Dark Moon Rising (The Prophecies of Zanufey)

by A. Evermore

  All at once the world seemed to slide and suck downwards, as if she were in a giant bath and someone had pulled the plug out. The water gushed downwards into a dark hole taking her with it.

  Issa’s eyes flew open and she sat up gasping for breath, dragging air into her lungs. Slowly the world stopped spinning and she found herself beside the tree where she had stopped some time before.

  ‘Little Kammy,’ it came out more a sob than words. She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears and tried not to think about that green land in her dream. Her hand came to rest upon the jar in her sack. She pulled it out and looked at the dark green paste.

  ‘There is so little left,’ she whispered, turning the jar over in her hands, and once it is gone, what then? There might be five more doses if she stretched it out. She must drink the paste before her arms turned pink, otherwise the sorrow would consume her and the wraiths would come with their desperately sad faces that made her think death was better.

  I should go to the ocean for the seawater. But instead she sat there and watched transfixed as the small pink patch on her right arm grew. She bit her lip and her shoulders sagged with the weight of despair. Is this what they feel? She thought of the wraiths, their grievous faces as they aimlessly wandered. Is that what I am becoming? She shivered; it was enough to get her on her feet.

  Issa steadied herself against the tree, its rough surface cold and sharp. As she looked at its cracked bark, it seemed to whither and draw away under her gaze and she got the distinct feeling that it wanted her gone. She moved away from it feeling something akin to disgust. Wiping her hand on her leg she turned back the way she had come and walked in as straight a line as possible back towards the ocean.

  As she walked she realised how different her body felt. It moved at her will, one foot in front of the other, but she could not really feel her limbs, it was as if they were numb. She felt quite separate from them, they were like her shadow simply following her around. I am becoming a ghost, a wraith, with each passing hour, she thought with a shiver and hugged her shoulders.

  The dead were always there, ghosts she could not see unless the potion wore thin, but she could feel them all the time. Sometimes she could hear their whispered sorrows and long forgotten hopes.

  ‘This place is worse than the Demon Murk,’ she said aloud, her voice sounding hollow as she spoke of The Murk, a world where Demons lived just beyond The Veils of Maioria. ‘Maybe the dead will come back for me. Why have I been spared whilst all I love has perished? Why does death not take me?’ she cried, her voice hoarse from lack of use but there was no answer and the loneliness deepened.

  Issa reached the edge of the trees and stared across wispy grass-covered dunes towards the shore. A turbulent sea rolled under her gaze, froth-tipped waves licked high by a gusting wind. To her left, black cliffs clawed skyward, vaguely reminding her of those she had run along upon Little Kammy long ago. To her right the beach curved inwards then back and was lost from view. It was odd, she thought, for the place looked like Little Kammy, the beach, the sea, the rocks, and yet was unlike it in every way, like a faded shadow of her home.

  Hastily she fumbled in the many small pockets of her blacksmith’s belt and breathed a sigh of relief when her fingers touched the familiar feel of her money pouch. She laughed aloud bitterly then. What use is all the gold in the world in this place?

  Issa walked across the dunes until her worn galoshes stood just out of the water’s reach. She scanned the ocean, ears straining for the dreaded wail but there was nothing other than a growing wind churning dark waters. There was no sign of the boat or supplies; there was not even any wreckage. It was as if the boat had never been. Hmm, maybe it was another shore I came to, the thought rattled in her vacant mind as she made her way to the next cove along.

  Maybe I have already died, she wondered, if I have not, then soon I will, without food or water. But now that she thought of it she didn’t in fact feel hungry or thirsty. Perhaps she would in an hour or so. But the hours passed as she searched and the hunger did not come. She realised too that she did not feel the cold either. Well, she felt cold but not that of the wind, the cold came from within and spread outwards from her heart.

