The Moon Child

by Mark Lucek

  ‘But how can that be? Surely not even the Leszy could be so cruel.’ Iwa shivered. Of course, the spirits of briar and leaf could do as they chose, particularly in the deep forest where they were unused to being disturbed by men.

  ‘Because this place belongs to the craft,’ Miskyia said simply as she bent low, her voice hushed as if about to reveal some great secret. ‘Once there was magic everywhere. The sky and mountains danced to its spell, the breeze crackled with it and the streams echoed to its call. But then the world entered a new age and magic seeped away into the dark corners and little-known parts. Its currents hardened and became more difficult to find.

  ‘Once there were many creatures like Sturmovit. He is one of the Karzełek, a cave dweller, one of the elder races who used to live deep within the womb of Matka Ziemia. Now he and his kind are few, driven to the deepest mines and the edges of the world.’

  ‘Is he bound to you?’ Some of the hunters told stories of creatures who lived in the deep caves. Sometimes the creatures would help those who’d strayed too deep into the dark and guide those who were lost. But, as they neared the cave entrance and the light the hunter would look around to find that the Karzełek had melted into the shadows. However, there were many who scoffed at the stories and claimed that such creatures were nothing more than men who’d lived too long alone in the caves, so that the rocks had driven them mad.

  ‘He is bound to the service of this place, as am I. Do not worry, he will look after you, though it would not do to get on his bad side.’

  ‘I’ll remember not to whistle.’ In the stories the Karzełek were not always so welcoming. Though they could often be friendly, it was best not to antagonise such things in case they pushed you down some deep ravine or led you further down into the caves so that you’d become lost forever. And one of the surest ways to displease them was to whistle. Perhaps their ears were like a dog’s and could hear all sorts of things, or else maybe things sounded different deep underground.

  ‘So you know something of the Karzełek. I would not have credited you with knowledge of such things.’ She gave Iwa a sideways glance as if trying to figure the girl out.

  ‘I’ve heard the stories. Godek saw one of them once when he went after some of the stones that the traders like.’

  ‘Then he was blessed to have seen such a thing, for they rarely inhabit the world outside anymore.’

  ‘Godek always said they were nothing but hermits, cast out and lost in the dark.’

  ‘Cast out, yes, but neither lost nor hermits. Their ears are sharp and the voices of men echo in the gloom, so the sound disturbs them, whistling especially. And they have a fear of those who cover their heads, though I have never found out why. Sturmovit keeps many secrets, he and his kind are relics of a bygone age. There is little magic now in this world.’

  ‘But some people are still born to the craft… like I’m supposed to be?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, it can be taught, even to those for whom it does not come naturally. But some are born with the power already dancing in their veins. It is a curse as well as a blessing.’ Miskyia glanced away and looked to the waters, her face sad and distant. ‘And it can lead you down paths that you’d rather not know.’

  She walked away, her feet as silent as any hunter. Iwa padded after, rushing to keep up. They were on the shore; no breeze disturbed the waters. Further along the water’s edge was a crude wooden jetty, half obscured by mud-choked reeds. Moored by its side was a small wooden boat, little more than a hollowed-out tree trunk tapered at one end to form a rough canoe. ‘What about the world outside – does magic work there?’

  ‘Not as well,’ Miskyia said, with just a touch of sharpness in her voice: she hadn’t realised that Iwa had followed. ‘The craft is always drawn to the hidden places of the world and they are becoming harder to find. The world changes, continents shift, seas change their course, even the seasons alter, and magic is less common than it once was.’

  ‘Though it hasn’t entirely disappeared,’ Iwa said, looking around for some landmark so that she could fix this place. Now she knew that Miskyia was as mad as the krol. The mountains and the land were eternal and winter had never been anything else but winter.

  ‘I can guide you,’ Miskyia replied. She took Iwa’s hand and pressed it to her. ‘There is so much that you have to be wary of. Our way is so difficult and fraught with peril.’

