Dark Moon Rising (The Prophecies of Zanufey)

by A. Evermore

  ‘A gift from us, on this powerful night,’ a Wykiry answered her unspoken question, ‘though it will not last after the dark moon has set.’

  ‘Thank you, friends,’ she replied, finding she could speak aloud and hoping that the moon would stay long in the sky.

  Filled with the power of the dark moon, the mortal confrontation no longer terrified her as much. In fact she was nervously excited and longed to feel the power move through her, daring to believe she could not fail. Freedom, that was why she was here, that was the reason for her existence, she was here to set them free, to set Keteth free. She felt so alive and wild, full of unstoppable power.

  Deeper into the ocean they went and then stopped abruptly in the murky gloom. There they hung motionless in the silence. The Wykiry moved in quick nervous motions, as if anxious to be so close to their long hated enemy. In the stillness Issa became aware of voices singing a song; a sad, poignant sound of all hope lost, loved ones lost. A lump formed in her throat at the sound, her soul quivered with the sorrow of it.

  ‘The voices of the Lost Ones’, the Wykiry whispered, ‘they herald your coming as they weep for the dead. Be strong Child of the Raven. We are never far away but we cannot enter his domain.’ And then they left, departing silently through the still waters, silvery lights disappearing into the gloom.

  Issa glanced upwards. The light of the moon reached even here, though it was faint. She was not afraid; she had been here before in her visions, they had prepared her. Now she was here most truly, suspended in the water, robes flowing around her.

  Issa reached for The Flow and it came to her as easy as breathing, this power belonged to her and she could hold much more. As one with the moon Issa closed her eyes and for a moment saw as the divine might see. The stars, the suns, the planets and their moons spun around her, the dark moon, the centre of the universe. And then her focus narrowed from infinity to the finite task before her.

  ‘Keteth!’ she cried. Her cry echoed far and she released The Flow. There was no noise from her magic but it seemed the whole world shook as the dark energy flooded from her, a great wave moving outwards in all directions as she remained in the centre, sending her challenge to the White Beast. This time she would not run, this time she was the hunter.

  Issa cared not if the Maphraxies came. Tonight, when the moon was full, she would not hide, she could not. Tonight all things bent to her will. To believe otherwise was to doubt, and to doubt, she knew, was to fail. Let the Maphraxies know her existence, let them hear her challenge. Tonight would only be the first of many.

  Deep within his shadowy world, still smouldering from the fury of losing the Dragon Lord, Keteth felt the old magic assault him like a great blow to the head.

  With a roar he moved towards the source of the call and then hesitated: she had never challenged him before. He would destroy her rather than allow Baelthrom to have her, for she was the key to the Night Goddess, she was the Raven Queen, the Night Goddess incarnate. He could never overcome the Immortal Lord without her power. He grinned to himself, accepted her challenge and surged through the ocean.

  Issa could feel his approach long before she saw him; that familiar skin-crawling corrupt magic that exuded from him; a being riddled with corruption from a lifetime built on hatred and revenge. He had had his time and now his reign of terror was coming to an end.

  ‘You?’ he cried, bubbles exploded around him as his words boomed in the depths. Incredulous laughter echoed around her. ‘You come for me? Oh no, my pretty pet, it is I that come for you! So long have I waited, so long have I hunted you. You cannot hide from me now, you cannot run from me here,’ insane giggles echoed around her. ‘I know who you are more than they do. The Dragon Lord cannot help you, but I can.’

  In the gloom his monstrous body moved towards her, snaking through the water; a snake slithering towards its prey. His desire smothered her like syrup and his presence repulsed her.

  ‘Your time is at an end Keteth; I have come to release you. There was a time when you could have been forgiven, redeemed, but not now,’ she replied. ‘Baelthrom’s powers lie beyond Maioria; you can never hope to fight him. Instead you betray your own planet and people that gave you life. You are nothing more than the Immortal Lord’s puppet!’

