Wintermoon

by Mercedes Lackey

  Exactly then a voice called down from the beacon above.

  “Who is there?”

  It was the voice of a woman, and not young.

  “Stay where you are, Mother,” Clirando shouted, “till I deal with these pigs.”

  The old voice broke into a cackle of laughter. “Pigs? Is that what you see? Deal with them? I doubt you can.”

  Something came slithering and bouncing down the stone hill behind Clirando.

  She turned, affronted but not amazed to be attacked from both sides, and saw a large wedge of dark wet bread falling. It shot past her, landing between her and the pig things.

  “Let them have that, whatever they are, a morsel of comfort,” called the old woman from the beacon. “And you come up here to me.”

  Clirando could see the pigs were sniffing after the bread, creeping forward to it, more interested apparently in that than in the warrior girl.

  So Clirando jumped at the hill and ran up it, leaping over the loose stones and tufts of lichen.

  At the top she looked back down. The pig things were eating the bread, sharing it in an unusually well-mannered way among them. It had been soaked in wine or beer, and obviously pleased them. One animal raised its head, and from its snout came the strangest sound, a kind of jeering whine—nearly human.

  “So it’s pigs, is it?” said the old woman. Clirando turned again and saw her. She was sitting around the far side of the beacon, weaving on a little upright frame, a cloth of grey and red. “Pigs for you,” she said.

  “What are they?” Clirando asked.

  “Yours,” said the woman.

  Clirando let out a bark of mirth. “They’re nothing to do with me.”

  “Oh, you think not?”

  The woman herself wore a mantle that was grey and bordered by red. She looked ancient as the rock, but her eyes were still black and bright.

  “Mother,” said Clirando, “thanks for your help. Now perhaps you’ll tell me, did a band of girls come by this way, warrior women of Amnos going to the festival of the Seven Nights?”

  “Warriors?” asked the old woman. Clirando thought she had a clever, wicked face. “They’d be all in their fighting garb, with swords and such, walking proud?”

  Clirando nodded.

  “Nothing like that,” said the old one.

  “Then—Mother—if they went by you, how were they?”

  “Oh, I saw no one,” said the woman. “I was asleep. I lie up in that hut over there, while I tend the beacon. Tonight I must light it for the moon. Fire, to tempt the moon to shine full.”

  I’ll get nothing helpful from her, thought Clirando. The old one had the look she had seen on the faces of certain grannies in the town, who found everything the young did funny, enjoying scorning and misleading them.

  “Well, my thanks in any case.”

  Clirando moved off over the hill. She passed the leaning hut—it looked as if no one had stayed there for ten years or more. Glancing over her shoulder, she noted the old woman had disappeared around a jut of rock. Had she been real?

  This is a place of demons and shadows.

  At least the pigs were not now on her track. Clirando reached the beacon hill’s foot and broke into a fast lope.

  She came to the descent and the edge of the forest just before noon. Picking her way down, she found a trail, now and then carved to earthen steps at the steeper spots.

  An altar stood by the path side, just in under the trees. A black formless stone was there, with a wooden cup in front of it, holding dregs of honey, from the smell.

  Prudently Clirando took out a sweet wafer from her food store and dropped it into the cup.

  “I don’t know you, but I respect you,” she said, bowing to the altar and the stone. Then she went down into the depths of the forest, dark green at noon as the heart of a malachite.

  2

  Story

  The pig creatures came back that night, with the dusk.

  She had thought she was free of them.

  All day Clirando had trekked through the forest. It was dark as a cellar in parts. In others long aisles opened, lit by filtered sunlight. Here and there the conifers gave way to oaks, and even beeches, about whose roots drifts of flowers sometimes lay. But the flowers were small and pale and the leafy cloudbursts of the canopy seemed full of cores of blackness. In areas the trunks of the pines massed thick as an army, closing off not only all light, but any view or path.

