Dark of the Moon

by P. C. Hodgell

  Tori, I've come back. I'm coming to find you. Torieeeee . . .

  He started violently, waking from a half-doze. This would never do. Last night, he had told himself that it was better to stay awake because any dream here would be particularly vile; but now he suddenly wondered if another of those special nightmares like the one at Tagmeth was creeping up on him. Usually, he had more warning—days or even weeks, depending on the severity of the dream. Surely it was too soon for another one. No, he must only be disturbed because of Jedrak's death and because of where he was. Time to move on.

  As Torisen rose, however, his eyes stayed on the rolling land to the east, and he hesitated, puzzled. The shape of those distant hills looked so familiar, but how could that be? He had never been here before. That hill there to the left, nearly out of sight . . . beyond it should be one almost with a peak and beyond that another shaped like a barrow and beyond that . . .

  Bemused, Torisen walked down the slope away from camp, limping slightly, toward the beckoning land.

  * * *

  KINDRIE HAD BEEN OFFERED space in one of the large inner chambers of Ardeth's tent where the lord's Highborn kinsmen slept, but instead he had chosen a tiny room on the edge of the pavilion. It was barely large enough for his pallet and had only one opening with an inner gauze flap for good weather and an outer one of canvas for bad, but it was all his. After years in the acolytes' dormitory, such privacy filled him with incredulous delight. On the first days of the march, he often lay awake far into the night just to savor it. When the Host's pace quickened, however, sleep became more precious. Then, in the White Hills, it became almost impossible.

  On the second night, Kindrie was dozing uneasily in his canvas-walled cell. He wasn't used to so much riding, and his bones ached with fatigue. Even half an hour of dwar sleep would have given his healer's body a chance to recover itself, but every time he slid down toward it, confused dreams woke him again with a start. Now it seemed to him that the hills had begun to swell beneath the tent, like the restless billows of the sea. Up, down, up . . . no, it wasn't the canvas floor that rocked him, but hands, bone white, bone thin, tugging, tugging.

  Wake up, wake up! he thought he heard the faintest thread of a voice cry. Oh please, wake up! He needs you!

  "Who?" Kindrie said out loud, half waking. "Who needs me?"

  A watchfire had been kindled outside, and golden flickering light flooded into the cubicle through the gauze doorway. Shadows moved on the outer wall. Voices murmured in the night, but none spoke to him. He was alone . . . or was he? On the rear wall of his tiny room was a shadow that hadn't been there before, bending over the shadow of his own recumbent form. Kindrie regarded it bemusedly, convinced he was still asleep. It was very small and painfully thin. Ah, it must belong to the dead child whose bones the Highlord had taken from Kithorn and still carried with him in his saddlebag. Now, what could she want with him, even in a dream? She tugged and tugged. His shadow started to get up.

  Kindrie threw back his blanket and hastily rose. Dream or not, he had no intention of letting his shadow go anywhere without him. He rapidly pulled on some clothes and followed it out of the tent. It and the smaller, moon-cast shadow of the dead girl led him through the camp toward the eastern perimeter, keeping to the lower reaches of the slopes. Beyond the Jaran's camp, he followed the shadows up to a hilltop. The hills rolled on eastward before him under a quarter moon, and up one of their slopes went something dark. Another shadow? No. Someone clad all in black. Someone who limped slightly. Torisen.

  Kindrie caught his breath. His first, almost unconscious act of healing as a child had been the repair of his own weak eyes, but somehow the improved vision had never carried over into dreams. He could see the hills, the moon, that dark, receding figure all too clearly. This was no dream. He was awake, and that was the Highlord of the Kencyrath going alone, unprotected, toward the field of slaughter that had been his father's ruin, toward the unburnt and possibly vengeful dead.

  * * *

  TORISEN KNEW THESE HILLS. Their curves, the texture of their grass and stones, everything spoke to him of a place and time he had thought safely behind him forever. Ahead, darkness rose like a wall, black on black, blotting out the stars. As a child, he had sometimes lain awake at night staring out the window at it, hardly daring to breathe lest it topple, crushing the keep, the Haunted Lands, all of Rathillien. Now here it was again: the Barrier, with Perimal Darkling pressing against its far side. One more rise and there, impossibly, was the keep itself, his old home, nine hundred miles away from the White Hills.

  He walked down the slope toward it in a kind of horror-struck daze. Here was the stone bridge that spanned the encircling ditch, here the main gate, hanging askew. Beyond the gatehouse lay the courtyard, surrounded by the stone barracks, granary, and other domestic offices, tight against the outer wall with the battlements running along their roofs. Ahead rose the squat tower keep. He walked slowly toward it, still numb with disbelief. Grass grew between the flagstones, catching at his feet. Leech vines hung down over the walls. How quiet everything was, how . . . dead.

  Before the tower door was a black, tangled mass—the remains, apparently, of a bonfire. Now who would set one there? Father would raise three kinds of hell when he . . . no, not charred branches, but arms, and legs, and faces . . .

