “Forgive me for interrupting again, but I have things to say before I am too drunk to say them.”

  The room was rapt. Garrett gripped Andelusia’s hand under the table. Be calm, he wanted to tell her. This is a good thing. Rellen will make a fine husband.

  “As you know, we feast tonight to celebrate Garrett’s return,” Rellen boomed, then drank, then swirled his goblet again. “Our brave swordsman is long, long overdue, but we will forgive him. He has braved the world and beyond, and he prefers a fashionable entrance. In truth, we should all be surprised he comes to visit us alone. We were certain he would have a beauty on each arm and a stack of crowns drooping from his forehead.”

  The room broke into mild laughter. Rellen’s grin widened. Andelusia squeezed Garrett’s hand hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

  “I could go on about poor Garrett.” Rellen clapped his goblet atop the table. “I could complain about his choice of attire for the eve, his stuffy black shirt and rusty old sword. I could question his manners, only writing twice for seasons uncounted when we longed for more. I could even ask him why he chose not to fight the Furies all alone and save Graehelm the trouble of going to war, but no…”

  Rellen’s smile faded. Andelusia gulped, flexing her fist open and shut around Garrett’s fingers.

  “But no…” Rellen said again, his smile fading. “What I mean to say is; I am g
lad to have Garrett back. The war, the soldiers slain, King Jacob. Without Garrett, none of it would have mattered. We make many jests, but he was the destroyer, the maker of the hardest decisions. So if I prattle or interrupt you from time to time, it is for good cause. This man is a brother to me, and in my mind we cannot honor him enough.”

  Rellen sat, the crowd applauded, and Garrett felt Andelusia’s tension drain out through the ends of her fingers. She was limp afterwards, and he could not say whether she was crestfallen or relieved that Rellen had yet to mention marriage.

  “Now then!” Rellen rattled the room again. “Supper grows cold! Let us eat!”

  Satisfied with his performance, Rellen drained his goblet dry and called for more. The clatter of feasting filled the hall again, and this time Garrett partook. He means to save the announcement for the end, he thought as he devoured a brick of bread. Poor girl. To keep her waiting is cruel.

  It was a long and pleasant feast he enjoyed. Though the adulation wearied him, he let none see it. The road from Mormist had been hard and the years without camaraderie none too ideal for his already stoic soul, and so he tried to savor every moment of the evening. One by one, the night’s guests came to his chair to honor him. They said, “…hero. …savior… a god in godless times,” and he took it all in stride. He laughed for the first time in ages, clanged his goblet against theirs, and ate more in one sitting than he had during many days of his life away from Gryphon. This is good for me, he believed. These people could be my family. This city could be my home.

  Near the end of supper, Saul of Elrain slid into the chair across from him. Saul looked older and heavier than he remembered, but his eyes were full of fierce curiosity, and his forearms still as thick as oak roots.

  “You see here, Garrett,” Saul said with a wag of his finger at Rellen. “In the years you were gone, our young lord settled in. He is a different man than before.”

  “For the better, to be sure,” said Andelusia.

  Saul grinned. “We should let Garrett be the judge of that. Did you know, Garrett, Rellen has not left Gryphon since returning from Mormist? Did you know he turned down a councillorship, and a seat beside the King?”

  The councilor’s seat, I would have guessed, he thought. Never the other.

  “So your return is none too soon,” Saul quipped. “Milord Rellen has become accustomed to his new life as master of House Gryphon. He has gone soft in the bones without you, some say.”

  A good-natured jest, and Rellen knows it, Garrett saw. Rather than reply, Rellen stuffed his mouth with food and chugged still another goblet of wine, and yet Garrett knew Saul spoke the truth. “You withhold few words,” he said to Saul. “Though if Rellen prefers a roof over his head, one can hardly blame him. He has survived more storms than most.”

  “Finally, a supporter,” Rellen said once his goblet went dry. “But Saul forgets himself. This is your night, Garrett. You have been too long away. So now it is your turn. Tell us everything. Start at the beginning.”

  Garrett gazed across the hall. The guests were finishing their meals and the servants climbing over one another to spirit the empty platters away and fill a last few cups with wine. No betrothal then. He glimpsed a passing shadow in Andelusia’s eyes. Another night, perhaps a quieter one. How strange.