  And I want none of it. Iwa smiled. Yet for all her reservations she couldn’t help but like the woman. As a rule the clan were slow to trust outsiders. Even those of other clans had to prove themselves. At the great clan meet they were slow to mix, until the rituals began and the food was shared and the traders’ vodka opened. Then of course things would be different and they’d be united by their common tongue and gods. But some of the reservations would remain, the men often watchful and the women guarded, at least until the dances started.

  But this woman seemed different somehow, for all her talk of magic and the craft. There was an ease about her which Iwa had rarely encountered. Hunters were always watchful, always waiting. Iwa glanced around, there was a coldness to the air. She didn’t trust this place, there was something wrong about it, a stagnant scent from the still waters that lay brooding in the darkened corners.

  On the ground ahead there lay the remains of what, to her, appeared to be the trunk of a stone tree. Behind it more columns rose, cracked and worn, to form what had once been a colonnade, though the roof had long since been smashed and the slates lay scattered on the ground, barely visible amid the undergrowth.

  ‘But that is enough for now. My master calls and his hands must answer.’

  ‘Jezi Baba?’ Iwa said in shock, straining her ears, but she couldn’t pick out any call or noise at all. A chill run over her as she looked into Miskyia’s face, her fondness turning to a crawling fear.

  ‘Why talk of the night hag?’ Miskyia said in a voice so smooth that it almost disguised the hint of concern hidden beneath the words.

  ‘Because I saw you…’ Iwa’s voice trailed away, but it was too late.

  ‘So this is not the first time that you have stumbled into this place.’ Miskyia threw her a suspicious glance. ‘I had some inkling that this was not your first foray into the hidden places. You carry the scent of such magic about you.’

  ‘I saw you cast your spell and Jezi Baba came across the water. She killed some of the woyaks too, earlier in the woods. I saw that as well.’

  The woman flinched but, when Iwa next glanced up, Miskyia had regained her composure. ‘If only I had the power to summon the night hag – but that was not Jezi Baba who you saw that night. It was my master.’

  ‘But she killed the woyaks because they want to destroy the forest.’

  ‘That too was my master, and his name is Bethrayal.’

  ‘Bethrayal?’ Iwa tried the name, so strange and unfamiliar on her tongue.

  ‘Silence, child, that is not a name to be uttered lightly, least of all here. These stones have long memories. Not that this is his true name, even I dare not speak that here.’

  ‘I thought that this place belonged to him.’

  ‘Once, long ago. He stood before these very stones, lord of all. Many people owed him homage and were proud to call him lord. He was called by many names then. From here he worked his magic and protected the forest, but he had many enemies and they gathered to kill him.’

  ‘Didn’t his magic protect him?’

  ‘Magic is a double-edged sword, and his enemies numbered many Czarwonica witches and Molfar warlocks amid their hordes. There was a great battle that shook the mountains to their core. It took more than a dozen Molfar warlocks and many hundreds of men, but eventually my master was defeated and cast out to become nothing more than a wraith, prowling the outer dark beyond the firmament that rages between the worlds. Powerful spells keep him from returning. Hush now and you may hear them weave their magic still.’

  ‘So he cannot come back?’

  ‘Much of his magic was
destroyed in the final battle and even some of his own spells turned against him. For centuries he has roamed the outer dark, his name all but forgotten except here. The stones carry his memory, whispered in the cold depths of night. It was here that I came across them and was bound to his service.’

  ‘So that’s why he can’t be seen, except as mist?’

  ‘Good,’ Miskyia smiled, ‘you are quick to grasp the truth. He has not the power to come fully into this world. There is a way for him to return, but the spell requires an amulet and a weaver of power to wear it.’

  ‘And this will bring him back?’

  ‘It acts like the totem you spoke of earlier, but it is very much more powerful. My master created it in the final dark hours when the battle turned against him and fire raged across these stones. His hearth guard died here, cut to pieces in the outer halls. His enemies thought that they had vanquished him forever.

  ‘Yet they were all deceived, for in those final hours the Lord Bethrayal took an ancient gem, cut from one of the deepest mines where even the Karzełek feared to tread, and wove his magic deep into it so that his power would never entirely be forgotten. It is his only link with the world, a tiny foothold through which he hoped to return.’

