Dark is the Moon

by Ian Irvine

  The sun rose. Dolodha was nearly falling out of the saddle with weariness. She looked like an abandoned waif. He moved his horse closer, holding her upright, surprised that he cared enough to do so. Maigraith had changed him.

  The dawn sky was blood-red. There was smoke everywhere, charred ruins and burned animals. The horses were reduced to a plod. “How far to go?” he yelled to the guide as they turned off the main road onto a rutted track that seemed to wind around every hill in Bannador.

  “At least eight leagues. Another day, unless we can find fresh horses.”

  They continued, now in the wilds of Bannador, but found not a single nag all the way. The country had been stripped clean. Yggur was terrified that the army had been destroyed; that Maigraith was already dead.

  Maigraith struggled against the dizziness. The fate of the army hung over a precipice and only she could save it. The Ghâshâd did not move. She sensed that they could not and still maintain the square—their control. She stared into the eyes of the woman in the center of the square, pressing with her will, feeling the woman’s will and the wills of the other eight opposing her. Maigraith’s head was shrieking now.

  Don’t give up! You can do it. You must! She had overcome them before and surely could again. She allowed the fury to grow in her until it burst out in an explosion of rage that turned the eyes of the woman in the center in on herself. The Ghâshâd gasped, weakened momentarily, then Maigraith leapt in amongst them, kicking out with both feet.

  The table toppled, knocking down the two people on the far side. Counters flew everywhere. The woman who had moved them put her hands to her temples and screamed. Another Ghâshâd staggered to his feet, to fall across the overturned table. He tried to claw his way up again but Maigraith knocked him down, seized the board and, swinging it in front of her, cleared the way to the door. Outside she broke the hinges and sent the two halves of the board spinning into an open latrine.

  Another roar came from just out of sight. Too late! she thought. The army is beaten; I am too. The Ghâshâd from the tent were just behind her. She could feel the pulse of their will beating against her, sapping her own, now badly weakened by the exploding aftersickness. She tripped over a body and then they were on her, their rubbery fingers sending thrills of disgust up her spine.

  “At last!” cried a wrinkled Ghâshâd woman, as if her life’s dream had just been fulfilled. Lying with her face pressed into the dust, Maigraith suddenly realized what the summer’s campaign had really been about. Her! All this misery and destruction had been to draw her away from her guards, to take her back for Rulke. She had fallen into the trap so easily.

  From the corner of her eye she saw someone descending into the latrine. In a few minutes the board would be restored, the square controlling the battle once more. She had created a disaster of her own, far worse than if she had done nothing.

  Five Ghâshâd made a wall in front of Maigraith, while two others seized her head and feet and began to carry her away. Maigraith groaned helplessly, too weak to help herself. What a fool she’d been, pretending to go to war in the name of good. She was as culpable as any other warmonger, but more foolish.

  They hurried her around a tent, then suddenly dropped her on her back and stood there—frozen-faced. Maigraith turned her head. At least a hundred of her troops surrounded them and more were running up.

  “Put down your weapons,” shouted one of her officers.

  One of the Ghâshâd screamed, a cry of shame and frustration, then threw herself at the soldiers. She fell instantly. Someone wailed. Above Maigraith a knife flashed in the early-morning sun. She watched it helplessly. Another cried “No!” and as the knife stabbed at her breast he flung himself under it. It plunged right through him front to back, pricking into Maigraith’s breastbone.

  The fellow with the knife rocked back on his heels.

  “We swore,” said the second to the first, coughed up blood and died.

  “I don’t understand,” said her officer, as the desperate Ghâshâd were led away.

  Maigraith rolled over and with an effort climbed to hands and knees. Her clothes were saturated. “They swore to Rulke that they would protect me with their lives,” she said, and fell down again.

  Her soldiers heaved her up with a triumphant roar. The battle was won; Bannador would soon be liberated, though the cost was too high for Maigraith to take any pleasure from her miraculous achievement.