  “Go on,” Rellen prodded. “The story.”

  Andelusia, Rellen, and Saul were firmly in their seats, their plates empty, their cups dry, and their gazes all for him. I must oblige them, he thought. And so he did.

  “I traveled the country north to south,” he began. “And though Mormist has far to go in its resurrection, the things I witnessed gave me hope. Verod lies in ruin, but the lords of Tratec are building a new fortress on the ridge beside it. It will be twice as huge as old Verod, with walls thick enough to weather any storm. In the east, nearest the sea, the sons of Minec have built a fledgling city whose walls grow taller every day. They lack shipwrights, but in time they mean to build galleys to patrol the sea and guard against the Furies. For now it does not matter. There are no Fury sails on the water anymore. In my time at the shore, I saw only the moon shining on the waves and the sun warming the whitestone spires. It was beautiful. I might have stayed if not for you three.

  “Back in the heartlands, the forest is somewhat recovered. Orye is abandoned, but its people have made the pilgrimage to the River Gholesh. They honor the fallen with a new city and a bridge spanning the valley. New Lothe, they call it, for the lord who lost everything. I stayed in there for two summers, hunting game for the workers and helping to build the bridge. The city springs up from the very soil, it seems. More people come every day: hunters, masons, artisans, even mothers and their children. I did not know how resilient we could be.”

  “And the road from Mormist to Gryphon?” The candlelights fluttered, and Rellen’s question hung in the air. “I hear plenty from the others, but I would rather it come from you. What of the Dales? What of Mooreye?”

  “Mormist will heal in time.” Garrett’s words felt heavy on his tongue. “But of the Dales, I am not certain. As I traveled, I saw the grasslands swollen with sorrow. Gravestones stand stark above the grass. Whole villages remain empty. Fields that used to grow rye and wheat lie unplanted, now full of brown weeds and ruts left by soldiers’ boots. I felt sad to pass the few people I saw. Had I one wish, I would undo what happened there. Misery haunts the Dales. I fear it will for generations to come.”

  “And Mooreye?” Rellen asked.

  Garrett drew back in his chair. Even more than the Furies, the folk of western Graehelm hated Mooreye, though little is left to hate. “I did not see Mooreye City,” he said. “But the swamps in the north were haunted and the old mansions abandoned. The Pale Knight did his work too well. Mooreye has no rulers anymore, nor knights, nor even many commoners. The only signs of life I saw were in the farmsteads, none of which thrived.”

  The feast was at an end. The guests were leaving. A crowd of Rellen’s favorites shouted their farewells as they made for the door, some of them drunk and staggering. At Rellen’s beck, the servants doused the braziers, lined the center table with glowing candles, and filled four goblets with mead, one each for Garrett, Andelusia, Saul, and the lord of Gryphon himself.

  “Well…” Rellen rubbed his eyes. “Like all feasts, this one ends too soon.”

  “But not for us, love.” Andelusia caressed the back of Rellen’s hand. “We can stay as long as we like. It is your hall, after all.”

  “Yes,” Rellen yawned. “So it is.”

  Garrett sat up in his chair. The candles on the table cast the heart of the room in a light he rather liked. Rellen looked sleepy, but not Ande or Saul. We will keep the lord of Gryphon a while past his bedtime.

  “I have told you of my travels.” He nodded at Rellen over the rim of his goblet. “I have heard from Ande and Saul, but I have yet to hear much of you, Lord Rellen. It is your turn.”

  Rellen slumped in his chair, seeming ten years old than what he was. “Being a lord is not what I thought it would be,” he sighed. “Mother handles most of it. She is my diplomat, my counsel, my scribe, all of it. I am not my father, nor can I be. I wish I had a little brother. I would pass everything to him.”

  “Ah, but Rellen does a fine enough job,” remarked Saul. “He is fair. He is generous. He earned a thousand years of love for what he did against the Furies. What more could House Gryphon ask for?”

  “A better leader.” Rellen shrugged.

  “Oh stop it, silly.” Andelusia tousled Rellen’s hair. “Ignore him, Garrett. He is being modest.”

  Garrett turned his attentions to Saul, who promised to be not nearly as demure. “As I hear it, you are chin deep in every book Gryphon has to offer.”