Dark Moon Daughter

by J. Edward Neill

  Silhouette

  If he keeps snoring, I might beg the grey men to kill me.

  For the dozenth time, Rellen jostled Ghurk with his booted foot. The young lordling stirred, mumbled, and now snores again. How he and Saul sleep, I’ll never know.

  For days unknowable, he had hardly slept. Since breaking down the last wall before the lake at world’s bottom, he, Ghurk, and Saul had lain in the prison pit, unneeded. Every so often, the grey men dropped bread and skins of water into the hole, but otherwise we go untended to. Our work is done. We sit in the dark, wasting away, waiting to die.

  He sank against the cold, damp stone. Deadened by days of sitting, his legs tingled, his backside ached, and his head hurt as though ice were sloshing in his skull. He felt drunk with the absence of sleep, and his heart pounded a painful rhythm beneath his ribs. The lad must be dreaming of home. He gave up jostling Ghurk. Who am I to wake him?

  Lying like a corpse in his coffin, he gazed upward. The faintest lavender light skimmed across the pit’s top, but otherwise he saw only darkness. They will leave us here, he knew. Once the food runs out, we will starve. The madness will take us. If it comes to it, I will volunteer to die first. They can bash my head in with a rock. Let them feast on me if they like. I bet I taste better than Saul.

  For longer than he knew, he stared through the pit’s aperture. He imagined himself not in a grand, black cavern, but lying beneath the open night sky. The lavender light, he imagined, was the moon gleaming through the clouds. The hard stone numbing his bottom was not his grave, but a mountain slope on which he rested, awaiting the rain to wash his hurts away.

  When the lavender light fluttered and died, he sensed the grey men were leaving. Finished, he thought. Our last meal…eaten. Lucky me. I get to tell the lads when they wake.

  He closed his eyes. A few breaths from falling under, he peered a last time to his imagined sky. Somewhere in the void, he thought he heard a noise. Wind? No. The wind never blows here. Just a dream. Go to sleep.

  He sank lower and lower. Ghurk snored, Saul murmured, and all else remained silent. Moments from joining his companions in sleep, he stirred again.

  A smell. Like smoke on the breeze. Like a candle blown out at bedtime. Strange. I know that smell. Funny that I should die with it.

  Although no light shined in the world above the pit, he swore he glimpsed movement. Darker than dark, it seemed, an inky shade blacker than night. He blinked and saw a very human silhouette gazing over the pit’s rim. Death comes swiftly, he mused. An agent of the nether is here to collect me.

  “Who’s there?” he called to the darkness. “I can see you, you know. Mother used to tell stories about spirits stealing the dead. I thought she was trying to frighten me. Apologies, mother. I had no idea.”

  His jests earned him no answer. He and the shadow gazed at one another, a battle of wills in the dark. He squinted until his eyes hurt, and after a time began to wonder. Maybe I really am dead.

  “Here to put me out of my misery?” he quipped. “Hurry on then. The next world will need me.”

  His watcher said nothing. It freed its spectral hair, which dangled like sodden shipwreck ropes. Slender, eyeless, and so like a wraith Rellen thought he might die of terror, the creature leaned perilously over the pit’s edge.

  “What are you?” he shuddered. “Say your name.”

  Droplets of water fell from the shadow’s hair onto his face. He breathed the scent of rain...and smoke. He made himself look up again, and through his squints he saw his watcher bat her eyelashes and curl its lips into a smile.

  He stood, sprinkled with rain.

  He knew.

  “You?” The air rushed out of him. “Here? I looked for you in my dreams, but you escaped.”

  “This is no dream, my love.”

  “Then what? You came to take me to the next world? Are you a ghost? Can we walk beneath the stars? Just once is all I need.”

  “I am real, Rellen. Not a ghost, but not the same as you remember. I came to free you, Saul and Garrett too. We must hurry.”

  “Garrett was never here.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.” He swallowed the lump in his throat.

  “But…?”

  “What happened, Ande? Why did you leave?”

  “He tricked me,” she whispered. “He played on the weakest part of me. He watched us for years. We were all a part of his plan.”

  “What does he want?”

  After a long silence, she exhaled. “To kill us all. He knows a way to end mankind. This cave is a tomb, Rellen, a headstone to the race he believes created our world. He would open it. He would let them out.”

  “Why?”

  “I could make a thousand guesses, but it does not matter. The tomb is the real trouble. If he pries it open with one of his spells, all of us will die. We have to hurry. All these questions…we need to go.”

  This is impossible, he thought. How is she here? “Bring a ladder,” he blurted. “Be quiet about it. The grey men cannot be far.”

