Dark is the Moon

by Ian Irvine

I can feel him sneering at us,” Yggur wept, mopping his brow. Though Tallia was just as afraid, she had to resist the urge to smack him in the face.

  “Nonsense!” said Mendark. “Get control of yourself.”

  Yggur straddled the rift, which was now a finger-wide crack running right across the floor, walls and ceiling. A bubbling, hissing sound could be heard in the depths. He strained to lock the dimensions of the Nightland into his mind, and then to summon power from the rift for the last time.

  “Ready?” Mendark asked softly.

  “Yes!” said Tallia, who held a tube filled with emerald dust to her lips. At the other quarters stood Asper, Xarah and Basitor, each with their own tubes out.

  Malien stood by Mendark to aid with the channelling. Shand supported her. The others had already gone up the ladder.

  “When I count three,” said Mendark, looking over the barrel of the ampliscope into Yggur’s eyes. “And as soon as you are done, get your head down and cover your eyes.”

  Yggur nodded. His cheek spasmed, then he took control again.

  “One!” said Mendark, checking around the circle. Everyone was as ready as they would ever be.

  “Two!” He closed his eyes to summon up the image of the Nightland clear and bright in his mind.

  The bloodstone sphere glowed in the mist. Tallia felt a cold knot of fear grow in the pit of her stomach.

  “He’s too strong,” Yggur whispered. “He’s so strong! I can feel him, holding back our efforts, conserving his own strength until we make a mistake. How can we not? None of us knows what we’re doing.”

  “He’s weak!” said Mendark with scorn. “He’s bluffing because he has to. Now remember, this is a delicate process. Not too much power. Yggur?”

  Sweat was pouring down Yggur’s cheeks; his eyes were staring.

  “Yggur!” shouted Mendark. “We’re hanging over the abyss. Get hold of yourself. Can you do it? If not, then get the hell out of the way so someone else can.” He was hard put to keep the contempt out of his voice, and the whole room knew it.

  There was a lengthy pause. “I can do it,” Yggur said with a shudder. He dashed sweat out of his eyes.

  Tallia sighed with relief.

  Mendark beat his arm up and down, one, two. “Three!” The word came out like a whipcrack.

  As one they blew the dust directly at the model, then dropped flat to the floor with their hands over their eyes. For an instant the dust glittered green all over the sphere, then Yggur erupted defiance, sucked in a mighty breath and a fountain of light roared from the end of the ruby rod.

  “Too much!” Tallia heard Mendark scream, then she was blinded by a cataclysmic burst of light from the model. It poured through her hands, her closed eyelids; for an instant it overwhelmed all her senses. Then it was gone into the dark.

  It did not begin again for some time. Rulke was quite spent, sitting with his back to the ice pane, dozing but waking every few minutes to check on the gate. Karan fetched a quilt from the bedroom and wrapped herself and Llian in it, watching and waiting. It was a strange feeling to be reliant on their enemy for everything, to identify so closely with his own hopes and fears. Yet at the same time, she knew of his reputation for treachery and trickery, and dared not trust him. Karan was very afraid.

  The palace shuddered and the walls thinned further. Karan could see through room after room as if the walls, and the contents of each room, were made of glass. More energy gone, she realized. Only the construct retained its solidity now.

  “Ugh!” cried Llian, who had begun to sink into the floor. Even that was failing. She helped him out.

  “I’m starving,” Llian said hoarsely.

  Rulke looked up at him with dull eyes. “In my bedroom, which you have already used, you will find a flask and some meal tablets. Bring them here.”

  Karan ran off, returning with the flask and a handful of little cubes like large dice made of baked dough, which she passed through the porthole. Rulke shared them out equally, washed down with a couple of swallows each from the flask. It did not satisfy but it was better than nothing.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier,” Llian said to Rulke.

  “Oh!” said Rulke, uninterested.

  “About tricking them. I’ve been watching the way you fight them. Perhaps I presume too much, to—”

  “You do, but get on with it! Damned chroniclers, you never use one word when a hundred will do.”

  “You go straight at them with all your strength,” said Llian. “A poor strategy here, I should think.”

