by Martin Ash
‘Is she here now?’
Linvon nodded. ‘She’s been sleeping, in the cottage. Toromdar gave her a sleeping-draught as she was distraught and a touch delirious.’
‘Did she tell you anything? I must find out what her experience was.’
Linvon was looking beyond me, up towards the cottage at my back. He stood abruptly, saying, ‘Perhaps you should ask her yourself.’
I turned, following the direction of his gaze. Approaching along the overgrown path that led down to the waterside, walking with slow, uncertain steps, was Moonblood.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
She appeared wan and frail, walking as if unsure of the ground beneath her feet. She was garbed in the same simple cornflower-blue gown that she’d worn at the birthday celebration for her baby brother, Redlock. It was scuffed with grime and slightly torn.
Linvon stepped past me and ran to her, taking her hand. I stood as he brought her to us, as did Toromdar. ‘Mistress Moonblood, it gives me great pleasure to see you again.’
Her wide green eyes were glassy, sunk into dark hollows. Her lips were bloodless, her long fair hair uncombed, her expression slightly vague. She stared at me, then managed a distracted smile. ‘Master Dinbig. What has happened to you?’
I raised my hand to my face. ‘Ah, I was burned.’
She gazed at me as though trying to fathom something. I said, ‘Please sit with us. Take food and drink. I realize you are tired and perhaps distraught, but there are matters of great urgency to be discussed. If you’re willing, I would talk to you now.’
Moonblood nodded and sank slowly to her knees on the grass. She took some fruit and water that Linvon offered her. My eyes were drawn by the bright glitter of the unusual brooch still pinned to her gown as its crystal and stone facets reflected the sunlight.
‘Can you tell me, what was your experience two nights ago, after Marshilane put you to bed?’ I asked softly.
‘I remember little,’ replied Moonblood in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper. ‘I didn’t expect to sleep, not after what we’d seen. But I suppose I was exhausted. When I did sleep, though, it was as if I’d been plunged into a dark, seething abyss. I was beset by the most terrible dreams. I saw… horrible things!’
She turned away with a shudder.
‘Please don’t think me insensitive,’ I said, ‘but I must ask you what you remember about waking, or perhaps the moments immediately prior to waking, when you still dreamed. We found your blood, and I now know that it was not the blood of a physical injury, as I first feared. Rather, it was the blood of your newly-realized womanhood, and your shedding of that blood was predicted to occur at precisely this time. This point is most important: what is your recollection of those moments?’
Moonblood blushed furiously, her eyes cast down. Linvon gently squeezed her hand. ‘I – the dream – ‘ she stuttered, then closed her eyes, breathing rapidly. ‘In the dream I was pursued by a man in dark flowing robes. He was a wizard or something, with evil intentions. I’ve encountered him in earlier dreams. He hounded me, taunting, mocking, but in those dreams he never had never caught me. This time, though I tried to escape him, he had a spell on me and I couldn’t run. He caught me and threw me down. I tried – he would not – ‘ She stopped, plainly distressed, and collected herself. ‘His face was unnaturally red – stained, or painted, I think. It was twisted in perverse anger. He called me names, horrible names. “You are corruption! You are filth! You are mine and you shall never be free! My time has finally come!” He… ripped my clothes from me, then threw off his own. Then – ‘
Moonblood gave a sob and hid her face in her hands. Linvon put his arms around her and held her.
I waited a few moments, then continued gently. ‘I do apologize, Mistress Moonblood. I know this is very difficult for you, but I can’t emphasize the importance of this enough. You’re with friends now, good friends. I think you know that. We want to help you and help your family and home, and your recounting of this grotesque dream and its effects upon you may reveal important information that could help us do that.’
She nodded, withdrawing her hands from her face. ‘I’m sorry, I’m being very childish.’
‘Not at all. You’re very brave.’
