The Valley of Ten Crescents Series (Box Set: Books 1-3)

by Tristan J. Tarwater

  “Pictures,” Tender said. His back was to her and he flipped through the pages, the thick paper rustling. “Drawings. Some of people. Mostly of people.” Tender set a chair upright so he could sit on it. “The later ones are of people from here. I’m in here--” The way his voice cut short suggested something was wrong. Tavera looked up and saw he blushed slightly. He stared at the picture for a while before he turned the next page. The lock on the trunk popped open right when it was supposed to.

  “The man from yesterday, he’s in here!” He almost knocked Tavera over as he crouched next to her, but she steadied herself with one hand. It was undeniably the stranger. He was younger, a smile on his too-thin mouth, but it was him. The illustration was on one of the first pages of the journal. Beside his picture, in careful yet shaky handwriting was written, “The Leader of the Temple of the Red Moon Rising. Cy, the inquisitor, the twister of words, the render of hearts.”

  “What do you know about Sister Kella, Braxton?” Tavera kept her voice soft and low, a seriousness seeming to weigh heavily around them. Tender took in a deep breath, looking down at the face printed in black-and-red ink.

  “She was sent here by her superiors a few years after my mother died,” Tender began. “She was once a priestess at the Waning Crescent Temple, in Reedsend.” He stopped.

  Tavera shook her head. She knew there was more to it. Tender had spoken about wanting to help Kella. As the leader of the town and barkeep, he probably knew more about Kella than he let on, something he had hinted at when he had spoken with Tavera just last night. Tavera hadn’t really listened, at least not about Kella. Tavera sighed. “What else, Tender?” she asked quietly. “Why did you want to help her?”

  Tender looked down at the book, turning a page. “When she arrived here,” he began, “she was already in a bad way, drinking often and too much. She always seemed…distraught. I would fetch her for prayers and she would be speaking nonsense.” He stopped again, turning another page in the journal. “I wondered why they sent her here, in the state she was in. I’d find her talking about how they owed her and how they had used her. Kella never said who ‘they’ were.” The barkeep’s shoulders drooped, and he turned a few more pages in the book.

  Tavera got up and stood beside Tender, looking over the entries. The portraits were interspersed with menacing landscapes and troubling scenes, dark pathways and staircases all leading off into the distance. One motif played throughout the journal: a crescent moon, sometimes in black, sometimes in red, off in the distance. Something about those pictures sent a chill down Tavera’s spine. Tender closed the book.

  “I think we’re going to find that out ourselves.” Tavera went back and crouched before the trunk, pushing it open. “What about this ‘plate’ you mentioned?”

  “I have no idea,” Tender said. “I mean, I’m guessing it’s just a Goddess Plate like the ones they use in bigger temples, but we’ve never used one here. My mother didn’t use them and Sister Kella kept our tradition.” Tender scratched his head, mussing his hair “Obviously, he means a specific one. He seems to think she has it or knows something about it.”

  Tavera pawed through the items in the trunk. A few garments, robes, as well as a bottle of liquor, dark with age. A few bottles of ink threatened to ruin the contents of the trunk. Several blotchy stains suggested quite a few bottles of ink had accidentally opened inside. With a sigh, she pulled the garments out, throwing them onto the mattress.

  “Braxton!” Heavy footsteps preceded Little’s entrance. His blue eyes were big, his voice deep, probably one of the few things he shared with Tender. “Braxton, it’s going to rain. It’ll wash out the tracks if we don’t go soon.”

  “It’s alright, Little, we’ll…I think we’ll be on the road soon enough,” Tender said. A folded sheet with embroidery at the edges covered whatever was at the bottom of the trunk. As Tavera lifted it her fingers ran against something sharp and cold, the pain in her fingers making her shout and draw her hand back with a start.

  At the bottom of the trunk were more journals and piles of yellowed parchment. Gruesome pictures littered the bottom in rusted red and muted black. Faces and alien landscapes stared up from the paper. Even more troubling than the pictures was the crescent-shaped sickle. Its blade was orangey-red with rust and disuse. Bright red blood drops ran in a line across the papers, Tavera’s blood a lively note on the red-and-brown tarnish of the curved knife.

