Dark of the Moon

by P. C. Hodgell

  "Why did you want to in the first place? Back in Peshtar, you said that my death would mean the Master's eventual downfall. Sweet Trinity, how?"

  "Now, child, no games."

  "Damnit, it's true. I don't remember—if I ever knew at all."

  "Indeed?" Malice lit his pale eyes. "Now, would it be more amusing to tell you or not? I think not."

  His gaze suddenly shifted. Jame heard boot leather scrape on stone behind her and turned, just as Bortis charged at the sound of her voice. He knocked her flat. His weight, crashing down full on top of her, drove the air from her lungs. He had her hands pinned above her head before she recovered. His heavy body shook on top of her as he began to giggle uncontrollably.

  "And now," said the changer's cool, malicious voice, "I think that friend Bortis will also amuse himself."

  A moaning cry welled up around them, echoed not by walls this time but, it seemed, by the very earth. Bortis started. Jame got free an arm and struck him sharply in the nose with the heel of her hand. His head snapped back. She shoved him off and rolled backward into a fighter's crouch, nails out, ready to defend herself.

  "Take her, damn you!" the changer was screaming. "She's right in front of you!"

  Bortis ignored them both. He was listening, mouth agape, blood dripping unnoticed onto his chin. The cry came again, all around them. Its desolation seemed to jar something loose in the man's broken mind. He bolted, sobbing, between the lithons, out into the mist.

  Some hunter's instinct almost sent Jame after him, but then she shrank back. Two figures had come into the circle. For a moment, Jame had the half-dazed impression that they were human: a woman bent with age and grief, a slender, white-haired child with fierce red eyes. Then she saw that they were both rathorns.

  The mare was indeed old. Her coat, nearly hidden by encroaching plates, had faded from black to silver gray. Her slim legs trembled under the ivory's weight, while a massive skull mask bent her head almost to the ground. She breathed in great gasps between bared fangs because the mask's nasal pits had grown shut. So had one eye socket. She was slowly being buried alive in the ivory tomb of her own armor.

  Snatches of her scent and the colt's reached Jame, even though this time they weren't directed at her. With each breath she drew, memories not her own swirled around her: the smell of dawn on the wind, the touch of a snowflake on the tongue, the sound of rathorn stallions belling in an autumn wood. Each memory flashed and died, leaving only a sense of infinite loss. The mare was destroying them one by one, ripping apart the vivid tapestry of her past, unmaking herself a bit at a time because she knew of no other way to die.

  Jame fought the swift current of the other's memories, but every breath she took plunged her back into it. She began to sense the mare's underlying emotions like great jagged rocks in the riverbed of the rathorn's consciousness: despair, that so long a life had left so many memories to be destroyed; rage, that her own traitor body had made such a destruction necessary; grief, that bit by bit she was losing all the bright, fierce days, all the glowing nights. But most of all she grieved for the colt at her side, her last foal with his white coat and his red, red eyes. Her coming end had put its mark on him even before his birth. Now, the longer she took to die, the longer he was bound to her and her self-destructive agony, the more warped he would become. She foresaw that already no rage would ever accept him. He would grow up bitter and alone, a rogue, a death's-head, her child. She moaned again, and the colt echoed her, furious in his denial:

  No, you're not going to die! No, wo . . .

  "No . . ." breathed Jame, and then with a gasp wrenched her mind away from theirs. If she stayed, the rathorn's despair would suck her down as it nearly had the colt. If she ran away . . . but that was unthinkable. Stupid as it probably was, she could no more turn her back on this mare than on one of her own people in agony, pleading for the White Knife. She drew her own blade.

  "Don't!" hissed the changer. His voice rose. "You fool, don't . . . !"

  Jame sprang forward on the mare's blind side. She caught the tusk and jerked the rathorn's ivory encrusted head around. Like water deep in a well, the mare's sunken eye caught and held a warped reflection of Jame's face. The mirrored lips moved.

  If you kill me, said a cold, precise voice in her head, my child will kill you. Kill me.

  The eye closed. It was her choice, then, with full knowledge of the consequences. So be it. She drew back her knife to strike.