  More soldiers appeared. “Maigraith,” gasped an ecstatic Vanhe, holding her hand. “I had not thought it possible. You are a truly great commander! Yggur himself could have done no better today.”

  Maigraith said nothing. The truth hurt almost as much as the aftersickness. Yggur would never have attempted such a folly, she thought. He would have starved the army and all of Bannador first. Then she fell into the dark.

  Vanhe appeared at her tent that afternoon, where Maigraith lay sick and sore in the slanting sun. Her illness was worse, and becoming worse yet.

  “I’ve brought the punishment charter for your approval.”

  Punishment charter? She could hardly think.

  “The Second Army rebelled and warred on their own comrades,” he explained. “The guilty must be punished and an example set.”

  “Read it!” She waved a limp hand.

  “The Second Army is to be disbanded and its standard broken; all badges of office and honor stripped and be-spoiled; its charter burned.”

  “Yes,” she said. “An example must be set.”

  “Every officer is to be slain in front of the assembled army, and every eighth soldier too.”

  “No!” said Maigraith, sitting up despite the pain.

  He continued: stolid, inexorable. “All their titles and the goods of their families, up to the second cousin, are forfeit and the families sold into slavery. Every remaining soldier is to be sold into slavery and their families prohibited from title or public office for a generation.”

  “That’s barbaric! I will not sign such a charter.” She felt sick at the thought.

  “Such is the punishment set out for rebellion,” said Vanhe. “The Articles of War are read to the army at all parades; each soldier can recite them by heart. For turning on their own, they are lucky that every one of them is not stoned to death.”

  “Yggur wrote these Articles?” Maigraith asked, forced to confront unpleasant realities that she had long skirted around.

  “He did, and has enforced them more than once. That is the way of war.”

  “But they were subverted by the Ghâshâd,” Maigraith pleaded. “They had no free will.”

  “My army did not rebel,” said Vanhe grimly. “It must be done.”

  She felt nauseated to think that she had given herself to such a monster as Yggur, a man who cared nothing for the lives of ordinary people. “I can’t—” cried Maigraith. Her head felt ready to burst open.

  “No matter,” said Vanhe. “Sleep on it. I will come back in the morning.” He bowed and withdrew.

  That was one of her worst nights, and by the time Maigraith finally found sleep she had convinced herself to abandon her army. She would not be responsible for such a crime, far worse than the war. If this was the price of maintaining Yggur’s empire it was too high. She would have no part of it, nor of him either!

  But if she did, what was she to do with herself? If she gave all this away, there would be nothing left of her life.

  At midnight the whole world turned upside down again.

  Maigraith slept, her long chestnut hair spread across the cream fabric of the pillow. She lay on her good side, for her shoulder had been hurt again in the battle.

  Faelamor stepped softly into the tent and stood watching her. Maigraith stirred, thinking that Vanhe wished to press her further, though it was not his custom to come this late. He was punctilious about the proper courtesies. Her guards would not have let anyone else through, but they could not stop this visitor. Slowly the sleep cleared.

  “Faelamor!” The fami
liar anxiety rose in her. “Where have you been all this time?”

  “The gate took me to Katazza, in the middle of the Dry Sea. That is where Tensor went to try his mad tricks.”

  “How did you get back?”

  “Through the gate, though it did not go where I expected. Perhaps that was Rulke’s doing.”

  “Has Yggur come back too?” Maigraith asked apprehensively.

  Faelamor mistook her expression for anxiety about him. “When I last saw him he was writhing under Rulke’s hand. I imagine he is dead.”

  “Oh, surely not!” said Maigraith. For all his faults, for all her earlier resolutions, she wished Yggur no harm.

  “That fool Tensor broke open the Nightland and let Rulke out. He overcame Yggur in an instant.” Faelamor showed no pity, no sympathy, but Maigraith would not have expected that of her.