Taking another deep breath, she went on, gazing not at me or either of the other two, but away towards the surface of the pond, her eyes unfocused. ‘It was so real, horribly real. I could feel his breath on me, smell his sweat, feel the force of his hands pinning me down. His horrible red face was just above mine, leering and filled with loathing, his eyes burning with lust. He tried to take me – in the way a man takes a woman – violating me. I fought him but he was too strong. I pleaded, but he only laughed. Then as he prepared to… force himself on me… there was…’ She bit her lip, tears forming in her eyes again. She looked at me with an anguished expression. ‘There was… blood. Everywhere… It came… I can’t explain it, it came out of me… My assailant fell back, covered in my blood, crying out as though injured or scalded. I thought he would kill me then, but he backed away. “You are mine!” he snarled. “You will be! I shall have you!” But he gathered up his robes and left me then.
‘And then you woke? Or was there more?’
‘I’m not sure where the dream ended. Certainly everything changed. I was in my bed, in my room. It was light, I think. At first I felt relieved to have woken up, and then I felt… on my legs, on the bed… a strange wetness. I threw back the covers. There was blood. I thought I must be injured. I leapt from my bed, tearing off my night-robe which was also bloody. I was so frightened. I made to call for Marshilane but my voice was trapped in my throat. I thought I was still dreaming. I thought I heard laughter, mocking laughter; my tormentor taunting me still, calling horrible names, shouting: “You are mine! I will have my way!” But I couldn’t see him.
‘After that it’s hazy. I recall glimpses of a dark tunnel, Linvon leading me by my hand, and then being carried through the forest in Toromdar’s arms.’ She turned to me. ‘I’m so frightened, Master Dinbig! For weeks I’ve had dreams, premonitions. I see Ravenscrag beset by monsters, my family and friends being slain, and somehow it’s me who is causing it to happen. And now… now it’s all coming true. What’s happening to me? What does it mean? Am I evil?’
‘No, you’re not evil, Moonblood. Far from it. You are the focus of a bane placed on Ravenscrag and its descendants ages ago. It has lain dormant for centuries, unknown to most. Now, for reasons we’re not entirely sure of, it has become active.
‘But the dreams… only a sick or wicked person could dream such unnatural things.’
‘Not so. There is evil at work, and it’s that which has made you dream these dreams.’
She was hardly listening. ‘The blood… it was real, yet I’d suffered no injury. What do you mean “the blood of my womanhood”, and that its shedding was predicted?’
‘Were you never given warning of this, by your mother, or Marshilane, or your governess?’
The poor girl shook her head, perplexed and tormented.
I cleared my throat, choosing my words carefully. I found myself in the delicate position of having to explain a difficult subject, the intimacies of which I truly knew little about. Even as I struggled ineptly to enlighten Moonblood, I grew uneasy. For her this transition, this rite of passage into womanhood, signified so much more than for any other young woman.
‘But this doesn’t explain what’s happened,’ Moonblood protested when I’d done. ‘And it doesn’t explain the bane.’
‘In some ways it does,’ I replied, and told her of the Sisterhood of the Hallowed Blood, and of the corruption and usurpation of their benign power by the sorcerer, the zinoja brujo Mososguyne. ‘The blood that was shed with each cycle of the moon had become a symbol of their strength and devotion, of their unity and their benign magic. It came to represent their fertility harmonized with the fertility of the land. It was a blessing, then. But fear or jealousy of the power they held brought Mos
osguyne, who himself was the instrument of another, more powerful malevolence. He took their power and debased it, transformed it into its very opposite. He used and destroyed the Sisterhood, and though he was in part defeated, his curse remained. Through the mouth of your ancestor, Molgane, who had been one of the Sisterhood, he uttered a bane, vowing to return one day to oversee Ravenscrag’s destruction.’
‘I know about Molgane,’ said Moonblood. ‘She was a dark witch. She was boiled alive in oil, as all witches since have been.’
She shuddered. I shook my head. ‘Molgane was a member of the Sisterhood. She suffered unspeakable agonies for crimes of which she was essentially innocent. She was the victim of another’s depraved designs, as are you.’
‘Is it Mososguyne who attacks me in my dreams?’
