The White Road of the Moon

by Rachel Neumeier

  The man still frowned. “Where are you from, then, girl?”

  “Tikiy, sir. A village back in the hills, that way.” She pointed vaguely. “But I don’t have any kin near here. If I can’t get to my aunt, I’ll have to go to some closer town, Sann maybe, and ask for a place at the inn….” She let this trail off.

  The guard knew what kind of work a young girl without family or friends was likely to get. His frown eased. “I’m sorry to hear of your loss,” he told her. “You’d better come talk to the owner. Be polite, hear?”

  “Yes, sir,” murmured Meridy as politely as she knew how.

  But the guard hesitated another moment, looking at her. “You a witch?” he asked at last.

  “No, sir,” Meridy assured him. She’d thought out beforehand what to say to that question. “I see things sometimes, when the moon is full, but that’s all.”

  The guard raised his eyebrows but didn’t outright accuse her of lying the way a villager might have. He tipped his head toward the camp and repeated, “You’d better come talk to the owner.”

  Meridy walked beside the guard’s horse to the campsite. Preparations for the night’s camp hadn’t stopped with her appearance, but they had slowed as wary guards scanned for any danger Meridy might have brought with her. As the man brought her in, the activity picked up again. Her escort waved a couple of the other guards out to scout, just in case.

  The owner bustled over, a small, plump man with midfair coloring and a rather vague round face. He frowned anxiously as he looked from the guard to Meridy and back again, but Meridy thought his face looked more accustomed to smiling. “What’s this, hey?” he said. “What’s this, then, Niniol?”

  “She’s from some local village,” said the guard. “She’d like permission to travel with your train, excellent sir. She’s heading for Riam, by your leave.”

  “That right?” The owner peered at her. “Is that right, my dear?” He spoke slowly and loudly, as if afraid she might be deaf or stupid. If he noticed her eyes, he didn’t seem to think they were worthy of comment.

  “That’s ri— I mean, yes, indeed, excellent sir.” Meridy offered him a small bow. “I’m trying to get to my aunt in Riam, excellent sir, and it’s not safe to travel alone.”

  “Not safe to travel alone?” repeated the merchant. “No, no, certainly not at all safe, not safe at all. Of course you must travel with us, my dear. Why, I can hardly believe you ever thought of traveling to Riam on your own! You are alone, you said? She is alone, Niniol?”

  He blinked at the guard, who sent a discreet sidelong smile at Meridy and said soberly, “Quite alone, excellent sir.”

  “Quite alone,” mumbled the merchant. He bellowed, “Maraift!” so suddenly that Meridy jumped slightly.

  The plump, fair woman who had been supervising the children arrived in a flurry of skirts. She surveyed Meridy with wide blue eyes. “Why, my dear, are you all alone?”

  “Quite alone, excellent lady,” Meridy assured her blandly.

  The guard, Niniol, smothered a grin behind his hand.

  “But, my dear, how dangerous!”

  “She’d like to travel with us,” interjected her husband.

  Meridy started to say she could pay and would try to be no trouble, but the woman swamped her attempt to speak. “But of course she would, Derren, my dear, and of course she must! Why, the poor child! Imagine traveling alone.” Maraift shuddered visibly. “Why don’t you just come sit by the fire, child, and have a mug of mulled cider? Just the thing when it’s a bit nippy, I always say, don’t you think so? And these evenings can be cool, can’t they, even this time of year.”

  Meridy found herself enveloped in a warm cloud of concern and wafted toward the roaring bonfire at the center of the camp. She had hardly blinked before she found herself settled among cushions spread on a large rug at the fireside, a mug of hot spiced cider held in both hands, and four children of varying ages staring at her with wide-eyed interest. Iëhiy lay at her side, his weightless head pillowed on her thigh. His obvious comfort helped ease Meridy’s own tension.

  “Now, my dear,” said the woman warmly, “supper will just be a moment. I’m sure you’re starving. I’m Maraift, as I’m sure you heard my husband say, that is, Maraift Gehliy. My husband over there is Derren Gehliy, and these are my children, but I don’t expect you’ll care to hear all their names just at the moment, my dear, at least if you’re like me and can’t remember such things. Mind like a sieve, that’s me. And your name, my dear?”

