Dark Moon Daughter

by J. Edward Neill

  She slid her feet back into the pond. The water felt just as cool as before, the dark surface lapping against her calves as though it liked the taste of her. “I had a dream,” she said. “I should have been frightened, but I was not. I wanted it to last forever. It felt so real.”

  Garrett skipped a pale stone across the water. The slender rock made almost no sound, dancing out into the dark. “Dreams are that way,” he answered. “Though I expect yours are more vivid than most.”

  She smiled for him. The moonlight shined upon her face, lighting her with an affectionate, ethereal glow. Had Garrett looked at her, he would have seen her at her most beautiful.

  “This dream was different.” She peered across the water. “It was less like a dream and more like magic. I felt alive. I feel powerful. The night did as I desired.”

  “Sounds none too bad,” he said.

  “But there was more to it than that. I was not alone. There were others with me.”

  “The voices.”

  “Yes.” She trembled. How did he know?

  “We knew this day might come.”

  “We did,” she agreed. “But why now?”

  “We can ask why.” He touched her hand. “But we may never know. More important is what you decide to do.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “I should be, but I am not.”

  “Perhaps I will ask them to stop,” she quipped.

  “People will accuse you of talking to yourself,” he said lightheartedly. “Rumors will start. Rellen will put bars over the windows in your room.”

  “He might,” she laughed a small laugh. “If he knew what weirdness turned in my head, he might lose our betrothal ring once and for all. He would wonder why he ever hoped for us to come back from Furyon. ‘That Ande,’ he would say. ‘Full of Fury ghosts, she is.’ And all Garrett’s fault for dragging her back here.”

  She and he shared a quiet laugh, but became quiet thereafter. They gazed into the night, and she wondered why she had not asked him to join her at the water in the first place. It was during those moments, as they lingered on the soft shore, she did something she knew she should not. She held her breath and felt her heart jump against her ribs. Garrett, she wanted to say. I wish it had been you. You know me better than he does. You would love me harder. You would have given me your ring years ago, and with you the voices would not have returned.

  The moment was long in coming. She had long wished to say something to him, of how her heart beat faster whenever he was near, of how he walked the hallways of her dreams clad in far less than swords and black armor. Her thoughts were with Rellen, but in the pit of her heart she knew Garrett was her truest hero. He rescued me from Furyon, not Rellen, she reminded herself. He gave me a dress in Mormist. He worked so hard to bring me happiness, and like Saul, he watched over me. He understands me. He always has.

  “Garrett,” she dared. “How is it you are alone?”

  “I am not alone. I have you, Rellen, and Saul.”

  “No, I mean alone, as in without a lady. You never say a word about what you desire. You never explain why there are none fair enough to sit upon your arm. There are no eavesdroppers here. Why not tell me? I can keep a secret…our secret.”

  He sat still, suppressed by an odd silence.

  “You have nothing to say?”

  “You have me off my guard.”

  “I know.”

  She loosed her hair from its white tether and set her head upon his shoulder, raining strands of scarlet down upon his arm. “It was cold before you came here,” she sighed. “But now, much warmer.”

  “Ande, the voices…”

  “…can wait,” she shushed him. “What more is there to say? They are here and I will have to contend with them. But not with you near.”

  “Rellen should…”

  “…stay right where he is. I would prefer it.”

  For once, Garrett looked less than uncomfortable. The moonlight brushed the darkness away from his eyes, and she glimpsed the struggle behind his stoic mask.

  “What if I chose wrong?” Her question cut the night.

  “You did not.”

  “But what if I did? I dream it every night. If Rellen is my love, why is it you I want to walk with?”

  “I have seen no better match than you and Rellen, not during my little life.”

  “How are you so sure?” She encircled his arm within both of hers. “Search your heart and tell me I am wrong.”

  She wanted him to look at her, but his stare lay across the water. “What I want does not matter,” he said. “You are Rellen’s, not mine.”

  Perhaps it was the voices, their murmurs penetrating the lowest strata of her mind, or perhaps her heart had finally come uncaged. She felt the heat move beneath her skin and her hold of Garrett’s arm tighten. I should not want this. Her heartbeat tormented her. But I do.

  “Kiss me.” The words escaped her lips.

  His arm tensed. His breath sharpened. “It would not be right.”

  “You think me frail of heart? A tease?” she purred. “I am not. Kiss me.”

  “Rellen…”

  “…is still at camp. I can hear him groaning at something Saul said. But you are here, Garrett. You have kept many of my secrets. It is time I keep one of yours.”