  Issa walked and searched for wreckage but each cove seemed the same as the one before, only slightly different, just different enough to keep her searching. An hour or so later she slowed then stopped and slumped down onto a damp dune. It wasn’t because of tiredness, indeed she seemed beyond tiredness and her legs could walk forever; she stopped because she could no longer remember why she walked. She was sure there had been some reason, she had been looking for something but now could not think what it was.

  Whenever she stopped her mind always wandered. It was like dreaming but she did not sleep, instead, nightmarish half-dreams of hazy memories drifted in her mind.

  She stood beside her mother; a blackened charred figure who had once been beautiful and filled with life, now lay lifeless before her. She looked upon green lands scarred by black welts, smoking crumbled houses and the crisp remains of people. She didn’t know where that land was and thought it must be that for which she searched. But she could not find the orchards that had been her home and there was no one to ask because all the people were dead.

  The green land faded and she no longer stood under blue skies but on the grey shores of a ghost world. Storm clouds bubbled above her and from the raging waves a terrifying beast emerged, all white and deformed, crawling out of the ocean on a hundred snaking tentacles.

  ‘Come to me,’ the voice soothed as it whispered in her mind, ‘let me in. I can free your soul.’

  Issa jerked awake and stared at her tingling, freezing cold pink hands. Sorrow like a solid thing was lodged in her heart.

  ‘Come to me,’ the voice said and this time she realised it was real.

  Her body stood up of its own accord and stepped towards the ocean. A gusting wind picked up, licking the waves high until they were giant fingers reaching towards her, trying to grasp and drag her into the ocean. Under the surface something moved through the currents. She watched it mesmerised, filled with a mix of fear and awe.

  ‘Come to me,’ the voice soothed and slithered around her, coming from no particular place as it chuckled softly. ‘Here you can be free,’ the low lull whispered promises of freedom in the watery darkness. The temptation to slip beneath the waves to a place far away from the loneliness and despair burned within her.

  Like a tiny flower beginning to bloom she felt a glimmer of hope, something she had not felt for so long she had forgotten what hope felt like. She wanted to trust that voice, to believe that there was a way to be free, but something was not right. It was as if the beast spoke lies, of false hope. But what if it were true? What if she surrendered to it?

  There came a low wail of desire, felt rather than heard, as it trembled through her. Her legs went weak and her feet took involuntary steps forward until the waves sloshed around her galoshes that were worn and no longer waterproof. She tore her gaze from the ocean and fought against the yearning to walk into the water. ‘It is wrong, I must not go there!’ she gasped, but resisting drained her strength. Another voice echoed dimly in her mind.

  ‘Do not go into the water. Beware the White Beast!’

  Issa recognised the Edarna’s voice and her face drifted in her mind. ‘Edarna?’ Issa called softly, but the voice did not come again and her heart sank. The witch must be scrying and is not really here.

  Keteth could not harm her whilst she stood upon the land, could he? But what of freedom from these shores? Issa thought. I remember a world beyond this shadowy land of ghosts but it is so hazy, maybe it was only ever a dream. The White Beast can give me freedom.

  ‘If I go into the sea…’ she stared at the ocean and then a light appeared in front of her. At first it was nothing more than a speck of white light and then it shimmered and grew into an orb bigger than her fist. She squinted and shielded her eyes against its brightness. A voice that was not
Edarna’s came from the orb, rising and falling in distortion as if it were trying to break through into the Shadowlands.

  ‘Do not give up, do not go to him!’ the voice warned and then became too quiet to hear. ‘True hope comes…’ then the voice was gone and with it the light.

  Issa grabbed the cup, plunged it into the water and staggered away from the ocean. Fumbling for the spoon she slopped the seaweed coloured paste into the cup and downed it. The potion filled her wasting body, each drop turning her more into the dead that walked here. She prayed for it to work fast, unnoticing of the sea spray and stinging rain that drenched her and stuck her hair in long wet strands against her cold face. Every now and then a gust of wind would whip those strands about her, lashing her skin until it stung.

