The Forgetting Moon

by Brian Lee Durfee

  “I’m teaching your cousin to be a thief.” Val-Draekin bowed to Tala. “He’ll soon be the best pickpocket in all of Amadon.” He turned to Lindholf. “Won’t you?”

  “W-well—um.” Lindholf’s scarred face slackened even further as he stammered. “What he means to say is that—”

  “I will show you.” Val-Draekin handed a small leather purse to Tala. It was weighed down with coins. “Take these, too.” He handed her a gold ring with strange Vallè runes etched into its surface, a string of black and green beads, and a small carved statue of Laijon that fit snugly in the palm of her hand. The tiny statue looked to be carved of walrus tusk and was bleached white as a sun-touched cloud. “Put the ring on,” he said. “Tie the pouch to your belt. And hide the other items in the pockets of your doublet.”

  Tala did as instructed, tying the purse to her hip opposite the pouch that held the Bloodwood dagger that she always kept with her. She slipped the ring onto her finger and put the beads and statue in the pockets of her doublet.

  Val-Draekin placed Lindholf’s hand in hers. “Walk toward me as if you are out on a lovers’ stroll.” He turned and marched about twenty paces away and faced them.

  Tala felt a moment of discomfort as Lindholf’s clammy fingers entwined with hers. His restless dark eyes flickered from her to the battlements above. Tala’s gaze also strayed to the walls of the courtyard, draped thick with green ivy. As she and Lindholf began walking toward Val-Draekin hand in hand, she wondered what her two Silver Guard escorts must think of all this.

  The Vallè walked briskly toward them. His shoulder knocked into hers much harder than she was expecting. She lost hold of Lindholf’s hand and stumbled, falling, until Val-Draekin reached out and caught her by the hand and upper arm. “Oh, I’m so sorry, m’lady,” he stammered with embarrassment as he helped to steady her. “My most gracious apologies,” he said, and released her when she had regained her feet. “I’ve been so clumsy today.” He bowed. “Have a good day.” He turned and kept walking.

  “Look at your hand,” Lindholf said eagerly.

  Tala looked at both hands: the ring she had put on her finger was gone. Val-Draekin turned and held up the string of beads and tiny Laijon statue.

  “He’s been teaching me for a while now,” Lindholf said, grinning from ear to ear. “He and Seita. They know many elf tricks. I can teach you someday, if it pleases you.”

  “When you get good enough at thievery,” Val-Draekin said, “you scarcely need the accidental bumping and jostling, just deft hands. See?” He held the purse of coins he had given her and also her own pouch that held the Bloodwood dagger.

  Icy fear slammed into Tala with such intensity she felt momentarily suffocated. She stared at the leather purse holding the dagger, feeling herself quake for breath. But anger overcame her panic. “Give back my pouch,” she demanded, holding out her hand.

  “As you wish.” The sharp-eyed Vallè tossed the purse to her. Tala snatched it from the air, examining the cut thongs that once held the leather pouch to her belt. He sliced right though them. He could have sliced my neck just as quickly!

  “I meant no harm,” Val-Draekin said, and bowed.

  “He meant no harm.” Lindholf tried gallantly to respond in kind. “They can teach you the same tricks, like they taught us about defending against knives, remember?”

  Of course, she remembered the lessons well. But learning thievery was different from self-defense. “Why would you want to learn such things?” She glared at her cousin.

  “They are skills all should know,” Seita answered. “Skills royalty such as we should learn, for there will soon come a day when murder, kidnapping, pickpocketing, blackmail, and even rape will be common currency in Amadon. The White Prince has attacked Gul Kana. It won’t be long before he will be at the gates of this city. And then this castle may not be a safe place for even a princess and her two Silver Guards.”

  “What a grim thing to say,” Tala fired back. “I won’t hear it. Jovan will fight the White Prince at Lord’s Point. Jondralyn travels there now to offer terms of war. You are wrong. Amadon will not be like that . . . ever.”

  “Then you have not read your own scriptures,” came Seita’s silken response. “Does not The Way and Truth of Laijon speak of Amadon’s Fiery Absolution?”

  “It doesn’t mean we need learn the ways of a cutthroat.”

  “Well, I’m for learning it,” Lindholf said as he straightened his posture. “I enjoy acquiring new skills. It keeps one busy.”