  “Meridy Turiyn,” Meridy said into this flood of words. “I’m traveling to my aunt in Riam, by your kind permission, excellent lady.”

  “Of course you are, dear. At least, that’s where we’re going, Riam, I mean, not your aunt’s, so I expect that’s where you’re going, if you’re traveling with us. But you mustn’t call me excellent lady the whole way, it would get so tiresome, don’t you think? I’m Maraift to everyone, my dear.” The woman patted Meridy’s hand maternally, without the faintest sign of disapproval of her Southern blood or black eyes. “I’m so pleased you’re with us, Meridy, dear, because Jaift does so enjoy other girls her age to talk with.” She nodded toward a tall honey-blond girl with a baby on one hip and a long wooden spoon in her hand, stirring a large pot of something that smelled delicious.

  “That’s Jaift there, with my youngest. Jaift is my second-oldest, dear, and we’re hoping to find her a nice husband in Riam. My oldest daughter’s husband didn’t care to come into Derren’s business—well, who can blame him with a good place as a district manager for the Eine Bank? But it does leave us in a spot, without enough young people learning the business, you know.” She paused expectantly.

  “Um, yes,” said Meridy.

  “So naturally we’re hoping to find a nice young man who can take a proper interest in the business.” Maraift effortlessly took back the conversation. “The Derem family in Riam has a nice boy the right age, but of course young people today just insist upon meeting before deciding anything. Well, I suppose that is sensible—look at what happened to dear Erenniy’s boy when he married that unfortunate girl from Genn. But it is inconvenient to gather up the whole peck-and-pack and make the journey. Still, it’s a treat for the little ones; they’ve never been to Riam before, you know. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been there either, my dear.”

  “Um, no,” Meridy admitted.

  “Oh, well, dear, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. It’s a great city, you know. Quite splendid, at least if you like large cities. It can be a little overwhelming, I always think. Not at all like our own city, Tamar, which I always say is more comfortable than impressive, you know, but then there’s a lot to be said for comfort, don’t you think so, dear? Especially for everyday life.”

  “I guess so,” agreed Meridy, beginning to be slightly mesmerized by Maraift’s kind deluges.

  “Besides, if we want something splendid to look at in Tamar, there’s always the sea. Stormy or sunlit, there’s nothing like the sea for beauty, I always say. Though it is a pity Tamar always smells of fish. I sometimes think we could make a fortune in perfumes and incense, but then such things are so expensive to buy in the first place that perhaps no one could afford to take them off our hands once we got them to Tamar, so I suppose it’s a good thing we haven’t bought them up in great amounts. Besides, everyone does get used to the fish eventually. That’s what we do, of course. Dried fish, salted fish, fish oil, my dear, you have no idea. And cider, to be sure, apples are the other thing we do well in Tamar. Why, I don’t doubt but what some of the cider we have here in these very wagons will end on the prince’s own table in Cora Diorr. Oh, look, here’s supper.” Maraift interrupted herself to take the bowls offered her by Jaift and pass one to Meridy.

  Jaift smiled at Meridy, a show of friendliness Meridy didn’t trust for a second. Derren Gehliy and Maraift, maybe; they were adults, and belonged to a merchant family, and probably were used to being nice to all kinds of people. But Meridy had never met a girl close to h
er own age who wasn’t eager to show everyone how much better she was than a fatherless black-eyed girl.

  Jaift’s eyes were a perfectly ordinary blue, her skin fair, her expression a touch vague. If she disapproved of her mother’s kindness to a village girl or was taken aback by the color of Meridy’s eyes, she didn’t let it show. Of course, she didn’t know about Meridy’s learning poetry yet, or about her unnamed father. But she didn’t linger to ask questions, either, turning back to the cooking pots after only a slight hesitation.