  Now and then Clirando heard birdsong. Once—only once—a single grey pigeon sped across from tree to tree. She saw tracks of deer and foxes, once of a wolf, and twice of boar—but none of the animals were ever to be seen. Elusive as the wildlife, her comrades from the band.

  Nowhere did she detect any evidence of their passing, either freely or as captives.

  Little streams went through the forest, often falling down over tall rocks into some pool below.

  By such a pool she decided to make her camp that night, and arranged it in the sunset hour.

  Clirando took from her pack a handful of oat flour and mixed it with water and raisins, putting the cake to bake in the fire. She sat with her back to the rock, the waterfall splashing softly to her left.

  Long shadows gathered as the peachy glimpses of the sky cooled.

  Well. There was no fear she would sleep again tonight. Clirando had considered what had happened on the beach. Since she only slept now if drugged, then she had been, and her band with her. They had talked quite a while over the food, so probably that was not at fault. Very likely the wine they had brought was the culprit. Clirando, who drank it the last, slept the last. She had left the skin today on the shore, because it was too cumbersome to carry. But who had done it? Who had put the sleeping draft into the wine, and why? Some new enemy?

  Tonight was the First Night of Full Moon.

  The old woman would be lighting her beacon, and all the other beacons would also beam out again along the coasts. And somewhere the island celebrated like the rest of the world—but where?

  Here in these trees she would see the moon, threading through the boughs, clear at the center of the glade, and over there in that gap.

  Clirando ate her oat bread and drank water from the pool. She tried not to think of pirates stealing up the beach to take her drugged girls for slaves. After all, there had been no marks of them anywhere inland. It seemed but too likely now they had been stolen away by ship. Why then did the robbers leave Clirando? Not tempting enough, perhaps, she thought ironically. Thestus had praised her looks, comparing her to a young lion. But Araitha was the beautiful one. And besides Clirando was “cold” and had no feminine talents—

  In a sudden rage Clirando hurled the husk of her bread into the fire. A splash of flame rose there.

  “I am not cold. I have passion. I showed you that, Thestus, but best I showed you when I beat you in the war-court.”

  Her voice rang hard on the silence, as if it hit the darkening sky.

  And in that moment, from out of the noiseless forest where not even the birds had sung a farewell to the sun, surged up a piercing, wailing, jeering cry.

  Clirando was on her feet, weapons ready.

  But after the jeer, silence.

  The forest breathed as the sea did, leaves touched by faint night breezes. Not a bird or animal had reacted to the unnerving noise.

  She had the rock behind her, the fire and the pool in front. A reasonable defensive position. She waited, tense as the sword in her hand.

  Minutes went by, three or four, maybe longer.

  Nothing stirred beyond the pool among the columns of the pines.

  The cry—some night bird, perhaps, some animal hunting? No, she had never heard such a screech from any animal or bird, or been told of one. But then again, Moon Isle was—

  Scalding her ears and brain, searing her heart and blood, the awful wail went up again. Now it had three voices.

  Human—it was like the jeering of some insane and evil crowd.

  She saw the
m trot, the three of them, from among the trees and the folding cloak of night. The pig monsters from the cliff top.

  Clirando bent and drew from her fire a long branch ripe with flames. She held it aloft in her left hand.

  Then purposely she walked by the fire, skirting the pool, taking measured steps.

  They stood together in a looser formation than before. The beast in the middle lifted its lip, and out came the mocking cry, full blast.

  She would move slowly, then sprint straight at them. Fire for the one most to the left, the sword through the neck of the middle one. Then around to take the third with whatever she had.

  She was shaking inside herself, but also lit with fury.

  What happened then seemed like the childish joke of some cruel god.

  Something else, rushing like a whirlwind, bowled directly into Clirando, sending her headlong and sprawling. It leaped over her back as she went down—she felt it go, hot as fire.

  Pushing herself up, the burning branch lost, the sword juggled back into her grip, she checked in astonishment.