  “Rulke!” Maigraith felt a surge of excitement. “He has been here already. He was terrible in his strength. Poor Yggur; he feared him so.”

  “Rulke here?” Faelamor was shocked.

  “Not here—Thurkad. Months ago. Just after Yggur went through the gate.”

  Yggur dead? It did not occur to her that Faelamor might not know how it had ended, or that she might even lie. If Yggur was dead, what was the point of being here at all?

  Faelamor gave her a moment to grieve while she thought. She was terrified of Rulke. He’d had so much time to set his plan in motion, yet she had scarcely begun her own. She had to act now. She needed Maigraith more than ever now and this might be her only opportunity. She could afford to be gentle.

  “Your lover is surely dead,” she said, but kindly this time. “There is nothing more for you here. Why do you cling to these foreigners? Let them fight this war if they must. They love their wars, these old humans, but when it is over nothing will have changed. I am going away now and will never return. Our time is near, the moment that I’ve worked toward all the long centuries of our exile. There is nothing here for you either.” She went to her knees, speaking humbly. “Come with me. I need you, Maigraith.”

  Maigraith was bemused and off her guard. She needs me! Never before had Faelamor said that; it had always been duty. But then, Faelamor’s emotions were malleable; always ready to serve her need.

  “You say you need me, and Vanhe said that they needed me. I had to believe that Yggur’s work was worthy, else how could I ever have cleaved to him? I should stay here. Here they want me for what I can do for them—I know that! Yet Vanhe has treated me with courtesy. Always you disparaged and humiliated me, made me to be of little worth. What do I care whether the Faellem return to Tallallame or not? They spurned me all my life. I will not go with you!”

  “Outside there is talk of death or slavery for the entire Second Army. Did you sign that warrant?”

  “No,” Maigraith whispered, staring up at her.

  “That is all they want you for, now that you have given them back everything they lost. To legitimise revenge and murder a thousand times over. How long will it take to erase that from your conscience? I never treated you that cruelly. Once it is done they will be rid of you too.”

  Faelamor came closer. She looked very controlled, very beautiful. Her eyes were golden in the lamplight. Maigraith had forgotten the compulsion put on her long months ago in the swamps of Orist, and did not think to put up her guard. She leaned away, but there was nowhere to retreat to. All her life and training had been a preparation against this need and nothing would prevent Faelamor from taking her.

  The compulsion rewoke with the touch. Maigraith could not dredge up the strengths that had enabled her to defeat Thyllan; that had allowed her to command and to be obeyed. They were lost somewhere deep inside her.

  “I beg you, please come,” Faelamor said. “Indeed I treated you badly; one of my many crimes. But that is past now and the time you have been trained for is here. Despite everything, I tell no lie when I say that I care for you like a daughter. I have great need of you. Dress yourself. Here is a bag. Gather your clothes and precious things—I will help you.”

  Maigraith saw a tear in Faelamor’s eye. You don’t have to go that far, she thought cynically. There was little here that was truly Maigraith’s, only her clothes and a gift from Yggur, an ivory bangle, so old that it was quite yellow and the original carving worn away to traces. It appealed to her because of its antiquity and simplicity. She slipped it on her wrist beside the ebony one that her unknown mother had given her at birth. Ebony and ivory—linked symbols of the two phases of her life, in a way.

  Dressing took only minutes, for all that she was in a daze: part rebellious, part on-edge, but wholly unable to resist. Soon her bag was full. Faelamor looked around the tent, gathering one or two items of clothing that had been forgotten. Maigraith still stood beside the bed, cradling a journal in her arms, her log of the daily affairs of the army. Tears ran down the cover.

  “That is precious? Then bring it, if it comforts you.”

  “It’s over,” Maigraith whispered, laying it down again.

  Taking one arm, Faelamor drew her outside. Maigraith’s troops were everywhere, but the glamour, or other form of illusion that Faelamor used, was so perfect that no one noted their going.