‘It is.’
‘Then he has returned, and will use me to destroy Ravenscrag.’
‘That’s his intention.’
She swallowed. ‘I feel him, inside me. I feel he has the power to control me, that I’m his, as he claimed.’
‘His method is to undermine you, cause you to fear yourself, even loathe yourself. You then grow weak and he feeds on that weakness. It nourishes him.’
‘It’s all so strange… The other evening, when I spoke to you, do you remember I said I thought I’d glimpsed something?’
‘I do. You seemed for a moment quite alarmed.’
‘Because for the briefest moment I looked at your face and it changed. It resembled his, from my dreams. It frightened me, then I saw that it was nothing, just the light from the setting sun. I’d imagined it. But now, your face is all scarred and burned, red, as if…’
I said nothing, shaken for a moment to my core, then said, ‘I want you to know that you have nothing to fear from me. I am here to help you, and I am your friend.’
And I wondered for a second if this were true, for I was planning to lead her into the most terrible danger. The thought came to me: do I really know myself? Can I be truly certain that I, too, am not being unconsciously manipulated by a power far greater than myself?
Moonblood turned with fearful eyes to Linvon, then Toromdar, and said in a low, quavering voice, ‘There’s nothing we can do. We have no power to prevent him.’
I intervened. ‘Your two friends here took you from Ravenscrag in the hope that by removing you from the source of the evil they might save you, and save Ravenscrag, too.’
‘But they’re wrong, aren’t they? Because I am that source!’
‘No! You’re not! Don’t think that way for an instant. The bane does state – by my understanding – that you may be the instrument, and that through you Mososguyne may achieve his ends. But it’s also written that within you is the potential, not only for death, but for life. I believe it’s possible for the bane to be lifted.’
Toromdar made to speak. I raised my hand to bid him keep silence. I was reluctant to have Moonblood made aware that the slim hope of her salvation rested on the likelihood of my own death. Nor was I keen to think about it myself.
‘How?’ enquired Moonblood, a first, diffident glimmer of hope in her eyes.
‘I don’t have a complete answer to that. The words of the bane are cryptic and not easily interpreted. But I’m encouraged by your dream. You didn’t succumb to Mososguyne, though he exerted his greatest effort to take you. You fought him off, and you did it through that very symbol that embodies your innate power: the blood of your new womanhood.’
‘But he wasn’t beaten.’
‘True, but neither did he gain control of you, at least not wholly. He was thwarted by a strength that came from within you, which you didn’t even know you had.’
Linvon’s blue eyes were on me, bright and questioning. Toromdar looked pensive. Moonblood shook her head: ‘But it was just a dream. I have no power. I’m just a young girl.’
‘But no longer a child! You have passed across the threshold into womanhood. Though you don’t realize it, you have attained power. That is why Mososguyne is so desperate to control you: he fears your growing strength, as he feared it ages ago when he destroyed the Sisterhood. He has waited all this time to seize your power at the moment it was conferred upon you, and he failed. Already, then, you’ve achieved a victory over him.’
‘But it was a dream!’ the girl repeated. She put her hands to her temples, sobbing. ‘Only a dream, and I want none of this. I’m afraid!’
I calmed my voice. ‘Mistress Moonblood, whether you wish it or not, it is here. And I believe there’s destiny upon you. I believe you embody the presence and the power of the lost Sisterhood. Your very name implies it, as do the words of the bane. But that power has its potential now in two forms, the benign and the corrupt. You have a trial before you. You have to confront pure evil. If you can subdue it, it’s my belief that your heritage, the heritage of the Sisterhood of the Hallowed Blood, may be restored.’
No one asked what it would mean if she lost. We could all envisage something of the horror of that.
‘But why me? I’m all alone. I can’t do anything.’
‘You’re not alone. I’m here, as are Linvon and Toromdar. We’ll do everything we can to help you.’
She breathed deeply, her pale face streaked with tears. ‘What must I do?’
‘Return with me now, to Ravenscrag.’