  “You are wise to learn all you can.” Val-Draekin patted Lindholf on the back. “You are important, you and your sister. We should teach Lawri these things too.”

  “You can’t teach Lawri,” the words came tumbling forth before Tala could think to stop them. “She’s sick and in Lind—” Tala snapped her lips shut at the last moment, realizing that she had almost given away Lawri’s location.

  Val-Draekin stared at her, as if waiting for her to finish, his piercing green eyes seeming to bore into her. Tala noticed that Lindholf’s eyes never remained still but nervously flitted between them all. The intense look on Seita’s face sent chills prickling up her back. It instantly felt as if something were crawling through her brain, pulling her thoughts out of it. Tala could feel herself losing all sense of balance.

  “I’m sure Lawri will recover soon and be like a new person,” Val-Draekin eventually said. “Wherever she is.”

  “And Sterling Prentiss will get what he deserves,” Seita said casually. “I hear this castle is riddled with tunnels. You ought to get to know the secret tunnels if you wish to survive Absolution, Tala. Familiarize yourself with thievery and all the secret places of the city.”

  Even the Vallè know of the secret ways! Tala’s vision blurred and her lungs cried for air. It felt as if a legion of dung beetles were digging into her mind, searching. Her mind spun with the implications.

  “I don’t wish to speak of Lawri or Fiery Absolution,” she mumbled, her hand inside her pouch, feeling the comforting edges of the Bloodwood dagger in her hand.

  “You’re right,” Seita said, and plucked at her mandolin. “Enough of this gloomy talk. How about another song?” Again, pure tones sang from the mandolin, a graceful song that hung over the breadth of the courtyard, brightening the air. Whether Seita played but a moment or all day, Tala knew not; she was so swept up in the music.

  “You play beautifully,” she said when the Vallè princess stopped.

  “You did not know I played the mandolin?” Seita asked.

  Tala pulled her hand from the pouch. “I regret to say I did not.”

  “No matter, there is much you don’t know about me.” Seita stood, holding the instrument out in both hands. “The mandolin, the lute, and the harp, three of the grandest instruments in the Five Isles. This one is constructed of rare Val Vallè olive wood—the only trees on the Five Isles that live for over ten thousand years, harder to find and far more scarce than even Sør Sevier Bloodwood trees.”

  Tala’s heat pounded at the mention of Bloodwoods. Their very name sent shivers of dread through her. Still, the mandolin in Seita’s hands was indeed one of the most amazing things she’d ever seen. Its beauty was transfixing; the dark grain of its wood was polished to a brilliant sheen and glowed with astonishing bright highlights of ochre in the sun.

  “Do you know what the great Vallè minstrels do after a grand performance?” Seita asked. Tala shrugged, looking from the mandolin to Seita.

  “They celebrate their performance by doing this.” The Vallè princess took the mandolin by the neck, brought it over her head rapidly, and in one unexpected motion swung it downward, dashing it against the stone bench. With a loud, slinging crack and twang, the precious wooden instrument shattered into a hundred pieces. Wooden shards exploded around the bench and clattered to the cobbles and turf. Stunned, Tala watched as Seita picked up a handful of wood splinters and tossed them out into the garden, saying, “And then they scatter the pieces among the audi
ence to keep as mementos.”

  Tala and Lindholf shared concerned looks.

  “Oh, it’s not so awful.” Seita picked up two of the bigger shards and held them out for both Tala and Lindholf. Lindholf took the offered piece of mandolin, eyeing it strangely. The shattered hunk of wood Seita handed Tala was about the length of a shoe and felt as light as a down feather in her hand. “They could be very valuable someday . . . very valuable indeed.”

  Val-Draekin’s right hand was buried in the folds of his cloak. With his free hand he gestured for Tala to hold forth the shard of wood. She did, and the Vallè pulled his hand from his cloak, fingers covered in a curious white powder. He snapped his fingers, and a cone of bright fire appeared in the palm of his cupped hand.

  Sorcery! Tala’s mind screamed, her body frozen in place.

  Val-Draekin ran the orange flame back and forth under the shard of wood in Tala’s hand, warming her fingers in the process, then blew the fire out with a quick burst of air from his lips. He then casually wiped his once-flaming hand on his cloak.