  The colt's furious charge sent her sprawling. He had no tusk as yet and his horn was only a bump, but those small ivory hooves splintered rock beside her head. She rolled clear. He came at her again, bounding on his hind legs with fangs bared and forehooves slashing. His scent, rank with rage, sent a scream lancing through her head:

  No, no, no, no . . . !

  Jame slipped aside and spun. Her kick caught him just behind the ear between the undeveloped skull mask and the throat plates. He crashed down, stunned. Jame stood over him, panting. She could kill him now. She should, or he would never stop until he had killed her, if not today, then tomorrow, or next week, or next year. Think of him full grown, a rogue, a death's-head, coming to claim the debt of blood . . .

  She heard a sharp hiss behind her, almost in her ear. The rathorn's head was poised above her, that ponderous weight of ivory balanced on the serpentine neck, ready to smash downward, to pulp flesh and splinter bone. Jame drew a deep shaky breath.

  "All right. I won't hurt him. But if you kill me, I can't help you. Do you still want help?"

  For a moment, the rathorn didn't move. Then, with a sigh, she lowered her head until her chin came to rest on Jame's shoulder. Jame had to brace herself as the weight settled. Hesitantly, wonderingly, she ran her fingers along the mare's mark, along the cool ivory. All this beauty and strength, all this proud spirit about to vanish forever. But everything, eventually, comes to an end, and destruction is only one more face of God. Jame took a firmer grip on her knife. Then, with all her strength, she drove the blade through the mare's eye deep into her brain.

  The beast screamed. Jarme staggered back, hands over her ears. That terrible piercing cry went on and on as the rathorn slowly collapsed. Her very soul seemed to be tearing its way to freedom, and the diamantine imus gave back the murderous echo. The changer had curled himself up like a spider on top of his stone, but now he plummeted to the ground, shrieking. Blood and gray matter ran out of his ears. He convulsed once, horribly, and lay still. The stones under him began to crack.

  Jame took a step toward the edge of the circle and fell, half paralyzed by the noise. The rathorn's scream was bad enough, but the stones' echo was raw power, enough easily to kill.

  But what was that? A shadow sped past her across the stones, cast by no seen form. It darted to the hollowed-out imu and back again, away and back. No more gray cloak, because the cape in the entry hall had disintegrated at her touch. No more child-sized figure seen from the corner of the eye, because all his bones but one had turned to dust. But their mysterious guide would still lead her to safety if only she could follow him—but Jame . . . couldn't . . . move . . .

  Running footsteps. Someone snatched her up, and she found herself hurling toward the darkness inside the shining stone. The imu's mouth swallowed both her and her rescuer. Inside, the diamantine boomed with the rathorn's scream. Her rescuer stumbled and dropped her. She rolled down steep stairs between booming walls, down into silence.

  No, not quite silence. The ringing went on and on, only now it was only in her ears. She was lying on stone pavement. More stone seemed to be heaped on her chest, making it hard to breathe. The weight shifted, and a wet nose anxiously touched hers. She threw her arms around Jorin and hugged him as he burst into a thunderous purr.

  A dying murmur from above still echoed in the stairwell. Then, as it faded entirely away, a terrible shriek rose in its place, full of despair, wild for revenge.

  Jorin went straight up into the air and came down with all his fur on end. Jame scrambled t
o her feet. She heard hooves thundering down the stair. Oh God, the colt. She must bar his way, but how? There, folded back against the wall on either side of the stairwell: doors. Their stiffened hinges resisted her at first, but with a final, frantic effort she managed to slam them shut in the colt's very face. A lock clicked. Almost simultaneously, the young rathorn hit the other side with a boom. Jame felt the door shudder. She heard sharp ivory hooves tear at it, but its panels were made of ironwood and they held. One last scream sounded on the other side and then there was silence. Jame leaned against the wood. She knew as surely as if he had shouted it in her ear what that last cry had meant:

  If not today, then tomorrow, or next week, or next year. Wait.

