Dark Moon Daughter

by J. Edward Neill

  Had her Nightness been at its most powerful, she might have burst out of her skin. Her heart drummed inside her, her ribs aching. She and cradled his head in her lap and ran her hands across his chest and arms, searching for any mortal mark Grimwain might have given him.

  “Alive! You are alive!” Her body shook.

  “Until I heard your voice, I was not sure.”

  “You are freezing. Colder than the water.”

  “And you are warm. Same as the sun.”

  “Can you stand?”

  “Help me.”

  With little need of her help, he arose, hissing in pain and dripping. She tugged him near the Ur torch, and by its light inspected him. “Your armor, no punctures. Your blood, only from your head. What happened?

  Ten breaths later, he came to life. “Alive…” he uttered. “Still alive. Twice I have fallen, and still I haunt the earth.”

  “What do you mean? Twice dead? Where are Rellen and Saul?”

  “The Needle, Grimwain said. The tower was not empty.”

  “Garrett?” She steadied him. “Are you well? How hard did you hit your head?”

  His face looked whiter than frost. His skin felt slick to her touch, beaded with sweat like dew upon an apple. “He is gone. He escaped.”

  “Grimwain?”

  “I did my best. He was hardly human. I could have killed a hundred with my sword, but I was not close to ending Grimwain. I know why he let me live. He wants me to remember. He wants me to tell Thillria about him. Not to shame me, but to fill their hearts with dread.”

  “It is not your fault.”

  “I know. But of the many I have killed, he would have been most deserving.”

  Her heart ached to hold him close. She would have, if not for Rellen. “You live. I am happy. Where are Saul and Rellen? Tell me. Hold nothing back.”

  When he hung his head, she knew.

  Burning Water

  Even wounded, he knows the way.

  In Garrett’s shadow, she walked. He retraced his steps across the island, and she slunk in the sad river of light made by his Ur torch. Beneath her bare toes she glimpsed two trails of blood, the droplets like ink against the glass. One for Saul. One for Rellen. One for each of Grimwain’s swords.

  In her mind, she foresaw everything.

  I know what they will look like. Their eyes will be half-open, as though they are only just waking. Their faces will be grey, their lips blue. Like the Uylen, their bodies will be limp, their skins full of holes. I would promise to live a better life if only I could be wrong. But no one exists to hear me. The gods are gone. And the man I worshipped, my prince, my love, my Rellen, will never hold me again.

  A fragile light flickered in the distance, the lone ember of an Ur candle. Ahead of her, Garrett slowed. She snatched the Ur torch away and brushed past him. Her next steps hurt more than anything in her life.

  When she saw Saul rising from his haunches, she dared to hope. “You live?” she felt stupid in asking. “How?” A moment of joy overtook her, yet after she saw the look in his eyes, her world came crashing down again. She dropped the Ur torch. The Undergrave sucked the breath out of her body.

  Rellen.

  He lay in the gloom behind Saul. Gazing with wide-open eyes into the void, his repose reminded her of how he once had looked while lying in the fields beyond Gryphon, dreaming beneath the stars with me. “Rellen?” She ran to him. “Rellen, wake up!”

  She squeezed his hands. She felt his lingering warmth and dared to hope again. With a snap of her fingers she conjured an Ur candle above his nose, wanting him to see the light. “Come back,” she wept over him. “Grim is gone. Father is finished. All I need is you.”

  Many times she begged. Her tears became ashes against his face. His blood turned to crimson dust wherever she touched him. She pleaded for forgiveness, and when his lips remained still, she asked for death to take her in his place. All the while, Garrett and Saul did nothing to stop her. Because they know, my love. For you, for me, they would stay here forever. We should be dead, not you. We are treacherous souls, especially Garrett and I, but never the son of Gryphon. Noble, were you. Your death is mine. I cannot avenge you except to wither without you. Wake, wake, my prince. I beg you. I am in too deep. Without you, the darkness will devour me.

  She mourned upon his sleeve until the Ur torch waned. As the light weakened, she swallowed her sobs and arose. She wavered as she stood, a breath from toppling. She felt black inside, her blood made of powdered bone, her last tears shattering when they struck the island. “My heart goes to the grave without him,” she said to Saul and Garrett,

  Saul opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “No. Say nothing. Do not tell me how he died. I know what I see, but I want no more.”