  “What the twixt is this?” Tender demanded. Tavera watched as he bent down, picking up the sickle in one hand and one of the books in the other. The binding cracked as he opened it, pages threatening to fall out. Tender turned the pages, licking his lips as he looked them over. Little stood up and peered over his shoulder, his watery blue eyes wincing as they fell upon the page.

  Tavera stood up finally, walking over to Tender’s other side to get a look. They were filled with more pictures but this time, the illustrations included Kella. Tavera recognized her face, creases under her eyes, eyes squeezed shut, dark and empty. In some of the pictures she was lying in a corner somewhere, the word “forget” scrawled across the page dozens of times. The face of the man called Cy showed up with her. In some of the images his face was calm or laughing. Other times anger twisted his already frightening features. As the pages turned, the stranger’s face came up more often and the crescent watched from the corners of the page, a smile on the kidnapper’s face. The handwriting became more illegible, though the pictures became more hopeful. Two figures were bright while the scene around them was dark, both always in the same room, the stone floor sketched with a meticulous hand, the texture of the walls evident in the inks. Tender turned another page and all three of them drew in their breaths.

  Drawn across the center of the book, taking up two pages was a horrific rendering of the Goddess. She held a sickle in one hand, a humanoid figure in the other. The Goddess held the figure by the hair, back arched. A long, red slit had been painted down the middle of the person, from neck to belly, the red paint used to stain the page allowed to drip. Below the figure was a bowl where the blood collected. From the surface of its ghastly contents reached a disembodied arm. The Goddess seemed to be looking down at the arm, her face calm, unaffected by the grisly mass of flesh in her arms.

  Tender tossed the book to the ground, the brittle pages snapping as they hit the floor. Something in the book caught Tavera’s eye. She had to will herself to reach down and pick it up but she did, flipping through the yellowed pages.

  Tucked between two of the pages, a short lock of red hair was lodged in the binding, whatever glue holding it there having lost its power long ago. In crisp-yet-wandering handwriting was written the simple phrase:

  Please, help me to forget.

  Something about the phrase was more chilling than the picture. Tavera snapped the book shut. The half-elf stared down at the journal in her hands, wondering what the priestess must have gone through and what her captors were now subjecting her to. She understood why the priestess drank and shirked her duties now. Though Tavera dreaded coming across the man named Cy again, she wished to help the priestess.

  Tavera jumped as Tender threw the curved knife onto the table with a clatter. The barkeep ran his hands through his hair, breathing heavily as he paced in front of the table. In his frustration, he kicked the overturned wooden chair, cursing as the wood cracked and the piece of furniture went flying across the room. For a moment all three of them stood silent, Tavera and Little too scared to cut through Tender’s emotions with their words and Tender breathing heavily, his eyes dark with anger.

  “We’re in over our heads!” he shouted, throwing a hand up in the air. He paced back and forth a few more times. “They, whoever they are, these cultists, they want us to get this plate and we have no idea what they are talking about, nor are we even sure of how to find them.”

  “I…I could maybe find them, Braxton,” offered Little, his voice shaky.

  “By the eclipse?! When is the eclipse?!”

&n
bsp; “Um…six days, Braxton.”

  “Six days!” Tender shouted. “Six! After seeing all this…it looks like everything has come full circle for Kella, hasn’t it?”

  Tavera stood there for a moment, her mouth hanging open. She shook her head. “You’re full of it.” Her words were sharp and loud. Little stared at her. Tender just blinked at her, looking stupefied.

  “You told me all you want to do is help people, give them their choices. You saw the sister. She was afraid and she was ashamed. She didn’t want to go with him. She called out to you for help and now that her voice has trailed off, you won’t answer her?” Tavera blinked and found an odd smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “How dare you say she’s getting hers because you’re…you’re scared.”

  “My brother isn’t afraid of anything, Miss Point,” Little said.

