Moonscript (Kings of Aselvia Book 1)

by H S J Williams

  What did she look like here, deeper in? She stared down at herself, brow furrowing and suddenly her sight changed. It wasn’t like anything she knew. The best she could compare it to was looking into a mirror. But there was no dark room in that reflection nor anything that could be remotely called a place. In that strange reflection she saw…things…about herself. No, not things, for that would give the impression of something tangible. But looking at them in that reflection, she began to feel them in her own state even where she stood, though when she looked quickly over her shoulder, nothing was there.

  “What is it, Rendar?” she demanded. “What’s this around me?”

  He arched a silver brow, mouth curling in slight smile. “Ah, so your senses are already attuning to this realm. Those, Tellie, are the prayers of people who love you. Leoren and Casara worry for your safety.”

  Everything within her inhaled. She could barely breathe, let alone talk, but she felt the wings of her heart slowly unfold and swell. “What?” It didn’t matter if she said the words aloud. All her being expressed the question, the desperate hope.

  For some time now, she’d begun to doubt if the elven couple had truly cared for her, or if her imagination had simply made up what she’d wanted to believe. But they were praying for her, and the touch of their thought was warm and comforting.

  “The Unseen,” Rendar said, “is the realm of our spiritual selves. All are a part of it, all affect it, but few are those who see it. Those who have this gift are called Walkers, but do not misunderstand, they are no more powerful in spirit than any other, they have simply been called to see beyond the mortal veil. I was one in life, and after death, I am still one, for it is a gift of the spirit. And you are one as well. Called by Ayeshune.”

  “So let get me this straight,” she said, very carefully. “This is not the realm of the dead.”

  “Absolutely not. The Awaiting Souls rest elsewhere. But I have been given leave to still walk here in the Unseen, for I have many prayers to wrap around those I love who are yet living on the mortal side.”

  When he spoke of his prayers, another scale fell from her sight, and her gaze was drawn to Errance. Or rather to that which surrounded him. She sensed fervent love of such that she had never known. It was too personal for her to look closely, but a close look was not needed to be overwhelmed with awe of the many and powerful loves that enveloped the prince of Aselvia.

  And there was hers. She hadn’t consciously ever prayed to Ayeshune about Errance, but her thoughts and hopes for him had been recognized. A small daisy chain amongst grand jewelry. It was really rather abashing; what could her simple love and prayer do for him when he already had such powerful pleas and protections in his defense?

  “So,” she said with a quick shiver. “What are we going to do then?”

  “It is time you understand what we’re fighting for.”

  “We’re fighting for Errance.”

  “But what is Errance fighting for?”

  Tellie didn’t answer, suddenly muddled. Yes, yes, the Darkness had been after him for that Moonscript, and all that imprisonment and torture had been the means to an end, not just for entertainment. What was in the Moonscript that evil sought it so hard?

  “Come,” he said, lifting her to her feet and leading the way through the veil walls. The world spread out before them, the city of Oolum sweeping across the sands to the swaying ocean shore.

  As Tellie looked across the clustered buildings and towers, she fancied she saw each and every soul who dwelt within, and within them was more to see, but it was all too much for her to understand. Still, she saw how the quiet of the night proved false. Always, always there was energy and battle lacing through the city, prayers and curses carried on secret roads, dark and light, in strife and conflict.

  Without her notice, the world had become small and far away like a toy city spread out on the floor. She wondered if it was because it had shrunk or she had grown, but the next moment it hit her with a sensation of a slap that it was because she was now high above it. Somewhere in the sky, perhaps. And for a girl terrified of heights, it was quite the most awful realization she’d ever had.

  Or at least it would have been if there was not such an assurance that she was quite secure and stable, which was peculiar to be assured of when one had neither body nor ground to stand on. Instead, she found safety in Rendar’s hand, and so focused on that instead of the little world below.