  Meridy gazed after Jaift for a moment, not quite able to figure out what puzzled her but feeling obscurely that something about Jaift’s manner had been odd. Then she tasted the thick stew. The main ingredient seemed to be fish, with potatoes and onions. “This is delicious,” she said sincerely. Iëhiy sighed wistfully. He knew he couldn’t eat real food, but he would have liked to try anyway. Meridy rubbed his flank with her foot comfortingly. She might have made a spoonful ethereal for him, but not in front of other people, especially strangers, no matter how friendly they might seem.

  Looking up again, Meridy found Jaift studying her from over by the fire, no longer seeming in the least vague. But when their eyes met, the other girl only smiled politely, nodded, and turned to stir a pot as though she weren’t at all interested in the girl her parents had befriended.

  “I’m glad you like it, dear,” Maraift was saying. “Jaift does have a nice bit of skill with spices. Why, I can’t tell you how the sauces improved the second she was old enough to stand on tiptoe and stir the pots. Of course, it rather annoyed the cook until she started begging for lessons in pastry making. That did the trick. Not entirely a master with sauces, is our cook, but a sorcerer with cakes and confections and such. Jaift used to skimp on her other lessons in favor of spending time in the kitchens, but as I told Derren, any girl can pick up embroidery and deportment and accounting along the way, and music isn’t really that important, but a talent in cookery, now that will hold a husband’s interest. Not that Derren ever taxes me with my lack in that direction, the dear man, but of course we’ve always had cooks.”

  Meridy allowed Maraift’s comfortable babble to wash over her in soft, warm waves. She ate the stew and hard bread, occasionally murmuring agreement when a pause presented itself. As full dark came down, she let herself be wrapped in a blanket and gently deposited near the other children under one of the wagons. Fingers of moonlight lay under the wagon, lending a gentle illumination that let her see Iëhiy, gleaming palely, stretched out beside her. Feeling safe for the first time in days, Meridy fell instantly to sleep.

  Meridy woke with a jerk. She wasn’t sure what had woken her—something sudden and loud, she thought, like someone shouting in her ear. At first she thought someone actually had shouted, a half-familiar voice, but now she seemed to be completely alone. In fact, it was quiet. Stunningly quiet. The silence before the world began might have been like this: a great roaring silence that was the very antithesis of sound. And yet there was a kind of sound here, when she listened: a murmur not quite heard, at the edge of her awareness. The sound sand might make, rushing through a timing glass.

  Meridy opened her eyes.

  She was not beneath the wagon with the Gehliy children. She was on her feet, standing on the edge of a broad, pale road that ran straight as an arrow’s flight as far as she could see to her right and to her left. She knew without turning that a dark immensity rested at her back, an infinite wall of night. At her feet, Iëhiy sat perfectly still, brindled in smoke and charcoal, looking almost like a living dog. He had an air of expectation, as though waiting for something to happen. Meridy, glancing down at him, discovered that she too had a sense of anticipation, although she had no idea what it was that either of them expected.

  Light rose from the surface of the road and met the moonlight pouring down from above. The moon rode full and pale in the dark sky, veiled now and again by streamers of blowing cloud—though when Meridy had left Tikiy, the moon had been barely past new and could not now be full. But it was, in this place.

  A girl came into view, walking along the road, from Meridy’s right hand toward her left. Blurred and formless at first, the girl did not actually seem to approach so much as simply to grow more distinct, as though the light of the road were shaping her out of itself and lending her reality. Meridy knew as soon as she saw her that this was what she had waited for.

  The girl didn’t seem to see Meridy. Her gaze was blank, as though she saw nothing at all. As she came near, Meridy saw that she was a ghost, though in this place she had none of the transparency that ordinarily characterized the quick dead, so Meridy knew she herself must have stepped out of the real world and into some realm of dreams.

  The girl—or young woman (she looked older than Meridy, maybe nineteen or twenty)—had a straight dark brown plait falling down her back, bound every eight inches or so with a fine golden chain. Her eyes were an odd green-bronze color, set in a delicately pretty face. Judging by her fine light skin, she undoubtedly had pure Kingdom ancestors back a thousand years, but Meridy would have known the girl was highborn even if she’d been as colorless as a lingering ghost, for her dress was more elegant than anything Meridy had ever seen and she wore several thin gold bangles on her right wrist. But she walked hesitantly, seeming unsure from step to step whether the road would be there to meet her feet. Meridy could tell the girl still did not see her, although she had now come quite close.