  “But Ande…”

  “No.” She glared. “I want to remember him as he was. I want only the good things. I will remember our first night, the snowy eve in his father’s tower when we accidentally met. I will remember the pond in Grandwood, the trees all around us. I never wanted Furyon to happen. I never wanted this curse, this magic invading me. I would throw these powers to the wind just to have him back. I would kill myself if only he would live. I know how this will end. I will suffer as he suffered. I will die alone, perhaps now, perhaps not long from now.”

  Silence pervaded. None dared break it. As the Ur torch sputtered, Saul and Garrett stood sentinel. She knelt to close Rellen’s eyes and fold his arms over his chest. A sword, she wished. He should have one. But not the Sarcophage’s horror blade. Anything but that.

  Saul dropped to his knees and with great strain lifted Rellen into his arms. Furious, she bounded to her feet.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Carrying him,” said Saul. “To the shore.”

  “Why?”

  “Would you leave him here? Alone? In the presence of that…thing?” He regarded the tower.

  “What will you do?”

  “Bear him to the shore. Cross the lake. Carry him up through the Undergrave.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “There will be no worms for my love, no cairn of stones, and no rotting beneath this awful country. Carry him to the water, but no farther. It will be fire for him.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I am.”

  She snared the Ur torch and relit it with a touch, willing it brighter and colder than before. She glided between Garrett and Saul, a glacial chill trailing in her wake. Ahead of them she ran. Alone and breathless, she arrived at the shore, where the three skiffs awaited her.

  I could walk into the water and sink to the bottom, she fantasized. Or I could stand with Rellen and burn. Perhaps I will. And why not? What better end than for our ashes to mingle forever?

  Wetness welled beneath her eyelids. A black curtain drew down inside her, a creeping nightfall she feared would never lift. Death, was all she could think of. Sweet and silent. How easy it would be.

  “Ande?” The sound of Saul’s voice interrupted her misery.

  “I want to, but I will not.” She gazed across the water.

  “Will not what?”

  “I will not die. I will live. I swear it to Rellen. I will be strong for him. I will be better than the woman I was. He will see. I will survive. He and I will meet again, but not until the end. All his life, he made his oaths and honored them. This is my oath to him. I will not die as I desire.”

  She sensed Garrett standing beside her. He would never have known it, but I am glad to have him near. To her left, Saul carried Rellen closer to the water. She could not bear to look. “The middle boat,” she directed him. “Put Rellen in. Straighten his legs and cross his arms. Be swift.”

  “Ande, there are other ways...”

  “Do it!” she said.

  A bitter Nightness wind rocked the skiffs. Grunting, Saul clambered over the craft’s side and placed Rellen’s body on the bottom. She heard his deadness thump against the planks, and for a half-breath considering burn
ing Saul for his clumsiness.

  “Push it into the water.”

  “No.” Saul slunk to the shore and backed away from the boat. “I can’t…”

  In silence, Garrett went to the prow. As I knew he would. He uttered a prayer only he and Rellen could hear, and then heaved the boat away from the glassy shore. Its bottom scraped against the island. It slid into the water, a cloud riding on an ocean of darkness. She waited for Rellen to wake and cry out for mercy. She heard nothing.

  As the boat glided away, she walked into the shallows. She mouthed a word remembered from the Pages Black and hurled the Ur torch across the water. The torch landed in the skiff’s hold. Saul gasped. Garrett watched without a word. The waking fire grew larger and colder, crackling and spreading through the skiff faster than any earthly blaze. Her eyes frosted with tears, but she could not cry out. Her emptiness would not allow it.

  The flame devoured the small, slender craft. Saul crumbled to the shore, weeping. Garrett stood beside her, stoic as a steel tower. When the roaring conflagration waned, nothing remained, no sign that Rellen had ever set foot in the Undergrave. The boat’s timbers floated on the water, burning with black flames before disintegrating. Gone. Her heart slowed as the last plank melted into the water. My love, the final ray of sunshine before dusk.

  When it was done, she faced Saul and Garrett. “One thing remains.” She willed herself to show no more sorrow. “Come with me.”

  “You need more time, Ande,” said Saul.

  “No.”

  She strode inland. For Saul’s sake, she summoned tiny Ur candles to float in the darkness behind her. No other light existed in the Undergrave. If my magic fails, we are doomed.

  “Ande!” Saul shouted after her. “Where are you going?”

  “My father.”

  She returned to the scattered Sarcophage remains. Garrett had made a graveyard of their bones, but her battle with the warlock had spread them farther and wider than his sword. A few still smoked with remnants of Ur fire. Others were but husks of ash inside grey cuirasses, one jostle from crumbling into nothing.