  She vanished. Oafish in the dark, he roused Saul and Ghurk.

  “What’s this?” griped Ghurk. “I sleep, and you drag me out. What’s the matter with you?”

  “Are we to work again?” Saul sat up with a groan.

  “No. No work. A new plan. Time to escape. A friend is here to help us.”

  “Friend? What friend?” Saul steadied himself against Rellen’s arm.

  No sooner did Saul speak than Andelusia slunk back into his sights. She plunked a lantern at the pit’s rim and slid a ladder of rickets and rope down. No one dared ask questions. In silence, he climbed out, then Ghurk, then Saul.

  When he emerged into the cavern above the pit, he quaked with relief. He might have sunk to kiss the stone were it not for Andelusia. In the lantern’s yellow light she stood, her hair wet and tangled, her eyes grey as gravestones. As beautiful as ever.

  “Impossible.” Saul nearly toppled back into the pit.

  “Am I dreaming?” Ghurk paled. “Is this the woman you told us about?”

  He had to be sure. He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, tenderly touching her as though she were graven of glass.

  “You are you? This is not a trick?”

  “I am me. I know what I must look like, but I am still me.”

  “I said cruel things at Aeth. You must hate me.”

  “Never.” She folded his fingers into her hand. “All this is because of my frailty, not yours.”

  His eyes welled with tears. He kissed her cheeks, her hands, her lips, and each peck was a cure for the coldness in his heart. If the wind should blow, I will fall to pieces. This cannot be. She is not here.

  “Ande,” Saul interrupted, “what happened?”

  “I promise to tell everything,” she said, “but for now we have to hurry. The grey men are gone, but worse things will come. We have to help everyone. Find more ladders. Lower them into the holes. Set these men free. Tell them not to run.”

  Saul and Ghurk took the lantern and shambled away. Rellen winced as darkness reclaimed him. How did she get down here? And of all the pits, how did she find ours?

  “He taught you magic,” he realized.

  “He did.” She sounded miserable. “I was his apprentice, but when he showed me the truth, I awoke. The Nightness is inside me, Rellen. Every time I use it I feel less human. I only hope you will forgive me.”

  “Of course I will,” he replied. “But what did you do with all our jailers? Did you kill them? Did they run away? There were thousands down here. How?”

  Through her tears, she cracked a smile. “There are no shadow men. There never were.”

  “What?”

  She placed her palm upon his chest. “Just as there was no rain on our journey south, and just as Thillria feels itself conquered, there are no shadow men. One in twenty might be real, but the rest are the imaginings of the warlock, the faces of the dead given substance. I met many hundreds of them, but all are the same.
With what I learned, I tore them apart.”

  “But…I saw them kill.” His mouth hung open. “They had spears and swords and knives. There was blood on the rocks. I saw it!”

  “It is the same everywhere,” She touched his face. “Dark men come to cow Thillria into obedience. If you saw death, it was Grimwain’s doing.”

  “Grimwain.” He ground his teeth. “Tell me you destroyed him with the others.”

  “No.” She sounded afraid. “Not him.”

  He shook his head. “Too dark down here. If I am to escape, you will have to guide me.”

  “Follow,” she said. He only wished he could see her lips, for one last kiss.

  She took his hand and guided him into the darkness. She walked with confidence, wending around dozens of prison pits. Gliding like a breeze, she led him to a far corner of the grand grotto, where three columns of stone joined floor and ceiling.

  She snapped her fingers, summoning a candle’s worth of violet light within her palm. He nearly leapt out of his skin.

  “Be calm.” She let the light float above her head.. “Harmless, this light. Just enough to let you see by.”

  With a shiver, he looked to the three columns, where three men lay trussed and gagged. In the pallid light, he saw their hands and arms were painted grey, but their faces clean and white, pale as any Thillrian.

  “See?” Andelusia pointed at the men and at the grey grease staining her skirt’s hem. “Not ghosts, but hired men from Muthemnal.”

  “Real?” He lightly kicked one of their boots, extracting a muffled grunt. “You did this? All alone?”

  She nodded.

  “Where are their weapons?”

  “Follow.”

  Some twenty strides from the three columns, she halted again. Seven grey swords, five spears, and three black-bladed daggers lay in a jumble. “Blessed steel.” He knelt and plucked up a sword. “I thought I would never see it again.”

  Andelusia trailed a finger atop his shoulder, inviting him to follow. “Hurry,” she said. “Time is short, and the way to the surface long.”

  He stood beside her. The hour of liberty was at hand, he knew, for the shadow men no longer ruled the Undergrave.

