Shadow Moon

by Chris Claremont

  “Y’ ride a horse up a hill, y’ give him his head, don’tcha know,” Morag explained when he crawled to the cockpit and asked what they were doing. Shando watched the lines and sails while she held the wheel. The crewman had gone below, to tend his friend. “Can go as fast as he’s able ’cause he’s pushin’ against the trail, against the weight o’ things. Turn around, though, start a descent, it’s way dif’rent.”

  They crested a line of swells, the hull rearing so high that the curve of bow to keel could be seen by anyone fool enough to stick a head over the side to look. Morag pushed the wheel, playing with the ship’s heading, and Thorn gasped as they seemed to skate down a vertical wall of water. A moment before, he’d been staring at air; now there was nothing off the side but black ocean, close enough to touch. Morag caught him by the collar, giving him the chance to wrap his hands tight about the rail before she snapped a quick-release shackle through his harness ring. She looked as though she sailed these monster seas all the time, but Thorn needed no InSight to see how concerned she was. There were lines gouged deep in the skin of her face, slashes reaching back from the corner of her eyes to her hairline, and others plunging past her nose and mouth, demarking the toll this ordeal took of her.

  “Go too fast,” she continued, as though this was a casual evening’s conversation in some comfy seafront tavern, “y’ can’t negotiate any turns, pitch y’rself straight off the road. Much the same here. Go into the wind, we have lots of control but no hope o’ lastin’ through the poundin’. Run before it, we’re not hit so hard, tha’ pressure’s gone. But we have t’ work t’ stay with the sea, t’ control the way we cross the swells, else we broach or worse. Anchor’s like a brake, keeps us from goin’ too fast, gives me the chance t’ ride the surge.”

  “For how long?”

  “Long as it takes, what’cher think?”

  “Or as long as we last,” said Shando.

  Thorn thought to go below, but there was more water than before despite the efforts of the pumps, and the stench was worse than any privy. The motion of the schooner wasn’t as harsh; she moved through the swells in long, sloping curves rather than the continual series of sharp buffets, but the wind had lost none of its force. Quite the contrary. It put a constant pressure on every component of the vessel, testing them all to the utmost.

  He heard a snap, akin to the breaking of a frozen branch, and Shando swept him down as a wire stay whipped past his head. Morag wasn’t so fortunate as the frayed end cut through coats and sweaters with the sinister ease of a multibladed razor. She went down with a cry, taking the wheel with her through a half turn that spun them toward the following sea. Shando placed his hand against Thorn’s back and literally threw the Nelwyn the length of the cockpit, to collide with the steering assembly.

  Thorn didn’t need to be told what was required. He grabbed for the spokes, hissing a curse as he barked a set of fingers on the ice-slick wood, pulling toward himself in a desperate attempt to restore their heading.

  It was a wild descent down the face of the wave, an even more lunatic climb, water crashing over the gunwale to fill the cockpit to his waist before draining out the scuppers. Shando ignored the flood, bracing his wife in place and tearing her oilskin jacket open to see how badly she was hurt.

  When he turned back to Thorn, he looked like a butcher, with blood on hands and arms, smeared wetly across his front. Thorn thought the worst.

  “No bones broke, thank the fates,” Shando told him. “But she’s sliced t’hell’n’ gone. Not a hope o’ patchin’ her wi’ any kind’a dressing; be there nowt y’ can do, mebbe?”

  They exchanged places, Thorn locking his harness to the side rail and straddling Morag as best he could. Her skin was as icy to the touch as the water, eyes disfocused, lips and fingertips blue with a mix of cold and shock. She tried to fix on him, but it was more effort than she could manage right then as he reached through the open coat to the ruin of fabric and flesh beneath. There wasn’t time to be pretty and he hoped she’d forgive him the scars he’d leave her with. He sent a charge of energy out his arms, so intense a burst that she spasmed up from where she lay, letting loose a scream that would put any banshee to shame.