  “Wake, father.” She stood above the warlock.

  At her first summons, he continued dozing. She might have thought him dead, if not for the flutter of his white hair with each of his breaths. With a sigh, she knelt before him.

  The Pages.

  She glimpsed the black book lying next to him. It reminded her of all the feelings she had come to Thillria to satisfy, and all the horrors afterward. With father defeated, with Grimwain gone, the book is mine. What should I do, Rellen? Whisper in my ear, my love.

  She reached for the book and recoiled. She wanted to claim it, but also to destroy it. Tentative, she ran her fingertips across its spine. I should not have taken you from the Uylen, she knew. But now, with me as keeper, you will never be used again.

  She heard Saul hiss behind her, “The book! Burn it, Ande. Be rid of it while you can!”

  I should, she thought. I know I should. Rellen?

  “And is this the warlock?” Saul leered over her shoulder. “His true face, a broken old man? I am no murderer, but a wise man would kill him.”

  “I am neither wise nor a man,” she said. “Do not touch him, else a second skiff will burn.”

  She lifted her father’s arm for Saul and Garrett to see. Rellen’s anklet glinted dully in the light of the nearest Ur candle. “Iron,” she tapped the anklet and counted the ten rusted rings upon his fingers. “Eleven pieces. With even one, his magic is null. With eleven, he will never wear a face other than his own.”

  “How can you be sure?” asked Saul.

  Because I remember what iron did to me.

  Her father awoke. Quivering, he gaped at Saul and Garrett. “Are we still…?”

  “…in the Undergrave,” she answered. “Grimwain is gone. The tower is shut.”

  “It’s not the end,” he said.

  “I know.” She steadied him. “You see, Saul? He is nothing. Better to let him live. Better to lock him up and make him suffer for all he has done.”

  “And the book?” Saul wondered aloud.

  She and father gazed upon the Pages Black, and then at one another. “What would you do?” she asked him.

  Weak and palsied, he mustered no answer. But I know. She read his eyes. He would keep it. Just in case.

  And so shall I.

  She rose with the Pages in her grasp. In the Ur candles’ light, her shadow danced wildly. “A long walk to escape this darkness. It will not be easy, least of all for him.” She regarded Saul and Garrett. “Will you help me bring him to the boat? Will you carry him when he stumbles?”

  Saul turned his cheek. But he will help come the time, she knew. Garrett nodded. And he will help until the first time father steals a glance at the Pages.

  The procession back to the shore was a sad, silent affair. Incredibly, Garrett and Saul allowed the warlock to walk between them, his feeble hands gripping their broad shoulders. She led the way, Pages Black in hand, her lips locked in a hard, emotionless line. A part of her hoped to find Rellen’s ghost floating at the shore, but when she came to the two remaining skiffs, nothing lived in the darkness beyond her lone Ur candle.

  Where did you go?

  She walked to the nearest of the skiffs. With her head down, she made her peace with leaving. Again she considered putting an end to herself, and again she shuddered the thought away.

  “Thought you were goners!” The voice from the skiff stunned her.

  “Ghurk?” shouted Saul.

  “Aye, it’s me.” The young Thillrian stood in the boat. “I beg your forgiveness. I’m no warrior, you must know. My father, Duke Ghurlain, never let me train with weapons.”

  “So you hid? This whole time?” said Saul.

  “Aye. I heard swords a’ clanging, the screams, and all manner of thunder and snapping fires. I would’ve rowed back to the tunnel across the water, but I’d no light to see by. Please don’t be angry.”

  “You were wise to hide.” Saul shrugged. “You would be dead had you done otherwise.”

  Ghurk hung his head. “I don’t feel wise. I should’ve done something, anything to save Rellen. He was my friend also. Like him, I’m an only son. Would that my father had raised me as nobly as the Gryphons raised theirs.”

  “Enough,” she silenced everyone. “Let us leave. Not a word more of Rellen. Saul, put the warlock in the skiff. Garrett, help me up. Ghurk, row us to the far shore. You know the way, yes?”

  “I do. I remember.”

  Like a skeleton in the half light of an Ur candle, her father stood. He said nothing, but stared at the Ur tower. He cannot see it, she knew. But he knows. Come a day long from now, we may return here, and the end he fears may yet be.

  “In the boat,” she reminded Saul. “Hurry.”

  “Does he look for Grimwain?” Saul asked.

  “No.”

  “How do we know he’s gone?” said Ghurk.

  “Because he no longer has a reason to be here,” rumbled Garrett.