  Laughter was his reply and anger bloomed within her. She drew upon The Flow and slipped Karshur from its sheath. It was hot. She could feel its hatred like a living force. Keteth saw the dagger and ceased his laughter, black eyes flickered between her and the knife she held, the game had shifted.

  ‘Is that the best you have?’ Keteth snarled. ‘Did you yourself not curse death when she stole the ones you love away from you? Do you remember how it feels to know death can never be beaten?’

  Issa frowned despite herself: he spoke words of truth.

  ‘Ahhh, you don’t even know who or what you are!’ he laughed. Emboldened by her hesitation he moved closer. ‘I could show you who you are. There is a way, a path beyond death where one can exist free of it. It is not Baelthrom’s cursed Immortality but something much more. Zanufey herself is afraid.’

  Try as she might to control her emotions, doubt crept into her heart. “His tricks are many,” the Fairy’s words reminded her. In the silence she heard the voices of the dead singing, begging for their release, and the dagger burst into white light. She stilled her emotions and hardened her heart.

  ‘Recognise the knife do you Keteth?’ she said coldly, quietly pooling The Flow within her, becoming a reservoir of power. ‘Forged by an Elf long ago to serve as your slayer. I come here today for the thousands you have slaughtered and enslaved. Your time is over Keteth. I am the voice of vengeance and its deliverer.’

  Issa forced The Flow from her. White-hot destructive fire exploded into a surprised Keteth. He screamed in pain as the heat torched his flesh but in a blink, as easily as she had done, he returned the white flames. His speed also caught her off guard. She raised her hand and extinguished the flames but could not stop the force of the blow. Down into the depths she plunged before she could form a shield. The fight had begun. She let the battle fury consume her and shut all else out.

  He assaulted her mind, it felt like a hundred needles driving into her skull. She gripped her head thinking it would tear apart, tasted the blood that exploded from her nose and mouth. Bit by bit Issa searched for and found where he gripped her. A dozen tiny magical hooks embedded deep within her skull. One by one she painstakingly unhooked them and drew upon The Flow once more.

  Like for like they attacked each other. Red lightning then blue flickered between them as each fought for greater control of The Flow. The sea boiled with heat and froze with ice under her attack. Keteth formed a wall she could no longer penetrate.

  Without mercy or pause she sent wave after wave of destructive magic; fire, ice, and rock, at the wall until it cracked and crumbled. But as it fell a hundred black tendrils flooded forwards and engulfed her; a plague of tiny black worms, each with needle sharp teeth, hungrily seeking her flesh. She formed her will and spoke a word to drive the magic forwards. A hundred flames destroyed the worms but another hundred came behind the first. Again she sent the flames but still more came until the sea was thick with them.

  The black worms were too many to hold back. They reached her and sunk their burning fangs into her exposed arms and legs. She screamed in fury despite the pain. Her struggles were useless as they drew themselves together to bind her hands and feet. They tore at her hand trying to make her release Karshur but the dagger forced her to grip it tightly.

  She cried out against the pain, the sea was turning red with her blood but she would not release the dagger. Gritting her teeth she tried to think through the agony, but the worms were joining one another and becoming bigger stronger worms tightening around her in a crushing embrace.

  The dagger pulsed with rage, its desire for Keteth was quite aside from her own will and she felt it begin to work its own magic now faced with the true purpose of its existence. It ang
led downward and sliced at the worms that bound her wrists until they were free. Keteth screamed as if his own body had been cut. She sliced at the worms that bound her legs and they fell away and disintegrated as if they had never been.

  Fatigue gnawed at her and she bled from a thousand tiny wounds but she did not falter, did not wait for his next assault. She formed before her a great silver shard of ice and hurled it at him. But he was quick and to her horror his body fragmented around the deadly shard only to reform once more when it had passed.

  Her flames surrounded him, searing his re-formed flesh but only briefly, and he laughed as he extinguished them easily. On and on she fought, ceaseless waves of destructive magic, anything she could think of she tried, partly to keep him away from her and partly trying to destroy him. But her foe was quick and experienced and very clever. For each of her attacks it seemed he could evade and attack at the same time. The fatigue grew but on she drove.