  They passed by a tent where soldiers were reeling about, drunk with wine and with their great victory. More than once Maigraith heard her name mentioned, and always they praised her in voices tinged with awe. Then they went between two hospital tents, and in one a soldier screamed while three people held him down and another sawed off a mangled leg. She peered in through the flap, recognizing the yellow hair. It was Dilman, her faithful guide, his handsome face twisted into a mask of agony. I did that, Maigraith thought. What’s going to happen to him? She tried to go to him but the compulsion would not allow her.

  “Come on,” said Faelamor.

  Dawn was breaking by the time they were out of the valley. They slipped into the forest and vanished, heading north.

  After riding non-stop for three days, Yggur was slumped in his saddle. Dolodha was tied to her saddle horn, the horse pacing slowly on. Suddenly they rode out of a clot of smoke into a guard post. The sun was rising.

  “Name yourselves,” shouted the guard, a bandy-legged man with a gray bandage around his head. He wore the uniform of the First Army.

  Dolodha roused. “Lord Yggur comes. Who are you?”

  “Lord!” cried the guard, saluting. “A great victory.”

  “Where’s Maigraith?” snapped Yggur.

  “Resting in the command tent,” said the guard, and his face lit up at her name. “That way!”

  Turning away from the worship in his eyes, Yggur ran all the way to her tent. He tore open the flap. His eyesight could just make out a lantern flickering in the last of its oil. “Is she here, adjutant?”

  He knew the answer, though. The tent was empty. A spasm passed through him. Maigraith was frugal; she would never have left a lantern burning in daylight.

  “Where is she?” he roared.

  No one had seen her. “Adjutant!”

  Dolodha snapped to attention.

  “Find her!”

  She soon came running back. “She’s gone from the camp. We found prints heading south, but no one saw her go.”

  Yggur went over the tent again. His eyesight told him no more but this time he smelt something familiar, a trace of Faelamor. “Send Private Vanhe to me,” he roared.

  “You mean Marshal Vanhe?” Dolodha said nervously.

  “Adjutant Dolodha, or slave?” he said in a deadly voice.

  She ran.

  Maigraith was gone and no one had the faintest idea where. But Yggur knew, and knew that it was ended too. She had grown beyond him; he would never get her back. The pain was unbearable and there was only one way that he could think of to deal with it. He made himself into a machine, utterly devoid of compassion or human feeling.

  He limped out of the tent, grim of face, and his first act was to strip Vanhe of his rank. His second: he signed th
e death warrants. By sunset the Second Army was no more.

  24

  * * *

  A FEAST OF

  BAMUNDI

  After laying Selial to rest at the foot of the Rainbow Bridge, Karan and Llian had a rough journey across the sea, beating constantly into westerly winds in their wallowing old tub of a boat. The Aachim were unwontedly reserved, as was Karan. Hardly a word was spoken on the haul back to the boat or the trip across the sea to Meldorin.

  Suddenly the long gray shore of Thripsi appeared above the white-feathered waves and Karan woke from her sightless contemplation of the distance to realize that Malien was talking to her.

  “What’s that?” Karan asked dreamily.

  “I said, “ ‘Where do you want to go now?’ ” We’re sailing west from here, to the Great Library.”

  “Why there?” Karan had assumed that the Aachim were going back to Thurkad. This raised all sorts of problems, not least how she and Llian were going to get to Gothryme.

  “Private business.”

  “I’m going home,” said Karan. “Better land us at the nearest port—Siftah, I think it’s called.”

  “Will you sail to Thurkad?” Malien asked as they went forward to speak to the captain.

  “Yggur’s there!” Karan exclaimed. “I’m afraid, Malien. Afraid for Llian, and for myself too—Gothryme is the closest place to Shazmak. Rulke might be there already. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Have you had any more dreams?”

  “Not lately.”

  “Well, whatever your troubles, it’s better to suffer them under your own roof. But go secretly, by the back roads.”