  “Shut up, Herix!” Tender shouted. Tavera heard him breathing hard and she knew he was trying to think of the best way to say what he wanted to say. The man drew in his breath, his hands falling to his side helplessly. “I am scared,” he said finally. “I am scared we won’t be able to help her. I’m scared because it might already be too late to help her. I’m scared we might find her and wind up…I don’t want to think about worst-case scenarios. I’m scared for the priestess and my brother who will invariably follow me.” He gestured at Little, who was still blushing at being chastised, his eyes wandering around the room.

  “Well, I’ll help you keep an eye on him,” Tavera said, watching Tender’s eyes for surprise. It showed faintly through his hopelessness and he laughed slightly.

  “I’m serious,” Tavera said, her cheeks warming as she committed herself verbally to the party. “That bastard took my dagger with him and he did something to my head I didn’t appreciate.” She shrugged, looking down at the closed journal in her hand and thinking of the priestess who she now realized had been so distraught. “Besides, I’ve had many a priestess help me during my life and I’d like to return a favor.”

  Tender watched his brother meander off across the small room, sighing heavily as he shook his head. “I won’t refuse your aid, though it would pain me to see something bad happen to you, Miss Point.” The same look he had given her the first time they had met returned to his face and he smiled at her, a bit of joviality returning to the room.

  “Don’t worry about me,” she offered, laughing gently. She started to gather up some of the drawings from the trunk and the journals; looking them over might offer up some clues. “I’m more than capable of looking after myself. Who knows? I might actually bail you out of a bad situation.” She tried to keep her words light but in her mind, the reality of what she said weighed heavily on her. This was the real reason she wanted to go. Tavera worried Tender would miss something or offer mercy at the wrong time and get himself killed. That Tender should die trying to help another human being seemed so fitting. Yet Tavera vowed to do her damnedest to keep it from happening. He was too good of a person to die from a knife in the back. Tavera was used to knives in backs. Who better to shield Tender’s than her?

  “Well, no one is going to be in any situations if we don’t find this plate,” Tender said, picking up one of the glasses on the table and looking into it. “Not that I’m sure we’ll find it. We don’t know what we’re looking for, and I’m not certain if we should give it to them.” He walked over and took one of the pictures Tavera held, grimacing at the image. “Whatever they would use it for, it cannot be good.”

  “If we can find it, we should,” Tavera said, tucking the papers into one of the journals. “If we find them and show up empty-handed, they might just take us prisoner. We’ll need it as bait.”

  “But we have to get going soon, Little says it’s going to rain and it’ll make the going slower.” Tender took the journal from Tavera and sat on the chair. “Maybe if we look over all of these, it will give us a clue as to the plate’s whereabouts and where they might have taken her.”

  “Cy didn’t just come here for a drink. He must think she knows and that we know. No point in telling us to bring it to him before the eclipse if he thought we couldn’t.” Tavera knelt down in front of the trunk, pulling out another journal and another pile of crisp, aging parchment. “Though if he was here, why didn’t he find it himself?”

  There was a loud crash and Tender jumped up from his seat. Tavera wheeled around instinctively to see what had made the noise. After a few breaths, Little emerged from the pantry area, a lopsided smile on his face. In his hands was a silver plate, shards of red pottery still encasing parts of it. “I found it.”

  Nausea rolled in the pit of Tavera’s stomach as her eyes fell upon the plate, a lump forming in her throat. It had been found. They would be going. Tavera, called Point, was going to travel to an unknown place and hopefully rescue an aging priestess who desperately needed her help. Their help. Her eyes looked toward Tender, his own face taut with surprise.

  “What…what do we do?” Tender rasped.

  “Well…we have six days, correct?” Tavera asked. She tried to picture the layout of Ayilkin in her mind and the Freewild. “We don’t know where Cy is.”

  “Little can track him,” Tender offered. Tavera glanced over and Little nodded enthusiastically.

  “Look, I don’t doubt your brother’s abilities as a tracker but a lot could happen in the next six days,” Tavera mused. “It might rain. And the Freewild’s a big place. I know. I’ve been through it. If the church sent her, they probably know where she came from. They probably know about this. Something about it, at least.”