  “Indeed,” Val-Draekin said. “That piece of wood is very valuable now.”

  Terror lashed through Tala’s veins when she returned to her room. The great stone fireplace that dominated her bedchamber beckoned like a hollow cave. The secret ways lay beyond, calling her. I should run, escape this stifling, wicked place and run far away and become another person. But she knew not where she would go.

  She grabbed her wooden stool and placed it before the cold stone hearth. Standing atop the stool, she put the shard of mandolin Seita had given her on the mantel’s shelf. She placed it carefully, leaning it against the rough stone so that the polished grain faced into her room, taking the time to make sure that it was centered on the mantel just so.

  Once done, she sat back on her bed and folded her hands on her lap. She looked up at what was left of the destroyed mandolin.

  It’s a cursed thing, she thought, shuddering, hexed by Vallè magic and most definitely cursed.

  * * *

  Nary a drop of blood shall Laijon shed, nor a drop from another fall upon him. Not until he swimmeth through the Gauntlet of Beasts. Not until he receiveth his Baptism of Blood. When Laijon returns, you will know the marks upon him. In that last day before Fiery Absolution, like a spark and wave of flame, Laijon will reveal himself in the Hallowed Grove. And the great Atonement Tree will become like a pillar of fire over him.

  —THE WAY AND TRUTH OF LAIJON

  * * *

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  AVA SHAY

  17TH DAY OF THE MOURNING MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON

  TOMKIN STY, GUL KANA

  A mountain of burning Tomkin Sty carcasses marked the end of another Gul Kana village. Like the dead in Gallows Haven, Ava knew that this jumble of dead folk would not be given religious rites or properly buried. Their souls would never reach Laijon. She stood in front of Aeros’ tent in a light cotton shift, trying to remain detached from the scene. After all, she knew none of them. The bloated, misshapen faces on top of swollen bodies meant nothing to her. The twisted hands reaching from the pile with grotesque fingers curled and crooked were not beckoning to her. And if they were, she cared not. What can I do anyway? The melting flesh dripping from their eye sockets and sagging jowls was a gruesome sight indeed, but a sight she’d grown inured to these past few weeks. The smell of burning flesh was thick, but again, nothing new to her. They should have fled, fled like all the other farmers in all the hamlets between here and Gallows Haven. Everyone should just flee!

  The shoreline north of Tomkin Sty lay silent save the sigh of the wind and the rolling of the waves, silent but for the cries of the crows as they pranced about, feasting on the scattered limbs of the dead. Gulls circled above aimlessly.

  A child wandered untended, trailed by a mangy brown hound. The child wailed for a mother it would not find. The few other survivors of Tomkin Sty were granted no sympathy. Ten of them were chained together on the beach just a stone’s throw below the White Prince’s tent, where Ava now stood. Spades strutted back and forth in front of these trembling prisoners, shouting obscenities, blaspheming the Church of Laijon, and generally scaring the piss out of them all. One prisoner began singing a desolate lament. A portly woman with a pretty face and long dark hair, she belted out the tune from a throat worn raw from crying. That was until Spades ran a dirk up through her chest, ending it.

  The cloudless sky above was smothered with a haze of smoke. The Tomkin Sty chapel was naught but a charred ruin. Most of the stone-and-timber buildings that once housed the weavers, potters, smiths, grayken hunters, and other assorted citizens of Tomkin Sty smoldered behind Aeros’ tent. The Sør Sevier army had remained in Gallows Haven for nearly nine days before pulling up stakes and marching north, burning every farm and tiny hamlet on their riotous journey between Gallows Haven and Tomkin Sty. The army now reached almost ten thousand strong.

  Aeros was intent on destroying Gul Kana entirely. Capturing the kingdom and creating havoc and destruction were not enough for him as it had been in Adin Wyte and Wyn Darrè. The Angel Prince wanted Gul Kana completely razed to the ground. He wanted few if any Laijon worshippers left strong enough to wield a sword against him. He’d as much as admitted that to Ava. His goal was Amadon. He not only wanted to destroy the great castle there but also burn and defile the Temple of the Laijon Statue, the Royal Cathedral, the Hall of the Dayknights, and the Grand Vicar’s Palace, and then end the crusade by beheading Denarius at the foot of the Atonement Tree. Such reckless hate and destruction, for what?