She gaped at me, horrified. I said, ‘Mososguyne will gain his greatest power tonight, when the moon vanishes from the sky. He knows how to find you, regardless of where you are. If you’re absent from Ravenscrag then his task there will be made easier, for he can bring about its destruction himself without fearing your power.’
‘My power! My power!’ cried Moonblood. ‘You keep talking about it, but I don’t feel any power. There’s no evidence. I can’t fight him!’
‘There’s magic within you,’ I said. ‘I’ve sensed it, as has Linvon. I believe you have too – you’ve hinted as much to me. And I repeat, it’s because Mososguyne recognizes and fears it the he needs to control you. He has caused a monster to be born. It resides now in a cellar beneath the castle. That monster is the embodiment of Ravenscrag’s iniquity, all the wrongs of ages committed by former scions of Ravenscrag. That monster grows by the minute. If I’m correct, then tonight, when the Shadow obscures the moon, it will reach the summit of its strength and be turned loose on Ravenscrag. Then it will come for you.’
I was aware that I was terrifying her more than I had the right to do, but what else could I say? I was convinced that the only hope Ravenscrag had was for its daughter to return to do battle with the evil that held it. It was Moonblood’s only hope, too – or her nemesis.
She was to face evil in two forms. In the flesh, the monster that howled and thrashed in the cellar; those creatures that crawled from mirrors; the flapping, taloned spawn that had been ravens. And in the spirit, the ages-old, grasping power of a zinoja brujo, a demented magus who had learned his craven art in a land whose name struck fear into the hearts and minds of decent folk – dark Qol: Enchantment. Could Mososguyne make Moonblood his, as he claimed? Would she, too, become a monster, a raging demoness, wreaking mayhem and death in the name of that which we sought to extinguish?
Now I realized how afraid I was, how uncertain of success.
Moonblood turned her big, reddened eyes to me, strands of tear-soaked hair half concealing her face. ‘But I don’t know what I’ll do. How can I confront this thing?’
‘I have access to magic that will help you.’ I spoke far more confidently than I felt. My Zan-Chassin abilities were of negligible power compared to that which we were about to challenge. It would be like throwing pebbles at an advancing wave.
I gaze unhappily at the frail, bewildered, exhausted girl, and wondered at myself. Was I condemning her to a terrible death, or a living horror?
‘I have the rudiments of a plan,’ I said. ‘If your decision is to return with me I will explain it as we go.’
Moonblood was silent. At length she gave a slow nod. ‘I will come.�
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I expelled a long breath, and glanced anxiously upwards through the trees. ‘We should make haste. The sun is beginning to set and there’s little time.’
I wanted to confront that dire creature in the cellar before Shadownight came, for I knew that when the Shadow moved to hide the new moon Mososguyne would be at his strongest. I added, ‘And we must move cautiously. The woods harbour men who would do us harm.’
‘I’ll come, too,’ said Linvon.
‘And I,’ said Toromdar.
I looked sadly at the giant. ‘You may come, but your bulk will prevent you entering the castle by the tunnel. Should you attempt to enter by any other means you will strike terror into anyone who sees you. You will surely come under attack by Ravenscrag guards. Neither will you be able to comfortably enter the low passages or the cellar where we must go.’
Toromdar gave a disconsolate grunt. ‘I know it. And nor can I accompany you through the forest. My size will slow you as I struggle through the trees, and I can’t travel as quietly as you. Nevertheless, I’ll follow and will wait beyond the castle walls.’ He turned to Moonblood, and I saw that he was blinking away huge tears. ‘You understand that I can’t be with you. Be assured, I will do whatever is in my power to help you.’
Moonblood reached up and took his colossal hand. ‘I know it, and I understand. Dear Toromdar, you are such a good, true friend. I know you would do all you could for me.’
She stood on tiptoes and the giant bent low so that she was able to plant a kiss on his great leathery cheek. He straightened, putting his fingers to the place her lips had touched. Moonblood turned, hiding her face, and began to walk back towards the cottage.