  Trinity. She had daydreamed about riding a rathorn into battle, but here she was instead, launched into a blood feud with one. Just the same, it would probably be years before the colt was old enough to come after her, and, at this rate, she would be lucky to get as far as tomorrow. Let's just take one crisis at a time, Jame thought, and, for the first time, looked about her.

  She was in a fair-sized subterranean chamber lined with close-fitted masonry, dimly lit by patches of luminous moss dotting the floor. It was ringed by open doorways, ten in all. Shining runes marked their lintels. Beside one of them, someone quite large was raising himself on an elbow.

  "Marc!" Jame cried, and threw herself into the Kendar's arms. Jorin pounced on both of them. "But how did you get out of Bortis's trap, or cross that killing circle up there, or—"

  "Just a minute, lass." The Kendar stuck a finger in first one ear and then the other, dislodging what looked like mud. Jame saw that the little sack of earth from Kithorn was hanging outside his shirt, empty.

  "Oh, Marc, your home-soil!"

  He shrugged. "I thought it might protect me. Luckily, it did. A good thing I hung on to it these sixty odd years, eh? As for Bortis's trap, a funny business that was, falling first one direction and then the other. But, you know, those cracked walls practically powdered when I hit them. There was no real impact to speak of at all. It took me awhile to climb out; but when I did, there was Jorin, waiting to guide me here."

  "Cracked . . ." Jame thought of those shattered walls, the stones breaking under the changer, the fissured bones. The ghost of an idea began to form in her mind, but before it could take on substance, she started violently. Out of one of the doorways, as if from a great distance, had come a voice:

  "Hello? Is anyone there?"

  Jame sprang to her feet. She had not heard that voice for years, except in dreams, but she had no doubt who was calling to her now.

  "Tori! My God, where are you? Answer me!"

  She plunged through the nearest doorway into the tunnel beyond, still calling her brother's name. Moss formed a luminous carpet for the first few yards, then broke down into clumps, more and more widely spaced. Beyond lay utter darkness. Jame called again. Only echoes replied. Could she have chosen the wrong door? Yes, easily. She must try again.

  Jame turned quickly to retrace her footsteps, and again found nothing but darkness before her. Where was the luminous moss? She could only have come a few yards beyond it, yet now it was nowhere in sight. Marc's voice called her name. How impossibly far away he sounded. She took a hesitant step toward him, and in the distance saw a faint green glow. Of course: the tunnel must be paved with step-forward stones. Another stride or two and . . .

  Her foot came down on emptiness.

  She pitched forward, twisted, clawed at stone, hung there in space by her fingertips, heart pounding. A rock, dislodged, plummeted away. It never seemed to hit the bottom. Instead, from below came a scuffling, scratching sound, oddly furtive. An exhalation of air cold with earth and deep stone breathed up around her.

  Then Jame almost lost her grip as something touched her hand. It was Jorin. A moment later, Marc caught her wrists and pulled her back up onto the path.

  "What in Perimal's name is down there?" she demanded.

  Steel struck flint. A spark flashed blindingly in the dark and grew as dead moss kindled. Marc rose and kicked the blazing clump over the edge. It fell, revealing a deep, narrow crevasse running parallel to the trail. The chasm's lower reaches were studded with rocks, each one about the size of a clenched fist. A hundred points of light glowed briefly like small feral eyes in their craggy folds, then all blinked out at once. In the utter darkness that followed, the stealthy scratch of claw on stone began again.

  "Trocks," said Marc's voice in the dark. "The Builders brought them to Rathillien. Their digestive juices dissolve stone, you see, so they were useful in temple masonry and, I suppose, in hollowing out tunnels like this. We had better go back to that underground chamber. At least there was some light there. . . . Wait."

  They listened.

  "They're between us and the chamber," said Jame. "Now what—try to make friends?"

  "No. These may have been the Builders' pets once, but they've run wild for many a long year now. I shouldn't think even a Builder would care to deal with them now."

  "But if they're stone-eaters, surely they won't hurt us."