  Issa was not stronger than Keteth, this she painfully knew, she was woefully inexperienced in every way, but tonight, this night of the full dark moon of Zanufey the Night Goddess, surely she had a chance.

  In a change of tactic he ignored the wall of flame and lunged towards her; a hurtling white mass of muscle. Caught off guard, she dived down to avoid the brunt of the blow but there came a sickening crunch before the pain tore up her spine and she spun like a rag doll in the water.

  In a daze she grappled with the knife trying to stab at him with blows strengthened by magic but each strike was knocked away by lashing tentacles. Black eyes loomed before her and in them she saw the souls of the dead looking back at her. She tore her eyes away and he sunk his teeth into her shoulder. Her screams were gurgles as his poison flooded her veins, every cell recoiling in revulsion. Her blood was dark red swirls around them as she fought a desperate battle for consciousness.

  Issa was playing his game now and he was winning; he always did. She closed her eyes and behind her lids the faces of the dead haunted her, their hands reaching up to her through the bars of their prison, clamouring for release. She cried at them to stop, longing to help them, wishing they would help her, but madness clawed at her, fragmented her thoughts, and the poison stilled her will. Her mind was detaching itself from her body as she sunk into the darkness down into Keteth’s domain.

  Slowly the darkness cleared and Issa jolted back into awareness. She was chained to a wall in a cold cell built of grey-white stones that gleamed with a dull light. The air was so thin and putrid it made her gasp. Her arms and legs were covered in blood and though her wounds were not deep, they stung painfully. She drew her knees to her chest and shivered, her robe was in shreds that barely covered her, the feeling of vulnerability made her sick to the stomach.

  A tall figure in a long grey cloak and a hunch that bent him over on one side appeared before her. Keteth’s laugh came from the cloaked figure and his body shook with mirth. She glimpsed his hideous face partially covered by a hood. Thin blood-red lips pulled back over many pointed black teeth. His flesh as a man was the same as when he was a monster, slick white and lumpy.

  Behind him was a small window, though there was no view, it seemed as if it was just painted on the wall. Something was scratching on the wall outside, as if trying to get in, but Keteth did not notice, he was transfixed by his prey.

  ‘Powerful aren’t we,’ he chuckled, ‘but maybe not so powerful now, I think,’ and suddenly he was towering over her without moving. He murmured a word and the poison in her body moved towards him, flowing out of her skin in long tendrils of bluish black ribbons as if being drawn out by a magnet. Her stomach heaved and she retched as it left her, taking with it yet more of her strength. She slumped in exhaustion when it was done.

  He reached a bone-thin hand towards her and she cringed and clung to the cold wall. Deathly cold fingers grasped her throat, draining her warmth, and she hung there limply in his grasp. Here, in his domain, she had no power. The dagger was gone, as was her ring and the bracelet Ely had given to her. She had been stripped of everything. There was no way out, there was no escape.

  ‘They all come here,’ he said matter-of-factly, ‘no matter how hard they fight, they all end up here.’ Keteth’s bony white hand caressed her throat as he spoke, his voice rasping. ‘I can make you powerful. I can show you the power within, the power that I, too, share. To walk in the land of the living as well as the dead...’ he trailed off and she wondered at the sadness in his voice.

  ‘He wants you for his own. But he will never understand, no Immortal can. How can you understand death if you cannot die?’ he chuckled to himself. ‘No, he cannot have you, we shall reside here, in my domain, where we are strong. They cannot understand you like I do,’ he stroked her chin, his voice turning thick with desire.

  ‘You hunted me in the Shadowlands,’ she gasped, her voice ragged with fear and exhaustion.

  ‘You would rather be a Lost One?’ his grasp tightened and she winced, ‘you would walk the Shadowlands forever? No, it was you who asked to be saved, think you I would not heed your pleas?’

  She shook her head in confusion, ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I can show you,’ his voice was husky, his hand quivering as he stroked her neck and traced her collarbone. His ice-cold hands upon her chest made her heart shudder. She tried to endure it and accept it but she could not and struggled against him.