  Hunger ate at Ava daily. Any food Aeros offered, she refused. She drank a lot. The White Prince’s tent was well stocked with spirits. That was her one solace—that and her few conversations with Gault. She was only granted leave to venture outside on certain days, and then allowed to stand just outside the open flaps of the tent—always under guard. Usually it was Gault. The bald knight was the only one who ever showed her kindness. For some reason, she found his presence reassuring. The man unhinged her senses. Sometimes he looked upon her with caring eyes; other times his eyes were as grim as a hailstorm. Still, she felt the tension and fear in her soul vanish whenever she found herself near him. He stood near her now.

  With the sight of so much death and slaughter, she felt the wraiths roving restlessly through her. I am impure. Useless and used and shriveled and old. Her mind had been clothed in blackness of late. Aeros has stolen the most precious part of me, those parts I’d saved just for Jenko. Each time she lay with the White Prince was another wound upon her soul. What must Jenko think of me now? She hadn’t seen much of him lately. Visions of her own bloody death clouded her every waking thought, her mind growing ever more pensive. She missed her wood carvings, missed the joy and comfort of creating, and she was beginning to conclude that life was no longer worth living. Do I have it in me to just kill myself? If Aeros or the Bloodwood were to offer to slit her throat, she might just nod in affirmation and be done with it. But to take my own life?

  After each coupling with the Angel Prince, she roused all the energy within herself and called upon Laijon to strengthen and lift her up—lift her up into the lightness of his being and forgive her sinful state. Aeros termed it his “heavenly sessions.” Ava just called it rape. She sought comfort in her prayers. It seemed that after prayer, clear thoughts followed, good thoughts and visions that held promise, promise that perhaps, beyond the next path, or over the next hedgerow, or down the next rutted road, could be found healing and light. Her belief in that future salvation was her only sustenance. None can save me but for Laijon.

  Then she saw Jenko Bruk.

  Ava was startled to see not only Jenko coming toward her but also Hammerfiss and the Wyn Darrè fellow, Mancellor Allen. The three marched up the grassy slope toward Aeros’ tent. Upon their arrival, Hammerfiss addressed Gault. “I’m to train the Wyn Darrè boy in the fine art of how to stand post in front of our lord’s tent.”

  Gault stepped aside and mot
ioned for Mancellor to take his spot beside Ava. The Wyn Darrè with the black tattoos under his eyes did as ordered and stood still and stiff next to Ava, eliciting a chuckle from Hammerfiss.

  “He seems to have the basics down,” the red-haired giant grunted.

  Ava’s eyes were fixed on Jenko, hoping to pry some reassuring look or gesture out of him. But he kept his head down and would not meet her gaze. Dark locks of hair covered his eyes. She found herself looking to Gault for that reassurance she hungered for, and was swiftly caught up in the embrace of his eyes. Her heart warmed. But he dismissed himself and walked away. He knows my shame. She thought of her sordid nights with Aeros and guilt flooded her. She was not worthy of such reverence and kindness from Gault. She was not worthy of Jenko Bruk, either. That was why he would not meet her eyes. He knows my shame too. I am used. I am useless to him now. Useless to any man.

  Hammerfiss’ eyes had followed hers. He’d seen the looks she’d given Gault. The red-haired giant winked at her, then addressed Mancellor. “Stand here. Don’t let anybody in that tent who ain’t invited by Aeros himself. And don’t go lettin’ yourself in if you ain’t invited, either. And don’t touch the girl.” He took one thick finger and tapped Mancellor on the forehead hard. “What I’m sayin’ is, just use your own fuckin’ common sense or Aeros will have your nuts for shark bait. Your training is at an end.”

  Hammerfiss left. Mancellor was now her guard. Jenko Bruk also stayed. His eyes finally met hers, and she felt her soul instantly shrivel. She could tell by the look on his face that he’d done nothing to stop the slaughter of Tomkin Sty, had maybe even participated in it. Cold dread crawled over her flesh. He was not like her anymore. Her eyes traveled the length of him; the slave mark on the underside of his wrist was nearly healed and barely visible. Hers was still raw and red.