  What had knocked her down was the other animal she had met on the cliffs, the lion with the dappled pelt. Either that, or one exactly of the same species. It had jumped over her and gone plunging at the three pig things, just as she had planned to do. As she stood there gasping, she saw how it plummeted straight into all three, angling its leonine body as it did so, the large paws thrashing.

  Squealing now, all three pigs jumbled away from it. They went galloping back among the trees, the cat in hot pursuit.

  The last she saw of the incredible scene was the lion’s creamy tail lashing in darkness like a snake. Then everything was as it had been, and silent once more.

  Clirando retrieved the burning branch from the ground and stamped out the scorches it had made. Uneasily, confused, she turned to retrace her way to her fire.

  Something else was there.

  The reflection of it, fire limned, went down into the pool.

  Clirando straightened and raised her sword. Her green eyes were wide, and burning like the flames.

  “That is my place. Come away from it.”

  “But you left your place,” he said casually.

  “Did you see why?”

  “I saw something running off through the wood.”

  Clirando said, “Move over there, away from my fire. I shan’t ask you again.”

  “Were you asking? Very well then. As you like.”

  When he moved along the poolside and out onto the apron of turf, she never took her eyes from him. He too was a fighter—she could tell from the way he stalked forward, the coordination of his movements. But he had a beauty not often seen among mortal things, found more commonly in well-made statues of young male gods. His hair was so fair it seemed white as mountain snow. White as the moon.

  This one also is some illusion or demon.

  He stood now about twelve paces from her. Backlit by the fire, she could see a thin scar high on his right cheekbone, and how the muscles flexed in his arms as he slid the knife he had held back into its sheath. There were darns and recent tears in his clothing, and on one of his boots the silvery trail of a tiny snail that still slid along there, then descended to the grass.

  If a facsimile, he was a good one. He looked real.

  “We don’t have to quarrel, do we?” he inquired pleasantly. “We can share provisions, perhaps. I have some bread and cheese and a little alcohol.”

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “My name is Zemetrios—Zemetrios of Rhoia. I was told to come here. You too, I imagine. Unless this sacred and terrible place is your home.”

  The sword weighed heavy on her hand. She thrust it back into the sheath, almost startling herself. Tiredness droned in her head and up her spine.

  “Very well. I accept your words.”

  “Then I may share your fire?”

  “If you like. It’s the oldest law of the gods, isn’t it? To welcome the stranger.”

  “But how unconvinced you sound,” he said.

  He waited for her to seat herself, but she waved him down first. They sat at opposite sides. Around them the night was now noiseless and, beyond the range of the light, impenetrable.

  “The moon will rise in about two hours,” he said.

  He set out his provisions, the cheese and loaf, the flask. Clirando had eaten, but since she had accepted the terms of hospitality, she created another of the oatcakes and handed him an apple. She waited until he had swallowed a bit of the cheese before she would try it.

  She saw he noted this, but he said nothing.

  She wished he was not here.

  They did not speak beyond the barest civilities. After he had drunk from the flask, he offered it to her, having first wiped the lip of the vessel.

  Clirando took one sip, for politeness. It was some raw spirit of Rhoia, not really to her taste.

  “Since we’re two now,” he said, “perhaps we should set a watch.”

  “You speak like a soldier,” she said.

  “I am—I was. I’ve fought in the king’s legions. Traveled quite a distance, seen the wonders of the world. But that’s done now.”

  His eyes, a clear deep blue, looked away into his past. Clirando could see he beheld something there, bleak and unforgiving.

  What else? This place was for testing and penance. For punishment probably.

  She wondered what he had done, then chided herself for being at all interested. He might be dangerous, that was enough to know.

  “Well,” she said, “I’ll take the whole watch. I’ve already slept my fill.” The lie was practiced, ready.

  He lifted an eyebrow at her. “You don’t trust me, then.”