  “It’s served me well enough in the past,” Rulke replied listlessly.

  “You attack your enemies as though you were stronger than them. Once you were, I know, but not here.” Llian paused, searching for the right words.

  “Do you have any more advice for me, puny man?”

  “I’ve never been good at physical things,” said Llian, “save one.”

  “Two,” Karan murmured, running her hand down the inside of his thigh.

  Rulke gave her a disgusted glance. “You’re like a pair of rabbits!”

  “I was champion arm-wrestler at the college,” said Llian. “I often beat men more powerful than me. They think it’s a contest of strength, but it’s really like staring someone down. It’s a battle of wills.”

  “Go on,” said Rulke. “Perhaps you wish to challenge me one day.” He flexed a bicep the size of Llian’s thigh. “What is your tactic?”

  “It takes a lot more strength to force than to hold. I—just hold my opponent while he uses up his strength trying to force my arm down. After a few minutes, when our muscles are screaming, I give a little. He forces with all his might, thinking me done, but I hold him again. And again! Finally I put a defeated expression on my face, and the last time he forces, as soon as he stops I slam his arm the other way with all my strength. He is beaten!”

  “There’s more to you than there appears, chronicler,” said Rulke. “Though—”

  The ice pane rippled. He lurched back to the plate.

  The struggle began again, though before long it was clear that Rulke was losing. The glow of the gate-stone was as bright as the sun at midday, the spears and splinters of bursting light sprayed out in all directions, pocking the pane like a cheese grater. The mist roiled like steam from a volcano.

  Gasping, wild-eyed, Rulke fell to his knees, holding out his clenched fists, his whole body wracked by shudders. The light faded to nothing. He lowered his head to the floor, resting on a tripod of knees and forehead. There was complete silence.

  “What’s he doing?” Karan whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Llian whispered back. “I can feel pressure building though.”

  The walls and the pane vibrated, giving out a low gong-sound that made the bones of their skulls quiver. Then the plate exploded with light so bright that they had to shield their eyes. The pane of ice evaporated in an instant. Rulke screamed, a tortured wail that echoed and echoed, ringing like a bell through the spaces of the vast room. He toppled onto his face and lay still.

  “That’s that then,” said Llian in a parched voice.

  “Oh, you fool. You bloody, bloody fool!” said Mendark.

  Tallia opened her eyes, and at first it seemed that Yggur had succeeded after all. The model hung in the air a moment, lines smeared into a blur of yellow. At one place on the sphere there was a faint tinge of green—the place where the portal had been.

  “Yes, you’ve done it!” she cried.

  “No,” said Mendark, crushed as if the whole weight of the tower had descended on his shoulders.

  There was no green coating on the rest of the sphere. Yggur’s blast had boiled the emerald dust to vapor.

  Yggur swayed on his feet, eyes staring, mouth open.

  As they watched, the light-shape slowly faded, but before it went out a cone-shaped plug of green glass dropped free and cracked in two on the floor. The floor heaved under their feet, steam issuing from a dozen vents.
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  “You—cretin!” Mendark ground out, in a fury so wild that he was practically incoherent. “You used too much power by a hundred times.”

  “You drove him much too far,” said Shand. “I warned you, Mendark.”

  “I can’t see,” wept Yggur, watery fluid pouring from his staring eyes. “Can’t see anything at all.” He still clutched the ampliscope in one hand, though it was useless now, the ruby rod sagging down at the end like rubber. “I am so afraid.”

  “Is this the end?” Tallia asked. “Can we do no more?”

  “We’re finished,” said Mendark. “No possibility of sealing it now.”

  “I’m afraid,” Yggur repeated in doleful tones.

  “You threw away our only chance. I knew you could not be relied upon.”

  “Then why did you push him?” Tallia snapped.

  “Because I had no choice!”

  “No point blaming each other,” Malien said. “Let’s get up the ladder while we still can.”

  Tallia bent down to pick up the plug of melted emerald. As her fingers closed over the pieces a shockwave passed through the floor and she heard a low, rumbling, grinding sound from underneath. Steam began to belch out all along the vent. Yggur, who still stood straddling the rift, was thrown off his feet.