  "Oh, they eat other things as well: lichen, boots, feet. . . . Krothen had an infestation of them in his dungeon at Kothifir once that cleaned out every prisoner he had, not to mention quite a few guards. Most areas around our temples have a problem with them, off and on. They don't like light, though."

  Again the click of steel and flint; again, a spark. As moss caught fire, Marc tore up a clump and threw it down the passageway. The path was thick with small gray rocks that certainly hadn't been there before. They covered the moss. As it caught fire under them, the spreading flames kindled the glow of many eyes, and a piping wail arose. Then the fire came leaping back up the tunnel toward Jame and Marc.

  They retreated. The walls of the step-forward passage blurred as if they were moving impossibly fast, but the flames followed faster over the carpet of dead moss. Jame and Marc plunged into a side tunnel with Jorin on their heels just as the fire roared past. The dry moss burned fiercely, but not for long, leaving a path strewn with rapidly dying embers. Darkness closed in again.

  "We aren't having much luck with fire on this trip," said Jame in a rather shaken voice. "At least I don't hear any more scratching. Marc?" The darkness pressed in around her, more absolute than anything she had ever known. "Where are you?"

  "Here." His voice came from somewhere to her right. "We seem to have gotten off the step-forward stones. They probably only line the main passageway."

  "But why? Where does it go?"

  "Trinity knows. More to the point, where do we go from here? Some light should help."

  She heard him draw out his fire making tools again, then give a disgusted grunt. "Dropped them." Joints creaking audibly, he knelt to search the floor.

  "Don't bother," said Jame. "I still have mine." She groped in a pocket and pulled them out. The handkerchief-wrapped bone came too and fell before she could catch it. She didn't hear it hit the floor. The next moment, the flint and steel were snatched from her grasp. "Hey! Give me a chance."

  "What?" said Marc's voice, still down by the floor.

  Jame stood very still. She heard nothing, and yet. . . . "Marc, I don't think we're alone down here."

  He rose. "Where are you?"

  "Here." She reached out. A hand closed on hers—slim, long fingered, very, very cold. She dropped it with a gasp and sprang back, only to trip over Jorin. That cold grip caught her flailing hand and steadied her.

  "What on earth are you doing?" said Marc's voice behind her.

  She gulped. "Making someone's acquaintance, I think, someone who apparently doesn't want to be seen and who isn't very tall."

  "Our friend in gray?"

  "Maybe." That unearthly hand still lay in her grasp. Now its cold fingers tightened and tugged at her. "I think he wants us to go with him. Should we?"

  A moment's silence, then: "Yes," said Marc. "After all, we've been following him since this morning. Here." His own hand,
huge and warm, closed over hers. "Lead on."

  The darkness confused Jame's sense of direction, but she was fairly sure that their guide was taking them back to the main corridor. In confirmation the burnt smell grew and then charred moss crunched underfoot. They turned left, away from the subterranean chamber. Jame went on, one hand gripping the cold fingers that led her, the other engulfed in Marc's warm grasp as he followed in her wake. Only the sound of her boots and his echoed off the walls, sometimes close by, sometimes far off, as if the path momentarily skirted the edge of some vast cavern. There were depths too, or so the faint echoes hinted, occasionally on both sides of the trail at once.

  How long had they been walking? Time seemed to slow, almost to stop under the weight of darkness. Where were they going? If the stones underfoot still stepped forward, they must have already come a considerable distance.

  Jame's thoughts spun in circles, snatching at answers that the darkness denied her. She remembered how frightened she had been as a child during the dark of the moon. Perimal Darkling gripped that part of Rathillien that overlapped the next threshold world, the one that had fallen with the Master, but the shadows always sought to expand. Someday they might reach from the planet's surface up into the orbit of its single moon. If that happened, Perimal Darkling would swallow the moon and soon after both the sun and stars; that had happened before on other threshold worlds where the Kencyrath had fought and lost. If ever Rathillien's moon disappeared, the Three People would know that they had lost again. But, in the meantime, for five nights out of every forty-day lunar cycle, the moon was dark, and those below waited anxiously for its reappearance, afraid that the end had come with no one the wiser until too late. But even during "the Dark," there was some light. Not so here.