  “Bride’s Gift, Nelwyn,” she said when he was done, tables turned between them so that he was the one bereft of strength and she holding him close, “y’re a useful bod t’have about.”

  “Don’t leave port,” he returned in like humor, “without one. My ears hurt, Morag.”

  “Swallow. Pressure within is greater than that without.”

  “Like being on a mountaintop, you mean?”

  “Aye, if y’ say so. Not much f’r climbin’, me, anythin’ but a masthead. Storm’s doin’. See the glass there,” and she indicated a barometer fixed in plain view next to the companionway. “Lower it goes, worse the storm.”

  “It’s very low.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Morag.” Shando, pointing from the wheel, while Burys—the less injured crewman—did his best to resecure the torn halyard. “See there, tha’ glow? Too big f’r a lighthouse.”

  Thorn wanted to stand for a better look, but he had trouble enough simply holding on, and knew as well that he’d have to clamber a goodly way up the mast to get a really decent sight. Even Morag’s view was limited to the moments when the stern popped over the crest of a swell. An occasion when he wished fervently for the eagles, and he felt a pang of longing for their God-like outlook on the world, the ease with which they bent the wind to their needs. At the same time he also knew they’d be far smarter than to venture into such a storm; this was a night to snuggle deep into their nest and wait for a decent dawn.

  “Angwyn, I’m thinkin’, Drumheller,” said Morag.

  “Aye.” In tone and taciturn manner, a match for her.

  “Fair protection, once we’re past the King’s Gate, from wind and water.”

  “We don’t want to go there, Morag.”

  “Thinkin’ aloud, is all. North coast’s a mess for two, three days’ sail at least.” Unspoken between them was the truth that, unless the storm moderated about them, they wouldn’t last so long. They’d been battling barely a night and they were already exhausted. The schooner might survive the pressures, their bodies would not.

  “No fair harbor,” she went on, “wi’ the force o’ the storm shovin’ us ever inward. Many’s a rover’s cracked on those rocks in decent weather—by the Gods.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, forcing Thorn to pluck the words as much from her thoughts as the air. He understood how she felt; his response was much the same.

  The bulk of the city was hidden by a headland that formed a natural barrier wall for the last stretch of shore before the Gate, as though there’d been a solid phalanx of mountains running all the way along the coast except for this one gap where some giant or other had seen fit to carve out an opening. Estates and housing tracts had gradually made their way toward the water, but they remained minor encroachments in what was still mostly undeveloped land. On a clear day, the tops of the major palaces could be seen from a seaward approach, and of course, Elora’s tower; the true glory of Angwyn, however, was saved until vessels actually entered the Bay.

  That had all changed. Imagine a city dipped in silver, or swept by the mythical Winter Queen until every surface was covered by layer upon delicate layer of glittering snowflakes that glistened and sparkled with a life of their own. The buildings were ablaze still, glowing from within like coals on a fire, except that these cast off no heat but instead absorbed it. Ice had been spun into gossamer spiderweb strands that linked every structure and, Thorn suspected, every being within the city walls, transforming the metropolis into a confection so delicate the slightest tap with a hammer would seemingly shatter it all to dust.

  Yet the appearance was deceiving. Thorn could feel the cold from here, not so much on his flesh but in the marrow of his bones and, deeper still, in that part of hims
elf he knew to be his Soul. A man might well be able to destroy the entire city with a single blow, but he’d be frozen solid himself long before approaching close enough to try. Sapped of purpose and will first, until what remained was an empty automaton plunging forward on sheer momentum. Sapped lastly of life, but more likely turned inside out and filled with whatever malevolent purpose now made its home within those great walls.

  “Never beheld evil before,” Morag said, as hushed and reverent in thought as in speech, as though any louder a voice might attract the attention of whatever force had struck down Angwyn.

  “We can’t go in there, Morag.”

  “Damn straight!”

  Taksemanyin’s head popped up the companionway steps.

  “Drumheller,” he cried, “Elora Danan is gone!”