  “Light!” Mendark shouted. Each brought out their light-glasses. One side of the rift had moved up and it now gaped wide enough to put a leg inside. A burning blast of air came up.

  “We’ll never get out!” cried Xarah, running round in circles through the mist.

  Above them the foundations shrieked and groaned. Tallia felt a growing terror—they were going to be entombed here and slowly burned to death.

  “Tallia!” Shand shouted. “Help me.”

  They shepherded the cripples—Yggur and Malien—to the ladder and helped them onto it. The others were already moving up. Tallia was very weak; such aftersickness she had never felt before. The others looked just as bad.

  She hung off the bottom of the ladder with Shand, watching them go. Mendark had already disappeared and Yggur, despite not being able to see, climbed very quickly.

  “Go on,” said Malien, supporting her shoulder. “I’ll be slow. I’ll go last.”

  “No,” said Tallia. “You may need my help. You go, Shand.”

  He folded his arms and smiled. “I’ve lived more life than I ever wanted, Tallia. After you.”

  She nodded thanks and turned to the ladder. Malien was climbing slowly, one-handed. Tallia followed close behind, not looking up, for there was a constant rain of dust and pieces of crystalline crust from above. The ladder shook continuously now, once so hard that Malien lost her grip and would have fallen had not Tallia been right against her. Malien gave a grunt of pain, which for her surely indicated that she was in agony. Tallia trapped her between her body and the ladder until she took hold again.

  “How is your shoulder, Malien?”

  “In the entire span of my life I have never felt worse,” Malien replied, sagging against her. “And I think this will be the end of it.”

  “I think so too.”

  The earth quaked again. Above them the foundations wailed like tortured demons. Tallia looked down. Shand was just below her feet, climbing steadily. “How are you doing, Shand?”

  He did not look up. “All right, though it’s getting hot and I can smell the fumes again.”

  Burning sulphur. Tallia’s nose was itching and her eyes watered. “Can you go any faster, Malien?”

  Malien accelerated a little, though she could not keep it up. A puff of white fumes rushed past them, sending them all into a fit of coughing, then dispersed in the chamber above. They kept on. The rumbling and groaning grew ever louder.

  “How can it survive?” Tallia said to herself.

  “The tower? It can’t if this keeps up,” Shand grunted. “Though it was very well built.”

  “The foundation chamber is just above,” Malien called. “We’re halfway. I’ve got to rest for a minute.”

  They clambered off the ladder onto solid floor, though that now shifted like waves on the sea. The rest of the group were also resting there, in spite of the danger. Two Aachim were monitoring the shifting foundations, fascinated by the way they were built.

  “Why hasn’t it fallen?” Basitor panted. “It’s already at its limit.”

  “The rift moved that way,” said Asper, pointing. “Should it slide any further in this direction, or move up, over she goes!”

  “Look at this cable! The outer spring is broken. The cable must soon snap.”

  Just then they heard a hollow cry, “Xarah, Xarah!” and her twin hurtled down the ladder, her brown hair flying. Tallia could not help smiling. They were truly inseparable.

  “Shalah, I’m here,” shouted Xarah. “I’m safe.” She ran toward Shalah with her arms out.

  As Shalah jumped off the ladder, the rock gave a mighty shudder and one of the subsidiary anchor cables snapped. The free end lashed across the room, just missing Shand’s face, to strike Shalah in the chest with the force of a log careering down a mountainside. She was slammed against the wall, slid down it and came to rest on the floor, her head resting against the stone.

  “Shalah!” Xarah cried, racing over to her. “Shalah, are you all right?”

  Tallia ran too. Shalah’s eyes were open. She gave her twin a sad little smile and her eyes glazed over.

  “Shalah!” Xarah shrieked. “Speak to me!”

  Nudging Tallia out of the way, Asper checked Shalah carefully, though it was clear that she was dead. Her chest was crushed and her neck broken. He arranged her on the floor, closing her eyes with his fingertips. Tallia bowed her head.