  It seemed suddenly insupportable that the ghost should go blindly past. Without thought, as though the movement were as inevitable as the falling of a cast stone back to the earth, Meridy reached out and took the hand of the ghost before she could pass by. Iëhiy stood up, his tail waving slightly, looking attentive and pleased.

  The ghost made no effort to pull away from Meridy but turned her head slowly. “Can you help me?” she asked. “I think I’ve lost my way. I see the Road, I see the way to the God, but there’s something…someone….I need to go back to the world.” Her voice was clear and plain, not like the voiceless whisper of an ordinary ghost, but her words fell into the great silence and were muted instantly to nothing. It made it hard to remember what she had said—it made it almost hard to believe she had said anything at all.

  “You won’t come back to life either way, you know,” Meridy warned her. “The White Road runs only one direction—unless the God opens a hand, and I think that only happens in poems.”

  “I know,” said the girl. “I know, but it doesn’t matter. I need to go back. It’s my…it’s my brother, I think.” Her voice gained clarity and decision. “It’s my brother. He needs me. He doesn’t have anyone else. Not anymore.”

  Meridy nodded, accepting this. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  The girl looked blankly into nothing. “I don’t remember,” she said at last.

  Meridy turned, still without conscious volition, to look along the road to her left. It seemed she could see along this road forever, as though there were no horizon and no limit to her gaze. She almost thought she could see someone there, almost hear a voice….“Listen,” she said to the girl. “I think your brother is calling to you from the living world.”

  As from very far away, a voice cried, “Diöllin!” Meridy thought it was a young boy’s voice, though it might have been a girl’s. It wasn’t loud, but there was a solidity to it that Diöllin’s voice entirely lacked. He must be this girl’s anchor.

  When Meridy had tried to call her own mother back from this road, she had probably sounded like that boy. But her mother had not heard her calling. No one had been standing by the White Road to seize her mother’s hand and bid her listen. Meridy’s throat tightened with a grief she had thought she had forgotten, and she turned her face away, swallowing hard.

  “Diöllin!” called the boy again, from beyond the moonlight.

  “Oh,” said the girl. “Yes. I hear him now.” She took a step, then hesitated.

  Meridy swallowed again. “You can go,” she managed to say,
her voice not quite level. And then, more fiercely, she said, “Go on! Go on! While you remember the one who calls you.”

  “Yes,” said the ghost. She began to take a step forward but paused, glancing once more the other way, where the White Road of the Moon rushed away, toward the realm of the God.

  “Diöllin!” called the voice a third time, shrill and afraid, as from the depths of the earth.

  “Yes,” the girl said again, turning back toward her brother, this time sounding certain and almost fierce. “Oh, yes! I have to go.” She pulled her hand free from Meridy’s grip and hurried away, half running, down the pale road, following the voice that had laid an almost-visible light though the dark, like a candle held up to signal to a traveler. Color bled away from her body as she walked, until Meridy lost sight of her entirely, a translucent ghost as pale as the Road.

  —

  She woke, blinking, in the unfamiliar darkness beneath the wagon, wrapped in an extra blanket besides her own, with the only light in all the world that of the waxing moon and the stars and, not too far away, the banked embers of the cooking fires. There was no trace of vision or dream in the perfectly ordinary night, except the echo it had left in her memory. Diöllin. Meridy thought she had heard that name somewhere, but she could not remember the tale now. Frowning, she lifted herself on one elbow and peered out from under the wagon. She could hear the Gehliy children breathing deeply in sleep nearby—one of them was snoring gently. Beyond the wagon were quiet voices, and the gentle swish of boots through grass as the guards kept their watch. From farther away came the muted stamp of a restless horse. There was no trace of any magic in the night; no hint of anything other than the firmly real…always excepting Iëhiy, of course. The wolfhound thumped his tail gently against Meridy’s thigh, a pressure she could almost feel, if she paid attention to it.

  She rubbed his ears and crept out from under the wagon, sat down on the ground, and looked for a while up at the stars, and the half moon.