  “There!” Another cry, another point, from Shando, to a figure clambering awkwardly up the forward companionway, making her way around the foremast until she was in front, with her back plastered to it.

  “Bleeding, bloody hell.” A snarl from Morag, that broke into a cry of agony as reflexes sent her after the girl, only to hurl her against the inescapable fact that her healing was far from complete. Pinned where he was by Morag’s body, and his own harness, there was no way Thorn could reach Elora, which left it up to the Wyr as Ryn levered himself fully into view and plunged ahead with wildly reckless abandon. Burys was closer than any of them, but he had his hands full with rigging as Shando guided the ship up the slope of the next series of waves. There was a different feel to these, broader and higher than what had come before, that made Thorn pause in his struggle to release his shackles and take a closer look around. A glance over his shoulder showed him that Morag had a similar realization, as stark on her face as the lines carved by hours of constant exertion and stress.

  “I am Elora Danan,” the child called, thin-voiced against the gale, with something to the way she spoke that brought Thorn back to her with a start, his own heart pounding fit to break his breast.

  “A Summoning!” he cried, mostly to himself because none of the others would understand. Without a clue to what she was doing, she was hurling her innate strength and power into the storm as a fisherman would a net.

  “Elora, no!” A desperation tactic, a command of mind as well as body, a net of his own to entangle her to silence before she went too far. But she was quicksilver in his grasp, as she had been in the Deceiver’s. Her power was wholly her own, answerable to none.

  “I am the Sacred Princess Elora Danan,” she said. “It is my destiny to rule the Thirteen Realms. It is your duty to obey! Wind and waves, hear me, I command you to be still!”

  She was hardly wider than the mast itself, a plump scarecrow in tattered finery, hair blown to hell, stinking of her own vomit, so weak she trembled where she stood. Yet she called the storm to silence, and for that first, wondrous moment Thorn thought that the girl—by sheer gall—had pulled it off.

  Suddenly the scene was gripped by an active silence. Thorn thought of the Scar, in those moments before the mountain powers came for him, and of the confrontation with the Deceiver, when even the concept of sound had been stolen away from the world.

  They reached the crest of the wave.

  And the mystery was broken by a hollow wail from Shando.

  “Oh, my God!”

  The moment was frozen, as though the world itself had been crystallized, just like Angwyn, every component element etching itself on Thorn’s brain with the terrible clarity found only at the height of a midwinter day. Before him, Elora stood like a ghost made flesh, her skin more pure even than alabaster, the same spectral silver as the moon. He couldn’t see her face, didn’t really need to, he thought he knew her well enough to picture the features in his mind’s eye. She was gripped by the strength of manic desperation; she had gone beyond her terror to embrace that special courage of the mad, where there was no thought of risk, less of consequences. Action was required; that was all that mattered.

  Everyone had forgotten how to breathe, the world included, and their collective hearts how to beat. His mind was racing faster than he could have imagined possible, yet paradoxically his body had totally lost the capacity to execute its will. He could no more cry out to the child than move to stop her. Wouldn’t matter anyway; their fate was sealed the moment she opened her mouth.

  They crested the wave, a higher, steeper climb than any previous. Only this time there was no slope to negotiate on the far side. Instead, a sheer drop, as though they’d come to the edge of a cliff. As they reached the top the wave itself began to break, the shoulder withdrawing into a curl, leaving nothing but air between them and the trough, better than a ship length below.

  Shando was the first to break the spell, spinning the wheel hard over in a reflexive, last-ditch attempt to reverse their course, hoping to ride the scend of the wave to a saner patch of water. But he found no resistance under his hands, the crest had fallen away beneath them, leaving the rudder hanging uselessly in the open. The bow pitched forward, and Thorn heard a last cry from Morag—raging defiance against an onrushing doom—before they struck.

  “Hold on!”