  That was when she noticed the bright lights floating around them. They were too far away to discern, but she thought they might be fireflies, except some were too big, and anyway, they were far too white as if they were stars. Stars. Oh no, it couldn’t be, she really couldn’t be up walking among the stars, now could she?

  “Where are you taking me?” she whimpered, clinging tighter to his arm.

  “We have reached it now,” he replied, pausing. “We have come to the top and very edge of the Celestial Cleft and at this distance those of the Lower World must remain until the renewal of days when the Higher and Lower shall again be as one.”

  It all sounded very fancy and above her, but all at once she didn’t need an explanation to understand. Because she saw it. There across far fields and sparkling streams. She saw…

  …a white, gleaming city. The great celestial city of Korsical.

  Her legs began to waver, her chin started to quiver. For a moment she could not breathe, and when she could, it was to gasp out, “Please. Please turn me away. I cannot do it on my own.”

  Rendar at once turned her away, cradling her shaking shoulders with his arm. “What is it, child, what is wrong?”

  To her bewilderment, she began to cry. Which was a most unwanted and annoying thing in the presence of an elf king. “Because it’s so beautiful—it’s perfect. I can only imagine what I know, and I don’t know or imagine anything like this. So this isn’t a dream, it’s real. And I don’t know why I’m crying, because this is really quite wonderful, but it’s so strange and—oh!” She cradled her head in her hands. “Oh, my head hurts.”

  One of Rendar’s strong but gentle hands slipped behind her head and two of his fingers pressed against her brow. The pain faded away, and Tellie found herself much calmer and able to think. “How’d you do that?” she asked.

  He laughed and shook his head, before turning to look back at Korsical.

  Warily, she looked back as well, but seeing it had now become much easier. Still impossible. But it was the most wonderful impossible she’d ever seen. Just looking at it gave hope…hope for impossible dreams and impossible love. Looking at it, she knew that such dreams could come true and that such love was real.

  “It’s perfection, isn’t it?” she whispered.

  “Nearly,” the king said with a sigh. “A land untouched by the stain of sin…still flourishing in the way created by the One. And for that reason, the Darkness desires it. The celestials denied his lies and continue to deny him day by day…but he believes if he can find a way into the Higher World and corrupt their land, he will also be able to corrupt their hearts.” Turning, he looked her straight in the face, and the air swelled with the passion of his words. “It has not been revealed whether or not the Higher World shall last till the end of mortal days. But if it is left to me, the fallen of my kind, to protect their purity, then I would do so to the last of my light.”

  A shadow passed over them then or perhaps the nearby stars dimmed. Now such a heaviness came to his voice as if it was burdened under mountains of iron. “I never thought…I’d hoped…that Errance would not have to be involved. But I was not there for his birth, and he came too early, too soon. To save his life, his mother passed on all the light I had given her to him and died from the sacrifice. So he was gifted with Celestial brightness, a full half measure instead of the little we had originally planned. I had hoped, since he was the vision of his mother, that he would not be sought for his celestial light. But the Darkness knew too much of us…guessed too well the reason for my wife’s death.
And so he seeks to use Errance’s inheritance to learn the secrets of the celestial and to ruin them if he may.”

  After a sober silence, Tellie looked back to the bright kingdom and tried not to imagine shadows creep up its walls and decay crumble the fields. The thought was too horrible to bear, so she looked away and into the stars to chase away the dark images.

  That was when she noticed the stars were coming closer. Not only closer, but walking. And if they were walking, perhaps they were not stars at all. Perhaps they were…

  Five people stood around them an instant later, clothed in the silk of starlight itself. Even more beautiful than Rendar were they, wise and powerful, crowned in hair of living silver and adorned with the aura of righteousness.

  Like the city had been before, they were impossible for mortal eyes to stare at without being blinded, but Tellie’s eyes were no longer mortal here, and she gazed upon them with wonder, not fear.

  And the greatest, most terrible thing of their awesome glory…was that they looked completely comfortable with it. Not haughty, not self-concerned. Simply happy and content, unaware of their perfection.