  “Ayilkin proper is in the opposite direction of the Freewild,” Tender said. “If we head into Ayilkin, we run the risk of running out of time.”

  “We’ve got six days,” Tavera said, standing. “Did you not hear me? You been through the Freewild? It’s big. It’s constantly changing. A town thriving one summer might be abandoned the next. A border town would have the most recent information on what’s there now, to guide our way. Better to back track and make one trip than wander about. That’ll waste more time.” Tavera watched as Tender nodded. “What temple was Sister Kella with before she came here?”

  “Temple of the Moon in Morning,” Tender said. “It’s not far from the border of the Barony proper.”

  “If that’s where she was before she came here, I’m sure someone will remember her. I doubt she was unknown,” Tavera said. As soon as the words left her lips, she felt sorry too, remembering the look on the priestess’ face, the desperation in her final call for help. “We’ll get maps at the first town in, head to the temple and see what we can learn. Then a hard ride to wherever they say we should go?”

  “I…I don’t have any arguments,” Tender said. He sounded resigned, the confidence he usually exuded absent from his voice. He turned to his brother. Little still held the silver plate in his hands. “Little?”

  “I…guess…the plan makes more sense. Going blindly in rarely ends well,” Little muttered. He stared down at the item in his hands.

  “I’ll go make arrangements. May Her black hand guide us all.” The barkeep’s voice sounded hoarse and he coughed, standing up and walking toward the open front door, disappearing into the morning sun. Tavera decided it didn’t feel like morning and her stomach turned with nervousness. She looked down at the papers, hoping the busywork of trying to find clues in the drawings would distract her from her anxiety. Instead the images only worked her thoughts into a keen panic. When Little finally left, leaving her alone in the priestess’ home, Tavera pushed the papers aside, praying to the Goddess she would not wind up like one of the gruesome pictures.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Crossing Borders

  Tavera was certain she didn’t like riding horses. At least not by herself. Usually she rode in the backs of carts. When she did ride a horse, it was always with Derk in front. He was a good horseman, confident in the saddle and able to pick out a good horse and a good deal. But when she had been with Derk, time had rarely been of the e
ssence. They had spent many a day sitting in the back of a cart full of goods, paying their way with money or forage in the Freewild. Sometimes Derk would sing a song if asked kindly enough.

  The farmers and citizens of Whitend had offered their horses to the three of them for their quest. Little looked them over briefly before deciding on the three they now rode towards Reedsend. Tavera’s was a black stallion named Blackie, of all things, and she worried the horse sensed her inexperience. Worse still, Tender kept glancing back at her. Every time he did, his horse would veer over and her horse would trot.

  “You alright?” Tender asked, his brows furrowing. His horse veered again.

  “Yes,” she half hissed, pulling on the reins in an effort to slow the horse down.

  “You look worried,” he said.

  “Well, I’m sitting on something that outweighs me ten times over, with a brain and desires all its own,” Tavera said, looking down at the horse’s large neck. Its black ears twitched as a fly attempted to land on one of them. “I’m imagining dying at the hooves of this thing.”

  “I doubt the horse has a murderous bone in its body,” Tender said. “They eat plants, you know.”

  Tavera glared at him. “I know that,” she said. “I’m just saying, a horse is a big animal and they can get away. I’ve heard stories of them bolting at the slightest scare. I heard a man got his head knocked off, riding a horse. Another person, broken in three places. Died later, the both of them.”

  “Let’s not be giving the horses ideas, now,” Tender laughed. “We don’t need more gruesome tales.” His face grew serious and Tavera frowned, realizing her brief stories were probably not what they needed right now. “How about some funny stories?” Tender prodded. “Something nice?”

  “Not that much longer till Reedsend,” Little called back. Tavera sighed with relief. Most of the trip they had gone in silence just the sounds of the Valley in spring and the horses accompanying them. They had rode the first stretch quickly, hoping to cover ground. When they had stopped to water the horses Tavera had busied herself with the journals, skimming them for clues. Tender seemed content to whistle and Little wasn’t one for talk. The blond brother turned in his saddle, his horse snorting under him.“We should be able to see it once we get around this bend.”