  Thorn had known boats that rolled from side to side, had been aboard some that came within a hair of truly capsizing, but he’d never seen one pitch end over end. The most striking image to come to him as they fell was the utter lack of sound. He knew there had to be noise, they’d been bludgeoned by all manner of it since setting sail, a perpetual crescendo of howls and roars and crashes, wails, creaks, groans, thunder in the air and thunder from the sea, more kinds than he had names for, each determined to supplant the others. Perhaps that was the answer, the storm had simply beaten him deaf.

  He grabbed for the nearest handhold as the deck tilted vertical, saw water on every side as the bow plunged into the trough, like plunging into a black well, or the maw of some impossibly rapacious oceanic predator. In that flash, the spindrift took on the aspects of teeth, the gusting stench of salt spray became the creature’s breath.

  He saw the foremast break, the shock of impact tearing him loose from the stanchion he was holding and dropping him to the limit of his lifeline with such force that it felt worse than being poleaxed by a sledgehammer. The deck kept turning, and with it came the realization that the ship was being pitched over onto its back. He had a hand on the railing, and he dragged his head out for a clear view behind; for some lunatic reason he had to see what was happening. The wave reared above them like a mountain, only this one was falling after them, like taking a sheet and sweeping it up and over a set of pillows. Only mass and momentum had given this avalanche of water the consistency of solid rock, and when it struck it would smash all before it. He had no thoughts for Elora—indeed, for anyone else aboard. The moment refined his awareness down to the sense of single self. I am, about to become, I am not.

  Arms gathered about him, Morag using her body to shield his as best she could. He held the deck, eyes tight shut, achingly conscious of how naked and exposed he lay, how weak and insignificant his vaunted “Power” seemed in the face of such elemental fury. He felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the disaster; within his head, thoughts flashed and crackled like wildfire, but when he tried to translate them into action it was as though he’d plunged himself headlong into a tar pit. No amount of effort seemed able to produce an effective response; he needed to be quicksilver and instead was molasses. He thought there would be a final shock to herald his oblivion, but it wasn’t like that at all.

  Multiple impacts set the hull to trembling, InSight filling in the gaps in his perception—no matter that such awareness was the last thing he wanted—as the mainmast snapped like a twig, wrapping the hull in a tangle of massive splinters, tearing sails and cordage. The wreckage struck at the ship like catapult balls and Thorn bit back an outcry as something jagged stabbed him through the leg. In another instant they were underwater, the world still rolling all about him, as the riptides withi
n the wave tried to yank him free and the schooner continued through the whole of its somersault. He felt Morag slip, lunged for her harness, but couldn’t find any decent purchase; the motion of the vessel, the force of the water pulled him in different directions, all of them apart. He cried a protest as fingers were bent free and Morag torn away, one of her buckles—its tongue bent into a wickedly curved hook—scoring the curve of his scalp right to the bone. She was hurled against the coaming of the aft companionway hard enough to bend her double, then dropped below from one end of the cabin to the other like a broken rag doll, one leg twisted back on itself in that awful way that meant her hip was broken.

  He couldn’t see anymore with eyes, didn’t need to, howled because of it, as InSight danced from mind to mind, tantalizing him with flashes from everyone save Elora. Hatches and portholes gave way under the tremendous impact, water bursting into the cabin with the force of fire hoses, solid wood visibly flexing like sheets of tin, so that even cubbies thought stoutly secured were sent flying. There was no sign of Burys; Thorn had a faint residual flash of him being swept away with the masts. There was little sense to be made of the images from below; the thoughts of Morag and Geryn were as knotted and shredded as the equipment above, dominated by ever more intense spikes of fright and pain. The cabin itself was like a bowl filled partway with water being fiercely sloshed about. There was air to breathe still, but each attempt to reach it put the body at risk of being slammed against some bulkhead or other. Taksemanyin held on like grim death, eyes fixed on Elora, the Wyr’s anguish plain as hot steel at not being able to reach her. Of them all, only Khory viewed the disaster with any equanimity, the DemonChild too unused to the life she’d assumed to fear the loss of it. Like any newborn, the wonder of being transcended all other concerns; and since her heritage was purest chaos, the concept of death had even less meaning.