  She found she could not be afraid of them, because all she wanted was to be like that…good without any want of being evil. She looked into their eyes and she saw her best friend because they loved her even though they surely did not know anything about her.

  But that thought was wrong, because the next moment, she realized they knew a great deal about her indeed. She saw more then, saw that despite their innocence, they were not ignorant. Knowledge deepened their eyes, for while their spirits were not enslaved by sin, they had seen it, watched it burn the Lower World, and were all the more hateful of Darkness for it. That was strange, she thought—that hate could be so pure and right.

  When they spoke, it was not in the common tongue, but in some language she’d never heard. That didn’t matter here, she understood it just fine.

  “Is this the one, Rendar? The little lamp for our Errance?”

  “Yes,” Rendar said warmly, laying a hand on her shoulder.

  Tellie looked around askance for the lamp of which they spoke, but one of the bright beings knelt before her and took both her hands. She stared stupefied into his brilliant eyes and wondered if she could get lost by looking into them too long.

  “She is very like him,” the bright one said.

  Like who, like Errance? Oh, for pity’s sake, would people stop comparing her to him, they were nothing alike.

  “You’re celestials, aren’t you?” she managed.

  “We are.”

  “You aren’t…you aren’t dead too, are you?”

  “Dead!” The kneeling one straightened, fixing Rendar with an upraised brow. “What have you been telling the girl!”

  Rendar sighed, “I have tried to explain. No, Tellie, they are not dead, they are Walkers whose bodies still live on your side of the immortal plane.”

  “Use words like that and no wonder she’s confused,” another said, highly amused. It was a woman, and she turned a familiar smile on Tellie. “Our physical bodies still live in the Higher World, but in the Unseen, we walk upon your world and pray for its healing. The Darkness knows and fears our presence and thus seeks to rip us from the roots. Errance has suffered much for our sake, and we have long sought his redemption. You are the first answer to our prayer.”

  “Wait,” Tellie said, alarm rushing up her spine. “You walk in my world? During the day? When I’m sleeping?!”

  “We do not spy,” they laughed. “But we are keen on such battles between the light and the dark. We heard your song the other night and it pleased us well!”

  “Oh.” Her stomach curdled. They’d heard that. How embarrassing.

  “It was straight from your heart and that is what makes it powerful,” the shining lady said. “But it can be more powerful still. Rendar, why have you not trained her?”

  “May I remind you this is only her second time here?” Rendar said, setting a hand on his hip. “I know I fell, but I did not completely lose my feathers.”

  “Well, keep singing, child, and your voice shall grow stronger,” the lady said, setting a hand on Tellie’s cheek. “Soon your voice shall be powerful as Errance’s in his youth, when his song could ring from the mortal world to the corners of our courts.”

  “Wait.” Tellie rubbed her head. The world might have just turned upside down. “Errance. Singing? But men don’t sing! Not nicely anyway!”

  There was a moment’s silence, and then every elf turned and looked at one particular celestial male with grins on their faces. He shrugged dolefully. “Now my feelings are hurt,” he sighed.

  “Oh!” What she would have given for an Unseen ability to reel words back in. Blushing furiously and trying to hide it behind her hands, Tellie groaned, “I didn’t mean any of you, I just meant, well, I haven’t heard very nice singing from men.” She’d been quite convinced they were only capable of bawdy ballads and monotonous march tunes. Really, could she display her ignorant country girl stock any worse?

  The celestial woman withdrew something from her robes that looked a little like a lute, but far more refined, and she tucked the edge of it under her chin, her other hand hovering a small slender staff over the strings. “Listen, Tellie. Listen to the sound of the glory of the heavens and the sorrow of the earth, of the rending between them, and of the great healing to come. Let your heart be opened, and your song will be sweeter than ever before.” She drew the rod across the strings, and a keening wail dove to the depths of the soul, then suddenly soared to the height of hope.