  Over the next hour, he, she, Saul, and Ghurk emptied dozens of prison pits, and in turn those they freed did the same. Men poured from the darkness and struck torches, lanterns, and piles of timber to life. The underworld swelled with their cheers, sobs, and vengeful cries. Alive, Rellen thought every time he saw men climbing out of the void. Hundreds of us. No…thousands.

  At Andelusia’s beck, the prisoners made their separate ways into an adjacent cavern, a grand, dozen-leveled cavity to which scores of Undergrave passages were joined. Rellen trailed her with a torch in one hand, a grey sword in the other. The freed Thillrians streamed ahead of him, bringing every possible light into the vast cave, stoking every torch, lantern, and coal-lit brazier. The cavern came alive with their voices. A part of him believed he was still dreaming.

  “You did it, Ande.” He looked to her, but her expression had gone cold.

  “I did nothing,” she said. “Not yet.”

  As the Thillrians crowded and shouts for an exodus split the air, she pulled away from him and leapt atop a rock in the very center of it all. Look at her, he marveled. The only woman in the room, and the reason we all live.

  “Men of Thillria, hear me!” Her voice stunned him. Dust fell from the columns holding the cavern ceiling aloft. Men everywhere fell silent.

  “The warlock owns you, every stone and blade of grass, every tower and hovel from Denawir to Shivershore,” she shouted. “His grey men are everywhere and everyone. You will not have believed in magic before today, for none of you have seen it, but here and now I compel you to watch and listen.”

  He gaped. He knew what was coming, and still it held him rapt. With a slender smile in his direction, Andelusia raised her palms above her head and worked her spell. Shadows poured from her fingertips, roiling like storm clouds into the cavern void. She made the darkness streaming from her hands look like cities, ships, castles, and fell creatures that made men blanch. Hers was a silent show of power, but no less effective. For ten breaths her magic owned every heart in the Undergrave.

  When it was done, she made the shadows vanish. “Now,” she shouted, “Listen well. The grey men are everywhere, but they are nothing. Lies, illusions, and tricks of the mind are all the warlock has made them. When you flee this darkness and go forth into Thillria, you must believe in what I tell you, else you will forever be the warlock’s thralls. When you face his grey men, cold iron shall be your weapon. Make blades of it, arrows and spears and knives all the same. One touch of iron, and the illusions will die.

  “Go now, and be rid of this place. Spread the word. Reclaim your homes. The road from Sallow is hard, but in the west you will find friendship and sanctuary. Your brothers and sisters are expecting you. Go to them.” She pointed to the largest corridor leading out of the grand cavern. “That way, straight to the surface. Make no detours. Strip what food you can from the grey men’s caches, but dare no other respites. You’ve all a war to fight, and little time to win it in.”

  The men roared. Rellen staggered beneath their cries. No questions? he wondered as all the men heeded Andelusia’s command and streamed across the black stone bridge toward the exodus passage. What did the warlock make out of you, Ande? A queen? A goddess?

  The Thillrians took up their lights and made for the bridge. He saw the hope blazing in their eyes, the alacrity with which they walked. Andelusia bounded off her boulder and came to him. But without a smile, he noticed.

  “He must be raging,” she said. “I would have made an army of these men, had we the food and weapons. But they would have starved in a week, and no army will stop the warlock.”

  “You frighten me,” he told her. “Look at what you did. Everyone is free. Everyone is doing exactly as you asked. What more can we hope for?”

  “Quiet,” she hissed.

  “Ande?”

  In the light of the nearest burning brazier, he saw her gaze toward the mass of fleeing men. Something is wrong. Her nostrils flared with her frigid breaths, her eyes flooded with stormy greys. He followed her stare, and as he did a clamor arose from the outer rim of the cavern, the strangled gasps of many hundred men. The men’s wails took flight in the cavern air, stripping away the exhilaration that had lived in the moments after Andelusia’s speech.

  “No…” She quivered. “Say it is not so. Say he is not here.”

  “The warlock?”

  “No. Worse.” She grimaced. “Look.”

  Near the black bridge, where the lanterns and floundering torchlights only barely sluiced the encumbering dark, he saw what she spoke of. The dead horror, with his faceless mask and man-sized sword, waded through a river of human flesh. Even one-armed, he gored dozens of men crowded too close to escape him. Thillrians pushed and piled atop one another to flee, but the horror marched through them, clipping off arms, legs, and heads, shrugging off counterblows as though they were pebbles hurled against a mountain. He stalked the bridge’s length, carving men’s bones like paper, splitting skulls like eggshells. His work was loathsome, his footfalls ruinous to the cavern floor.