  ‘I will not run anymore, I am not your prey to be hunted,’ she yelled, the force of her emotions as furious as the wind. Her pink hands faded to grey and became numb once more, allowing anger to overcome her fear.

  ‘Show yourself, coward!’ The beast would show itself and she would defy it! ‘I defy you,’ she added weakly, but her own voice gave no comfort, her words hung powerless in the air.

  ‘What do you want?’ The voice whispered, a sound like dry autumn leaves being blown by the wind.

  ‘What do I want?’ the question caught her off guard, but her subconscious answered it immediately. To go beyond death, to live forever so pain and loss can never reach me... ‘Yes, that is what I want,’ she whispered.

  The voice laughed, low and soft beneath the howling wind.

  ‘I can save you if you let me in,’ the spoken whisper echoed around her.

  ‘Do you think I am afraid of death?’ she shouted, her words high-pitched and weak against the noise of the blustering wind and surf. ‘I defy death,’ she rasped, but the failed logic of those words crushed her defiance, leaving despair in its wake. How can one defy death?

  ‘If you do not fear death, then come to me,’ the White Beast’s voice echoed in her head. Her heart pounded in her chest and the hairs on the back of her neck rose as she searched the ocean for a white shape moving but could see none. ‘I was there in the beginning.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Issa asked, stepping uncertainly back from the ocean. ‘It is you that fear me, why else would you hide?’ she taunted, though her voice quivered.

  ‘I was near when you jumped from the cliff to escape his Dromoorai.’

  Issa’s heart skipped a beat and any strength she had felt left her as Keteth spoke.

  ‘Always you denied death, always you run, until now. Now you do not run but linger.’ She shivered as Keteth’s voice rose and fell like the rise and fall of the wind. ‘I am hunted as are you,’ he whispered.

  Issa thought of the dark force in the storm, even now she could feel its unnatural power moving in the distance. Thunder rumbled and the endless blanket of grey above was breaking into darker patches, heavy clouds threatening to rain, clouds that had never formed in the Shadowlands before.

  ‘Yes… he hunts us both,’ Keteth whispered, as if reading her thoughts, ‘he’s moving closer as each hour passes.’

  ‘Who hunts you?’ she dared to ask. But there came no answer. Thunder rolled closer, and the ground shuddered under her feet. The storm was growing swiftly, the restrained energy pushed down upon her, its oppressive force crushing the land beneath it. The dark clouds turned almost black as they crowded together just a little way out to sea. The last time she had seen storm clouds mass and move like that winged monsters had come out of it.

  ‘Who hunts you?’ she demanded again.

  Lightning snaked above making her jump and Keteth’s hold upon her suddenly snapped. She could no longer feel his presence. Instead she felt a darker unholy essence growing. What was out there? Even Keteth fled from it! She suddenly feared that unholy force more than the beast in the ocean.

  Lightning torched the sky as thunder clapped and she instinctively screamed. Before she could think what to do she was tearing up the shores into the trees, running faster and faster until her breath came in ragged gasps. The sky had turned so dark it was almost dark as night. Wind howled through the trees and their ghostly limbs swayed and danced like ghoulish spirits.

  Terror knotted her stomach as she cowered behind a tree; the storm was looking for her. Lightning struck close, driving her from her hiding place.

  Issa ran as silently as possible until she came to where the trees stopped and the ground fell away. She had reached the top of the cliffs. The dark clouds were behind her now searching where she had been hiding. She crawled to the cliff’s edge and dared to look down. It was a long drop to the white frothing waves that crashed over black boulders. The rocks beckoned her towards them, and the sky pressed down upon her, pushing her towards the edge. If she fell she could end it all. She dragged herself back, ‘I will not do it!’

  A gust of wind screamed upwards from the sea, ripping at her hair and clothes. She forced herself away from the edge, her breath came fast and shallow and cold sweat beaded her face. The storm was on the move. She heaved herself up and fled along the narrow path.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A Feathered Thief

  Asaph bolted upright and tore off his sweat-soaked nightshirt as he gasped for breath. The nightmare of a white monster with a hundred tentacles flailing towards him slowly receded. He swiftly glanced to the man sleeping near on the other side of the room. Coronos shifted and muttered but then lay motionless, breathing steadily. The fire from last night still burned in the hearth and it was pitch black outside the window.