  Tellie listened, awestruck, and as each elf lifted their own instrument, from harp to flute to chime, the music swelled up in a wellspring inside her, and the words flowered to knowledge in her mind. When they reached the second round, she opened her mouth and let the first words sweep into hand with the music. The celestial man began harmony with her, and she felt as if a strong arm had come up under her voice for support.

  She barely understood the words she spoke or the story she told. But she felt the power and glory in the music and she knew, she believed, if she let the music carry her like a bird on the wind, it would take her away to another place. A good and happy place. A place she wanted to be.

  21

  oOo

  Sunlight, no matter how soft, startles me awake. Which means I was sleeping. I flinch and curse myself for such foolishness. How could I have found peace to sleep here in such a wild city with any manner of evil? Yet I had slept, and I’d have suspected something had been slipped into my drink except I am left with none of the aches that follow. I am yet alive and untouched and after a moment of tense listening, I can hear each steady breath from my companions. So I carefully allow the tension across my shoulders to ease. I sink back onto the warm wood and listen to the song of morning.

  “Good morning!” Coren crowed. “The sun is rising, the day is still young, and it is time for you to continue the perilous flight for your life!”

  Groaning, Tellie flung her arms over her head and burrowed deeper into the blanket bunched beneath her nose. She was quite sure she’d be useless at standing. Not even the hard days at the Nornes had left her limbs this stiff. But the noisy clatter of Kelm’s descent on the ladder jolted away the last hope of sleep, and so she wearily pushed up and smoothed out her rumbled clothes. The chema fabric did not seem to retain much sweat or dampness, which must have been a mercy in the jungle, but it was still unbearably clingy and uncomfortable to sleep in. With two successive yawns, she clambered down from the attic and joined the others waiting in the brightening room below. Truly, it ought to have been a sin for them to look so awake when she was so tired.

  “So,” Coren said, leaning against a few crates, arms crossed. “One can never be too careful in this kind of business. I sent your hunters to bed with some heavy drink and I do not envy the headache they shall have upon waking. But to avoid a trail of gossip, we are splitting up today. Zizain shall take Tryss and Errance and I
shall take the rascals. And my most favorite part—” He paused grandly, throwing off the lid of the top crate and digging inside like a child set loose on a treasure-chest. “Disguises!”

  He flung out the most elaborate, most expensive garment Tellie had ever seen. It was all shiny purple and trimmed with gold tassels and lavishly embroidered in a set of tunic, leggings, and head wrap.

  “I have been just waiting,” Coren said, “to put someone in this lovely.”

  Errance snorted. He hadn’t moved from where he guarded the wall, and his pose indicated disinterest of the whole affair. “I’m sorry for whoever that is.”

  Coren smiled kindly at him. “Indulge in self-pity. It’s you.”

  Errance’s head jerked up like a puppet on string. “What! No!” he protested in a voice stung with disbelief. Even a swift glare at Tellie and Kelm could not stifle their giggles. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Absolutely yes,” the captain replied, tossing him the clothes. “You see, you were my biggest problem, because you are so noticeable.”

  “He’s a looker, all right,” Zizain said. “He’d be less noticeable if we put a bag over his head.”

  “Thank you, Zizain, your input is always so helpful,” Coren said with a grin to contradict the frowns from Errance and Tryss. “Anyway, no more tall, dark, and mysterious stranger. Say hello to ridiculously rich merchant. A traveler all the way from Brivan and thus so thoroughly dressed to keep out the sun and sand on the road. ”

  Again, he reached into the crate and drew out a soft pink bundle of fabric. “Now then,” he said, looking to Tryss. “Zizain informed me you are a chema, which I failed to notice yesterday. Part of the tribe I’ve heard rumor of in the jungle east of here?”

  Tryss stiffened, her fingers curling. “Is…that a problem?”

  “Oh no, unless you can’t go invisible with non-chema clothes on. Can you?”

  “I can.”

  “Really? Fascinating. I don’t pretend to understand the science of it, not a bit. Now I know blond is not your natural hair color, so how about being a brunette for the day?”