  He faced her, finally. She moved her lips toward his, but he held her just far enough away that she could not reach him.

  “I am no seductress,” she said, though she wondered if it was true. “I am just me, just Ande. Kiss me. Rellen has not touched me in months. Please…”

  “You are not yourself,” he told her.

  “I know. And so what? My stoic, steel knight, have you never done anything foolish, anything other than what is expected?”

  “I cannot.”

  “Kiss me,” she begged again. “Just once.”

  “Not here,” he said. “Not now.”

  With a shiver, she peeled herself away from him. Her body went numb, her hurt welling in her eyes. She swore she heard the voices laughing.

  “This is your answer?”

  “I do not know.”

  “You do not know? Or you will not say?”

  “You are not mine.”

  The voices laughed harder. She felt panicked, driven to emotions far beyond her own. Her next words were not hers, but theirs. “You are just a soldier, Garrett Croft.” The unwanted venom dripped from her tongue. “Your betrothed is your sword, your cold confidence your shield. And now you think me lustful. You will tell Rellen. Everything will fall to pieces. But no one will know what you think, will they? You will keep your secrets behind your mask as the rest of us suffer for all to see.”

  He rose. He looked like a black tower, his eyes like white windows, though if he was angry, she could not tell it. “I will not say a word to Rellen,” he promised. “Though perhaps you should.”

  Her tears streamed down her cheek. “Rellen would hate me. He would not understand. If I told him about the voices…about you, he would hurl me out of Gryphon and take another for his bride.”

  “He would never…”

  “He would and you know it.” Her words were her own again. “Saul would despise me, too. And you…I must disgust you. Otherwise you would have given in.”

  “You are not mine to give in to.”

  She slithered to her feet. The night consumed her, the voices in her head suggesting far worse than she was willing to do. “I might have been,” she backed away from him. “But no more.”

  Wkhzl

  Dawn, and thunder clapped in Andelusia’s ears. The rain chased her from shallow sleep, clattering like silver coins against the road. She awoke and peered from her sagging tent. Her four companions were waging a losing war against the rain. She heard Rellen curse his sodden boots as he tried to pack his saddlebags. She saw Jix standing in the mud beside his horse, clutching his satchel tight to his chest. Garrett sat atop his horse, holding the reins of two other horses, the look on his face far grimmer
than any of the clouds. And Saul. She felt worst for him, the only one of her travel mates she talked to anymore. His books will be ruined. Poor Saul.

  Her journey began in silence that day, the same as it had during each of the fifteen days since her encounter with Garrett. She was road-weary, her body tired of bouncing up and down in the saddle, and her skin in need of a bath many hours long. She was a fortnight deep in Triaxe, and no matter how long she rode each day, the country never seemed to end. To her left, the Molesh Mountains formed a grey curtain wall, their sharp, stony crenellations devoured by the low-hanging clouds. To her right lay the hills, endless and swarming with thickets, the trees so tightly knit even the mist seemed to choke.

  And before me, she thought, the road. Will it never end?

  For hours uncounted, she trotted along. She kept her gaze mostly on the rutted lane, which the storm made a fine mess of. She did not much mind the rain. Even since it began eight days ago, the voices had stayed silent. The storm was her shield anymore. In it, Rellen and Jix argued less, while Garrett was too busy fending the water off to look at her, and remind me of my shame. She hated herself for what had happened at the dark pool in the Dales. It was the voices, she knew. They made me someone I am not. Let the rain continue. Let the voices stay away.

  Late that afternoon, she arrived at Kilnhome.

  By her count, Kilnhome was the dozenth city in Triaxe she had come to. But look, she marveled. This one is different. The capital of Triaxe was the hugest city she ever remembered seeing. Bigger than Gryphon. Bigger even than the Grae capital. On its eastern side, it was walled by the largest peak of Molesh, the monstrous mountain spire Erewain, whose stark slopes looked less like stone and more like polished steel. Erewain cast its long shadow over everything, seeming to dwarf the entire world. On all other sides, Kilnhome was shielded by a wall fifteen men high, every brick and vaulted tower made of rocks carved from Erewain’s cheerless underhills. She felt tiny riding toward the gates, smaller still after Jix announced their purpose and the huge doors swung open to devour her.