  ‘Couldn’t this Lord – I mean your master,’ Iwa corrected herself hastily, peeved at not being able to utter his name when Miskyia did so freely, ‘use the gem anyway?’

  ‘No, he is now condemned to prowl the outer dark. The power of the gem must be wielded by a Molfar or somebody who has the craft so that they can act as a bridge between the gem and the Lord Bethrayal. I do not think that his enemies knew about it or else they would have sought it out and destroyed it long ago. Nobody knows what next happened to the gem. All knowledge of it was swept away from the memory of men and soon it was as if the thing had never been.’

  ‘The magic of the stones couldn’t search out this totem and so they needed you to look for it,’ Iwa blurted out, pleased with her own intelligence.

  ‘I scoured the forest for many years trying to find it. I knew that the gem had been set into an amulet, but nothing more. The woyaks blundered across it and handed it to that fool priest of theirs, as if it were nothing more than a child’s trinket. Ah, if only I were powerful enough to face them myself, but as long as they have the amulet then I am lost.

  ‘They are wicked men, nothing but the flotsam of a hundred petty wars. How easy it would be for my master to wipe them out if only he could enter this world fully. It takes all my power just to conjure him here for a short while and, even then, the link with this world is weak.’

  Suddenly, Iwa remembered the two dead woyaks in the woods. Now she realised what had been missing that night. She could clearly see the terror in the faces of the survivors, hear the note of horror in Grunmir’s voice, but they hadn’t been surprised. It was no natural death, yet nobody asked for an explanation, as if they had witnessed such deaths before. ‘Your master has killed woyaks before.’

  ‘They robbed him of the amulet and he will have it back, even if he has to kill this krol of theirs and all his woyaks. That is what you want too – right?’ Miskyia placed her hand on Iwa’s head. ‘I was there the night the woyaks raided your camp and I saw you run into the river. It was my magic that made you turn back. If only I could have helped further, but my powers are not strong enough to take on that fool priest, not when he has the amulet. He does not know what he has, but his craft feeds off the spells locked away in that talisman. No doubt he hasn’t the vaguest understanding of the amulet or how it helps him. If he did, then he would be a fool not to fling it into the deepest mire, for its power will gradually consume him, until there is nothing left but dust. The amulet was meant for a sovereign mage, not some petty trickster. So it appears that we have an enemy in common.’

  Iwa paused and looked at the water as it lapped dully around the shore. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘we do.’ As she looked into the waters a vision stirred. She saw herself leading Jezi Baba through the camp with the hunters bowed before her and the decapitated heads of the woyaks hanging from the bracken. But then she remembered the bear pit and, at the thought of Jarel’s betrayal, a wave of anger swelled inside. Let the woyaks do what they want with the hunters: lock them up in their stinking ships to rot for all I care. Yet what was she without the clan? She hadn’t thought about baby Tomaz and, though she hardly believed it, she missed the child. He shouldn’t have to grow up in the shadow of some krol. Iwa looked out at the far line of trees and a cold, dark, lonely feeling came over her. Slowly she turned and realised that she had gripped Miskyia by the hand.

  ‘Now I must leave you,’ the woman said. ‘I have much to prepare before tonight.’

  ‘Are you going to summon him again?’ Iwa tried to make the question sound as innocent as possible.

  ‘That fool woyak priest has found a way to protect the camp and my master is angry. He rages for the talisman and bids me to summon him so that he can try and break the woyaks’ defences. But do not fret, child, stay here and you will be safe. There is food, water and protection.’

  Iwa smiled and watched Miskyia walk away. Part of her liked the sorceress but she’d never been quick to trust and the fact that she was scared of this strange woman in flowing robes made her want to run away all the more. Quietly she sank back against a wall and tried to go over the landmarks that would guide her to the boat by the jetty. Like all the clan she carried a map of the forest in her head; hundreds of rocks, streams and other markers all linked together into a mental atlas more complete than any trader’s chart. The clan had little use for parchment or drawings and, by the time of her seventh summer, Iwa could recite the most complex of routes by memory. Missing even the smallest landmark could make the difference between life and death. She’d managed to map out a good portion of the temple almost without thinking. She’d been able to work out that the altar where Miskyia had summoned the Lord Bethrayal was on the other side of the island, with the main body of the temple between it and the jetty.