  Torisen recognized everyone that flame and sword had left recognizable: Lon, who had taught him how to ride; Merri, the cook; Tig, with all his battle scars scorched away. . . . He had dreamed of their deaths in that final assault over and over, but never of this.

  It's still a dream, he thought, feeling the cold paralysis of nightmare creep over him. I fell asleep on the hillside, and I'm trapped. I'll never wake up again.

  "My lord!"

  Footsteps sounded behind him. Hands turned him around. He looked dully into Kindrie's face, barely focusing on it.

  "Go away. You don't belong in this dream."

  "Dream? No, lord, listen to me: This is real."

  "Real?" Torisen blinked at him. "How can it be? This is the keep where I grew up, where my father died cursing me. These are the Haunted Lands."

  The Shanir looked about, shivering. "Somehow, I didn't think we were still in the White Hills—although if we were, we'd be just about in the middle of the old battlefield now. Correspondences." He shot Torisen a look. "Why, don't you see, the White Hills must have gone soft. Perimal Darkling is just under the surface there, as it obviously is here too, and when two contaminated areas are so similar in geography, architecture or—or whatever, sometimes in a sense they overlap, as if one were laid on top of the other. That must be how we got from there to here."

  " 'We'?" Torisen turned on him, beginning to rouse. "Why did you follow me? What do you want?"

  Kindrie fell back a step, flinching. He'd forgotten how much Torisen hated to be followed or spied on. "T-The child brought me, lord. See, here she is now. I-I think this place scares her."

  The child's shadow had moved between them on the moon-washed stones when the Highlord had turned. Now it came quickly to his side, so close that he unthinkingly reached down to touch the head that wasn't there. Yes, she was frightened. This place must seem very like Kithorn to her . . . assuming both she and it weren't simply fancies of his sleep-locked mind.

  Abruptly, he dropped to one knee and slammed his fist into the pavement. Blood speckled the stones.

  "It's not a dream," he said, rising, looking in wonder at his broken knuckles. "It is real. Good. Then I can cope. Now, what in all the names of God happened here?"

  Kindrie looked at him, surprised. "Why, I understood that darklings attacked here some fifteen years ago and killed everyone but you. You escaped and came to the Riverland, where you took service in disguise under Lord Ardeth. At least, that's the story people tell."

  But then why had Ganth died cursing his son, the Shanir wondered suddenly.

  "That's what people say," Torisen agreed, not meeting Kindrie's perturbed look. Of course, he
had heard the story often enough before and never contradicted it. It was probably even true, except that the massacre had happened only a few years ago, long after he had fled. If anyone ever learned that he had left while Ganth was still alive, without his permission, the repercussions could be severe. "At any rate, this happened later." He indicated the bodies piled before the door. "Someone has been here since I left."

  "It looks like an attempt at a pyre," Kindrie said. "These people were dragged here and set alight by someone—a Kencyr, I would say—who meant well but didn't know the proper pyric rune. Odd." He peered more closely at the charred bodies, curiosity getting the better of repulsion. "They hardly look as if they've been dead fifteen years. My God!" He sprang backward, his face turning as white as his hair. "That woman's hand . . . it moved!"

  Torisen also backed away. "Haunts . . . they're all becoming haunts. Nothing stays dead forever in this foul place, not unless it's reduced to ashes and blown away. The fire only set them back. But if they're still here, maybe he is, too."

  "My lord?"

  "Stay here with the child. I'll be back in a minute."

  Torisen edged around the failed pyre and ran up the steps to the keep's first-story entrance. Both sets of doors had been smashed open. He paused just inside the inner one, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the faint light that came in through two deeply recessed windows. Before him lay the circular great hall where the garrison had met to eat and hear justice dispensed— or what had passed for justice in those last days before his flight fifteen years ago.

  "Traitors!"

  Memory caught the echo of that shrieked word, saw the Kendar freeze, faces turned to the lord's table.

  "You eat my bread and yet you conspire to betray me! You, and you, and you—"

  "Father, no! These men are my friends and loyal to our house. Everyone here is."

  "To my house, perhaps, but to me? No, no, they deceive you, boy, as they did me. But never again! You three, in your hands are knives to cut your meat. Turn them on me, or on yourselves."

  "Child, come away. You can't help them."

  It was Anar, the scrollsman, tugging at his sleeve, pulling him out of the hall into the private dining chamber on the other side of the open hearth. From behind came the sound of something heavy falling, again and again. The Kendar had made the only choice that honor permitted. Anar quietly closed the door.

  "Your father's quite mad, you know," he whispered, and choked down a giggle. "Oh yes, so am I—sometimes. It's this place, this foul, accursed place. . . . You've got to get away, child, before he gets tired of killing your friends and turns on you. Oh yes, he will: The thought is already half in his mind. Who else can take away what little power he has left?"

  "But Anar, Ganth isn't just my father he's Lord Knorth, the head of our house. He'll never let me go, and if I leave without his permission, desert him, that will be the death of my honor."

  Anar shot a scared look at the door, then leaned close. "Child, there is a way . . ."