  “Come on!” Mendark shouted. “That cable is going to go.”

  They raced for the ladder. Xarah had to be carried, kicking and screaming. She could not abandon her sister, even now. They reached the ground floor and the Aachim rushed around trying to find a way out. There must have been secret doors but, though they hammered everywhere, they could not identify them.

  At that moment the earth moved again, a different way, and from below came a shrieking groan that told of the foundation blocks being driven beyond their limits. The whole floor tilted beneath their feet, jerked upwards and jerked again.

  “Up, you bloody idiots!” Mendark screamed and they all hurtled back to the ladder.

  “Four floors to go,” Tallia said. “Then back down two, out of the tower and across the bridge. If we can do that we have a chance.”

  “Unless the tower falls our way.”

  A low-pitched zipping sound raced up one side of the tower.

  “The cable’s gone,” said Shand. “That’s it!”

  “Keep going,” Malien gritted.

  The tower lurched much more sharply up on one side, tilting the floor and the ladder. Just past the second floor, cracks began to appear in the wall where the cable had run. They widened rapidly, plaster showering down on their heads. As they climbed, stagger-kneed, through the fourth floor, a block of stone slid out of one of the curved bays to crash at their toes. Suddenly with a gush of stone and dust a hole appeared in the wall and they saw the minarets and domes of the fortress beyond.

  “This way!” Tallia gasped, pointing to the hole. “Out through the hole.”

  “No!” cried Shand. “It’ll fall that way.”

  A blast of burning air roared up past them, bringing choking fumes in its wake. Looking down, Tallia saw a red line far below, ebbing out of the rift.

  Now they were just below the fifth level, Tensor’s gate chamber. “I can’t… go any further,” said Malien.

  “It’s just a little way,” said Tallia, watching the cracks in the wall grow wider.

  “Go on! My arm and my legs have cramped. I can’t move!”

  10

  * * *

  THE FALL OF

  THE TOWERS

  Is he dead?” Karan whispered when she could see again. They raced across a floor that was soggy in pl
aces, an icy slush in others. Blisters were forming on the side of Rulke’s face that had been toward the blast.

  “No,” said Llian, carefully feeling a pulse in Rulke’s throat. “But if he dies, we will too. See if you can find some water, quickly!”

  Karan ran off. Llian squatted down beside the fallen giant—the great enemy who would surely use him if he recovered. But if he did not, they were trapped in the Nightland for the term of their lives.

  After a few minutes Rulke groaned and opened his eyes. One eyelid was blistered too, and he seemed to be having trouble focusing. “Is it you, chronicler?” he whispered, putting up a feeble hand. Llian gave the Charon his hand. Rulke hung his head for a minute, panting, then his eyes focused. He flashed a smile that, in spite of their peril, Llian found strangely warming.

  “We won,” Rulke said. “We beat them! A good strategy, chronicler.”

  “So they didn’t seal the gate?”

  “No, it’s not even closed.”

  “Then they could still… invade?”

  “It’s possible. I don’t dare close it, chronicler, lest I be unable to open it again.”

  “Oh!” said Llian, trying to control his reactions. That meant there was still a chance of escape. He stared at the Charon’s ravaged face, wondering what would happen to them now. “Are you… all right?”

  Rulke shoved himself to his feet, but had to clutch at Llian’s shoulder for support. “I’ve not felt this bad in a good age,” he said, inspecting his injuries reflected on the construct: the blistered face and bloodshot eyes. His hands and fingers were burned from his encounter with Rulke’s emerald rod, not to mention Karan’s knife wound through his palm. “Ah, how it wracks me!”

  He shook himself, muttering words that seemed to be some kind of cantrip to postpone exhaustion. He flexed his muscles and stood unaided. “But I cannot rest yet. So much to do and to learn. And you can help me there!” he said vehemently.

  Alarmed, Llian moved back a step. The floor had solidified again. Rulke sprang after him. How could he have recovered so quickly?

  “So, will you aid me?” asked Rulke softly. He took Llian by the arm. “I will reward you handsomely if you do. But if you don’t…”