  I can only have been asleep a few hours, Asaph thought, as he wiped his clammy chest and then quietly eased off his damp shirt. By the time he had put on a dry nightshirt and lain back down his heart no longer pounded and the sweat was dry.

  For the next hour he tried to get back to sleep but it would not come. The fire had gone out now and he swung his legs out of bed with an exasperated sigh. Tomorrow was their usual goblin scouting party trek and he needed his rest just in case anything happened. Not that it ever did, much to his bemusement.

  Apart from their once weekly goblin trekking days, every day passed in the same manner, so similar that he sometimes could not tell the difference between one day and the next. He got up, ate breakfast, then chopped wood before skirting the village boundaries to check fencing for damage. He ate lunch then spent the afternoon fixing and securing ropes and bridges. Ate dinner, practised with his sword and then went to bed. But since the blue moon had risen he felt the world was changing without him and the boredom grew along with the frustration, like a nagging itch that he just couldn’t scratch and there was nothing he could do to alleviate it.

  He was trapped here in this beautiful boring land of great trees weighed down with fruit and calm turquoise oceans, and tortured by dreams of a girl he longed for and a monster that terrified him. The Dragon within grew increasingly restless and sometimes it was all he could do to contain it, and he could not contain it forever.

  He pulled on his boots and quietly left his bed and sleeping father. There was no blue moon tonight, or any moon, as he followed the well-worn path down to the sea. Only the bright stars above lit the way, though with his Dragon eyes he could see well enough without them.

  It wasn’t long before he came to a stop upon a long stretch of white sand and gently lapping waves. There was no wind, not even the near constant sea breeze was here today and all about him was still and calm and silent as the night began to lighten with the coming day.

  ‘I have to find a way back to the Old World, but how I know not,’ he whispered to the lapping waves, wishing they would somehow answer. His mother’s face drifted before him and he clenched his fist, feeling her ring on his little finger dig painfully into his hand.

  ‘I will avenge you Mother, or die trying,’ he vowed under his breath, and then sighed. It was one thing to know the past but quite another to try to change it. I cannot simply do nothing, in accepting her death I in some way con
done it and that I will never do!

  Asaph slumped down upon the sand suddenly weary, the frustration and lack of sleep drained him. He sat there for a time listening to the soft sound of the waves lapping the shore and must have fallen asleep because he awoke on his back and the sky was tinged bright with orange.

  His eyes caught the ring glinting in the growing dawn light. It glowed red as the rising sun spilled warm light over the ocean and onto the trees around him. He sat up and took it off his finger, turning it over in his hand and then tossed it high into the air. It flashed like a gem in the sunlight as it tumbled back into his palm.

  He threw it again and caught it. On the third throw he reached to catch it but instead a big ball of black feathers came out of nowhere, deftly caught the ring in its thick beak, and then swooped off low along the water’s edge.

  ‘Hey!’ he cried, and jumped up tearing after the raven.

  ‘Stupid bird, stupid me!’ he cursed. He was a fast runner but the raven’s wings were faster and he was soon dropping behind.

  ‘Come back thief!’ he shouted angrily. He was not about to lose his mother’s cherished ring to some scraggly bird, but try as he might he could not catch up.

  It was the fury that made it happen, he was sure of it for as he cursed and shouted the Dragon within had roused from sleep. There came a flash of blinding gold and the world seemed to implode and then explode. In a heartbeat two eyes shining like sapphires engulfed him and a surge of ancient, feral power flooded him awash in ecstasy. His arms and legs burst forth; thick muscles bunched and flexed, razor sharp claws slipped forwards. Upon his back two more powerful limbs sprouted and seemed to grow forever.