  Just wait until the moon rises, she told herself, and then Miskyia will summon this Lord Bethrayal or whatever he wants to call himself. Then she’d be alone. By her side, there was a small platter of fruit. Cautiously, Iwa helped herself to an apple; somehow she didn’t think that escape would be that easy.

  Chapter Twelve

  Silently she crept along the walls and pressed herself into the shadows. Night had fallen quickly. Breath held, she peered through a crack in the wall and drew back in fear. Miskyia was there, at the foot of the tree, its withered branches reaching into the gloom.

  With a gasp Iwa drew back. Sometimes, at the river’s edge where the trees thinned and grew alone, the wind would play amongst them and weave their branches into odd patterns. The clan would worship those trees because the Leszy would often like to live within the twisted patterns. ‘This one weeps in the wind,’ the old ones would say. ‘The Leszy who lives there must be sad.’

  But she’d never seen anything like this. Years of the craft had woven about the branches, twisting them around each other like mating snakes. The bark glistened with an unnatural radiance and patterns of light glowed in eerie bands that seemed to shimmer across the smooth surface. From somewhere in the dark a drumbeat rose and brought with it a crackle of magic. Spells, ancient and wizen, slithered about the branches.

  Before it Miskyia danced, her steps carefully crafted to the beat of the drum and the pulse of magic. Her hips swayed as she stood before the tree, the magic crackling about her as she reached into the branches and took down a pig’s head.

  Slowly Miskyia’s lips began to move. Iwa couldn’t make out the words, but somehow she knew that this wasn’t any language that she would have understood. The speech rang out alien and cold as the stones crackled with primeval magic. The air became hot as an ancient chant took hold and Miskyia placed the pig’s head over her own. For a second it appeared nothing more than a lifeless husk. Iwa looked on in horror as the thing merged with the woman’s
flesh, the pig’s neck moulding into Miskyia’s skin until the two had become one.

  Iwa had expected blood – the pig’s head looked freshly slaughtered and the gore should have run freely – but there was nothing, not even a trace on Miskyia’s neck, and it was that which terrified her the most, far more than the sharpened tusks or the skin which glowed with a pale, fatty luminescence.

  Still the chant continued from behind the pig’s head. A different voice took hold, brutal and arrogant, as the eyes burst into life, blood now spilling from the neck to run in tiny rivulets across Miskyia’s flesh. Yet there was something wrong about it, the way the blood oozed with an unnatural slowness, reaching down like fingers to the base of her neck. Then, very slowly, the chant subsided and above it the beat of the drum could be heard again. Breath held, Iwa couldn’t move, even as the pig face turned and began to walk towards the archway. Around it ancient spells swelled, malignant, moribund, the air grown thick so that she had to gasp for breath as she pressed further into the shadows. The thing was at the archway, so close now that she was sure she’d be seen.

  With a crackle of energy the creature walked into the room, its cloak rustling with every step. And, for one awful moment, it paused as if about to turn and see her, while the air burned with power and ancient magic. Iwa put her hand to her mouth to stifle her scream; it was impossible to imagine that Miskyia, or any trace of her, lurked behind that pig’s face. But then, just as it appeared that the creature would turn, it moved on, and the air grew cold and stale behind it.

  By now the drum had gathered pace. Iwa tried to force herself on, but her legs wouldn’t let her. She was too terrified to think who, or what, was playing the drums. She’d no idea how long the ceremony would last. Once it was finished, all chance of escape would be lost. Yet, still her limbs stayed rooted and refused to bend to her will. What if Miskyia could get this Lord Bethrayal to free the women? Iwa no longer had any faith in the men, or the power of the clans. The hunters have betrayed us, and they’ll leave the women to be slaves in the Arab lands, or worse.