  Clirando smiled. “Of course not. Why should I? But I’ll take the watch anyway. If anything occurs, I will wake you.”

  “Wake me when the moon rises,” he said. “I want to see it. The last time I saw the Seven Nights I was only eight.” He stretched out with no pretence or air of feeling vulnerable. His movements were both masculine and graceful, a pleasure for anyone to observe, she thought sourly; a pity they should be wasted on her. “I wonder how it is,” he murmured, “she can renew herself these seven times together. Scholars have written,” he added dreamily, “there’s more than one moon involved in these nights—our own, and six of her sisters she calls from other spheres….” He turned his head a little and fell, apparently, instantly into sleep.

  It might be an act. But Clirando thought not. The gods knew, she had in recent months had endless opportunities to study the sleep of others.

  And for a stupid instant she felt jealous of his ability to sleep so simply. To her, now, it was an alien concept.

  When the moon rose he woke anyway, the way in fact Clirando herself had often done, sleeping in the open. They said, if the full moon touched your face with her white hand, you roused. In the past of course, Clirando had then gone back to sleep.

  “There she is,” said the man called Zemetrios. He lay still, looking up.

  Together they stared awhile at the bright disk passing over the glade, reflecting like pearl in the pool.

  “The moon looks as it always does at full,” he remarked.

  “What did you expect?”

  “Something more—as these are the Seven Nights.” He sat up abruptly, stretching so she heard the strong muscles crack in his arms. “I’ll take the watch now, if you like.”

  “No need,” she said.

  “Come on, girl. You’re a trained fighter. You’d know in a split second if I was trying anything—doubtless you’d kill me.”

  “Doubtless I would. But I have no difficulty in keeping the watch myself.”

  He said, “You look tired to your bones.”

  Clirando blinked, affronted and defensive.

  “That’s for me to judge.”

  “Then I’ll say no more. But at least, will you tell me your name? You have mine.”

  It was true, in courtesy she owed
him that. “Clirando, one of the warrior women of Amnos,” she said shortly.

  “Yes, I thought you’d be from there. Your bands are highly spoken of.” He paused, looking now down into the moon-shining pool. “Clirando, in fairness, I’d like to tell you something of myself. Of what sent me here.”

  “I ask to know nothing.”

  “Or you’d prefer to stay ignorant of me? Well and good, but this island is no place for human secrecy or deception. Nor do I think it the best place to travel alone.”

  Scornfully she said to him, her heart beating too fast, “So you’re afraid of the Isle? My regrets. But I’m no companion for you. I have my band to think of—” and broke off, aware that she had lost her band and very likely would never find them again. A wide grief swept through her and a sense of shame. She had failed her girls.

  He said, “Do me the kindness then, Clirando, of letting me tell you of my crime. In the temples of the Father, anyone may go and tell his worst sins to a priest, if the burden becomes too great. And I know, in Amnos, there is also a priestess tradition among the female warriors.”

  Clirando lifted her eyes from her own emotions, and looked at him levelly.

  He took this as his cue. Clirando did not know if she had meant it to be one.

  “I killed a man,” Zemetrios said woodenly. He began to gaze again into the pool. “Fair and square, you might say, in a duel outside my father’s house. Or my house, since my father died last year.”

  Clirando watched him.

  The moon lighted his face, but his eyes were shadowed, looking down at the water.

  Zemetrios of Rhoia told her how the man he had slain had been his best friend. “We’d fought as comrades in the legions since both of us were seventeen. He was a fine soldier, loyal and trustworthy and clever. We were like brothers from the first. We’ve fought side by side in enough battles…been promoted to the rank of leader at the same time. I was at his wedding. A pretty girl, a sweet girl. I don’t know where she’s gone now. She ran away from him, you see. That was after he changed into another man.”

  A silence.

  “What do you mean?” Clirando heard her voice. It had a sound of awe. Zemetrios had caught her with his storytelling. She must be on guard.