  Keteth laughed indulgently, ‘Yes, struggling is fun, but really, am I so repulsive? Perhaps another form will please you. I have taken one whom you know well, I think you will be pleased,’ he laughed. The shrouded figure became a familiar brown-eyed dark-haired man.

  ‘Rance!’ she gasped. But though it was the man she had danced with at the Mid Summer Celebrations there something terribly wrong with him, there was a shadow in his eyes and he had no life-force about him, no aura. Even Keteth had an aura. Issa shrank from him. Surely it was another of Keteth’s tricks for as she stared there stood two beings in one form, the man she had known and the beast.

  Then she understood. She tore her eyes away, clenching her eyes shut to hide the tears. Rance is dead! But how? His soul trapped in Keteth’s prison along with the others. How can it be? Not Rance. Not him, I am too late, Keteth would not have taken you were it not for me.

  Strong arms reached around and lifted her to her feet. She slumped against him, too weak to stand, too exhausted to resist and the sorrow drove deep into her heart. She tried to deny the warmth of his flesh as he held her close for it seemed he lived still. No, Rance is dead, this is a trick; Keteth takes many forms, curse him!

  Her mind was spinning, the smell of Rance was somehow intoxicating, and Keteth’s mind infected her very thoughts. She tried to pull away but her legs would not obey and he held her firmly. He kissed her neck and each kiss made her tingle with confused desire that she neither wanted nor was able to control.

  ‘Please,’ she gasped, but he did not stop and she could not think clearly for her mind was filled with fog. His lips were hot and eager upon hers and she felt as if she was drowning. Her mind was a prisoner in her confused body that responded to Rance with a desire that was not her own. It was wrong, corrupt, a lie, her body was betraying her.

  Dimly she could hear a thousand wailing voices trapped in their prison, calling for her to free them. I cannot, I must not, this is a trick, it is not Rance! She screamed inwardly but with each kiss her resolve was pushed further away, drowning in his poisonous desire. She closed her eyes and behind her lids saw Rance in rags upon his knees weeping as he reached out his hands asking for forgiveness.

  ‘Remember who you are!’ he cried.

  ‘Who am I?’ She asked but he was gone. I knew who I was once but now I… I can’t remember. Memories came into her mind; the sacred pool with the Guardians. They had given her the crown of raven feathers. Other images came. A woman with her face and dressed in black armour fighting Maphraxies. Issa reached further back. A raven in the orchard and then the mound surrounded by great stones she
had visited for the first time so long ago. And then the orchard was black and everyone was dead, a fertile green land ravaged with smouldering scars, charred bodies everywhere.

  Who am I?

  The question forced itself upon her as Rance’s kisses became more urgent. Tears spilled down her face. What does it matter? What difference does it make? It is too late!

  A blazing blue light like lightning struck her mind and the world fell away. She looked out upon a universe filled with millions of stars, all twinkling in the darkness. Issa lifted a hand and saw that she glowed as brightly as they did for she was one of them, a brilliant shining star.

  A blue and green planet formed below her and she watched as the history of Maioria, from its first formation to the present, unfolded before her. Other planets drifted into view and she saw the history of each of them, the hopes and fears, the lives and deaths of billions of peoples. Issa was all of them, she was everything, she was complete knowing, and her soul wept at the beauty of it. An eternity passed in which all things came into being and then passed away. Time no longer existed and she floated in the all of everything, totally content in her true essence.

  A thought or memory entered her awareness and she focused her attention upon it. There was a man, skinny, tall and mousy haired, and he was sad for he was trying to save people from a sickness that had struck them. He brought them back to life but the dead did not want it. The village turned against him and cast him out. He ran from them in terror and in anger. She saw his loneliness, watched the bitterness and hatred consume him, his power grow beyond comparison until the man he had been was gone and a monster remained.

  The memory passed and Issa opened her eyes. Before her shone the dark moon and in it the hooded figure of the Night Goddess formed. Zanufey was with her.