  And he told him. If every Kendar in the house gave his or her consent, their will overbalanced that of their lord. Anar's brother Ishtiér had tried to gain his release this way, but the Kendar hadn't consented. After all, he was their priest. They needed him. But Ishtiér had left anyway, honorless, for the safety and comfort of Tai-tastigon far to the south. But the Kendar could see what was happening now. They would let Tori go, with their blessings.

  "But Anar, how can anything outweigh a lord's authority?"

  "Child, this can . . . I think." He gulped. "And if it can't, I-I take responsibility for whatever you decide, on my honor."

  The door to the hall crashed open. Ganth loomed black on the threshold. "And what's this, then? Talking behind my back, conspiring . . ."

  Torisen faced him. "Sir, we were only discussing honor— and options."

  Now the hall lay silent and empty before him, lit only by moonlight streaming in between the bars of the two windows. Something rustled furtively in the shadows by the door. Torisen didn't investigate. Quickly crossing the hall to the spiral stair just off the private dining room, he climbed in utter darkness to the second floor, his feet remembering the height of each irregular step.

  Here were the family's living quarters, a maze of interconnected rooms circling the lord's solar over the great hall. Some moonlight filtered into the outer rooms through slit windows. The inner ones lay buried in shadows too deep even for a Kencyr's keen night vision, and not all of them were vacant. These Torisen passed through quickly, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but knowing that he was not alone. Beyond, the stair in the northwest turret began its spiral upward.

  After the darkness below, the battlements seemed dazzlingly bright. The cracked crystal dome over the solar shone like a second moon, and the white gravel roof gave back its glow. In the shadow of the northeast turret, Ganth Gray Lord waited.

  Torisen stopped, catching his breath.

  "Father?"

  No answer. How still that grim figure stood, the dead piled high about him like half-burnt kindling. Torisen slowly crossed the roof toward him, poised to fight or run, he hardly knew which. Those shadows on Ganth's chest. . . . He was nailed upright to the turret door by three arrows. The ring finger on the right hand had been snapped off. Of the left hand, which had wielded Kin-Slayer, not one finger was left. Both ring and sword were gone. The corner of something white protruded from the gray coat just above the singe-line of the pyre's flames. Torisen stepped gingerly in among the dead and reached for it. His father's head moved. He snatched the folded cloth and leaped backward. Something grabbed his foot. He fell, rolling, breaking the grip, and fetched up against the crystal dome. Ganth was staring down at him, without eyes.

  "Child of darkness. . . ." The words were harsh, croaking, spoken in a voice that both was and was not his father's. "Where is my sword? Where are my fingers?"

  Torisen bolted toward the northwest turret. Behind him, the dead around Ganth's feet were moving, slowly, unsteadily, disentangling charred arms and legs. He nearly fell down the spiral stair. At its foot, rustling, scraping sounds came to him from the darkness ahead. All the dead were awakening.

  A trap, he thought wildly, I've walked into a trap. . . . Steady, boy, steady. One, two . . . "three!"

  He sprinted through the second-story rooms, twisting, turning, into moonlight, into darkness. Here was the stair. He half-threw himself down it and raced across the great hall.

  A dark shape lurched into his path from the shadow of the door. Torisen tried to dodge past, but tripped over a shattered bench and fell heavily. Someone bent over him.

  ". . . wrong . . ." croaked a familiar voice. "I was wrong. . . . Nothing outweighs a lord's authority. Take back the responsibility, child. It burns me . . . it burns . . ."

  Torisen stared up horrified into Anar's face. The failed pyre had seared it hideously, laying bare cheekbones and patches of skull. He gave an inarticulate cry, shoved the haunt aside, scrambled to his feet, and bolted out the door. The other's broken voice pursued him:

  "Child, set me free . . . free us all . . ."

  Kindrie had backed into the middle of the inner ward, away from the pyre, away from the stone barracks now alive with furtive sounds. Torisen grabbed him.

  "The rune, man, the pyric rune . . . can you say it?"

  The Shanir stared at him, terrified. "I-I don't know . . ."

  He stopped with a gasp. The pile of half-burned bodies by the door had begun to seethe sluggishly. Torisen shook him.

  "Say it, damn you! Set them free!"

  The pale young man gulped and shut his eyes. Torisen very nearly slapped him, thinking he was about to faint, but instead Kindrie took a deep breath and spoke the rune. It fought its way out of his throat like a living thing, and he fell, gagging. Torisen caught him. The mound of twitching bodies burst into flames. Sudden firelight lit the inside of the barracks, and the keep's great hall, roared up above the tower's battlements. Torisen half dragged Kindrie out under the
gatehouse and across the stone bridge. On the hillside, he finally let the exhausted Shanir sink down into the tall grass, while he himself stood, breathing hard, watching his old home go up in flames.

  Fifteen years ago, he had paused on this same hillside to look back before slipping away southward into the night. If he hadn't left, Ganth would surely have killed him sooner or later. Then the Three People would be without him now, when they needed him the most. But he had left poor Anar to bear his guilt, and that was a shameful thing, however good his reasons. Perhaps his honor was safe in the letter of the Law, but he felt compromised in its spirit and sick at heart.