  Kilnhome, haven of the south, was among the greatest cities of Graehelm. It was the first, the oldest, and behind its ominous walls, perhaps the most beautiful. As Andelusia guided her mare onto the grey-bricked streets, the rain stopped, and she wondered if she was floating into a dream. Everywhere were shops, their doors open, their shelves stocked with sweet-smelling foodstuffs, colorful clothing, and wild assortments of sculptures and paintings the likes of which she had never seen. A thousand smells drifted to her nose, not the usual odors of nightsoil and fetid water, but the aroma of spices, the nectar of perfumes, and the faintest waft of freshly-brewed cider. She dropped down from her saddle, her eyes filled with wonder, and she began tallying the places she knew she must visit.

  “I remember reading about this place.” Saul rode up beside her, a light in his eyes. “These walls are more than a thousand years old. Kilnhome’s lords have ruled for more than thirty generations, and its stewards far before that. There was a great battle here, so say Dank’s books. It happened on that big mountain there, before the city was founded.”

  “A battle?” She felt her curiosity leap to life.

  “The ancestors of Triaxe against the denizens of Molesh, who were said to be more shadow than man.”

  “You jest.”

  “No. Listen.” He dug into his saddlebags.

  “Saul,” Rellen interrupted. “We need food and drink. Our horses need stabling and I need a week’s nap. This can wait.”

  “No,” said Jix. “Let him be. I want to hear this.”

  Saul produced a wooden box from his bags, and from within the box, an weathered book whose cover was flaking, but dry. For his sake, Andelusia was happy that at least one tome had survived the rain. “Here it is.” He turned the pages lightly. “I knew I remembered. I brought this book because I guessed we might come here. I translated what I could, at least until the rain started.”

  “What does it say?” Jix trotted nearer on his horse.

  With his finger, Saul followed the tiny characters on one of the pages until he came to what he sought. His finger stopped, and after a deep breath he read the page aloud:

  “And though the last hosts of Ur-Hargoth were thought removed from the world, they were not. They rallied on the slopes of Erewain, turning them black, driving fear into the heart of every Kilnsman. Their sallow, sulking shapes blanketed the mountainsides, frothed in the river at Erewain’s bottom, and swam like darkling clouds in the sky, blotting out the sun. They came, but at battle’s end we threw them back. The Ur were powerful, a strain from an era older than ours, but they were not undefeatable. They were no longer the sole possessors of power. When our sorcerers came, we broke them and drove their spirits into the shadow prison we had prepared. Molesh, save for Erewain, was afterward a fairer place to look upon.”

  “Fascinating, no?” Saul’s face lit up. “Man against monster. A legend the Kilnfolk will not remember. There is more here about Kilnhome and Erewain. After we find quarters for the eve, I could read you the rest.”

  “I would like to hear,” said Garrett, dark and stoic atop his destrier.

  “As would I,” agreed Jix.

  “And me.” She smiled for Saul. “After we eat, of course.”

  Making their way about Kilnhome was no quick thing, even with Jix as their guide. The streets were labyrinthine, the alleys like capillaries twisting and turning into huge arterial thoroughfares. The city’s dwellings were huge and intimidating, most of them tall as towers, their painted fronts a stark contrast to the white streets. After some time of wandering amid the stores, towers, and mansions, they stabled their horses and bought rooms at a hundred year-old inn on one of the busiest streets in the city. Andelusia hoped they might sup together, to close the growing rift between us, but Rellen retired early to reread the Thillrian treaties, Garrett took his meal with him to a blacksmith, and Jix vanished on some nameless errand.

  And hour before dusk, she and Saul remained at a table in the corner of the inn’s common room. The huge chamber was packed with hundreds of people, their clamor drowning out her thoughts. Sad that supper had not gone as hoped, she pushed her half-eaten soup away and sipped a final time from her too-sweet wine.

  “Ande,” Saul asked at length, “is everything well?”

  “It is,” she lied.

  “I only ask because of Rellen.” He seemed to sense her reluctance. “You and he talk less and less every day.”

  “The same for me and Garrett,” she observed with a rueful frown. “And Jix always keeps to himself. I only have you, dear Saul.”

  “I wonder, Ande. Why did you want to join us? The distance to Thillria aside, this is less an adventure than you usually crave. King Jacob sends Rellen on a chore, not a quest. Why not wait for him in Gryphon?”

  The truth weighed always on her heart. Because of what Jix told me, she wanted to admit. Because this could be an adventure, only you and Rellen do not yet know it. “I would not be parted from Rellen for so long.” She gave the answer she thought he wanted to hear.

  “Well and good.” He shrugged. “Are you sure there are no other reasons?”

  “If so, they are mine to keep.”

  “I see.”

  “Why did you come?” She turned the tables on him. “There were other volunteers. Sara Gryphon had a dozen men picked, but Rellen wanted only you and Garrett.”