The Silver Moon Elm

by MaryJanice Davidson

  The word hobble evoked Jonathan Scales’s description of the beaststalker practice and her mother’s loathing of it. “Glory hobbled you?”

  “Goodness, no.” Edmund’s chuckle was mirthless. “That would have been beneath her. One of her minions hobbled me, upon her command. But, of course, in a universe without Glory, beaststalkers didn’t enjoy the revival from their heyday of centuries ago. They never rediscovered so many nasty skills: never learned to hobble, never learned to shout. They were soft, like the warriors you brought with you today.”

  “Hey,” Eddie growled, cocking an arrow through blood-tinged fingers.

  “And once beaststalkers were out of the way, we could focus on dragons. A tougher battle, to be sure, but one we could win.”

  “Especially once you knew where Crescent Valley was,” Jennifer finished for him. Because of Skip.

  “You’re upset with my son,” Dianna said. “Because he gave us the last piece we needed. The only thing I couldn’t learn.”

  “He betrayed me. He betrayed my friends. Because of him, my father is dead. Because of him, Susan’s gone. Because of him, Catherine’s…” Jennifer motioned vaguely behind her to where the scorpion-Nakia stood.

  “He only did what his family asked of him. If your family asked the same of you, wouldn’t you listen to them?”

  “I don’t know,” Jennifer answered honestly. “I don’t think my family would ever ask me to do anything like that.”

  Dianna stepped in closer. “I know you have no reason to believe me, Jennifer. But there are things we’ve done here that I’m not proud of.”

  “I’ll make sure they etch that on your gravestone.”

  “When you do something like this, two lives become one. The dream you had becomes your life, and the life you had becomes more and more like a dream. For seventeen years, I did not hurt a soul. I had faith in peace. I married your father in secret, with the hope of showing the world someday how love could prevail. Past the disaster of losing my daughter, through more than twenty years of putting up with Otto Saltin’s dreams of conquest, I did not kill.

  “Then, in the space of a single evening last week, I slaughtered tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of souls.” Her voice trembled. “I have not left this observatory since the new world was born. I can already see too much from here, as it is, especially in the new life I’ve created for myself. Things are twisted beyond my recognition, even myself and my loved ones. I am a killer. My son became a liar to the girl he loved most. My husband, Otto, dead in the first world, spent his new life here conducting horrific experiments in Crescent Valley. While these things won us our victory against dragonkind, it turned a place we coveted into a place we avoided. And I let it all happen. I couldn’t help myself. I have become what I feared most: an adult addicted to death and desecration.”

  Jennifer spared a thought for Seraphina, who was probably still fighting Otto’s creations on the last island left to them all. Or is she even still alive?

  “You created new life!” Tavia protested to Dianna. “The werachnids are strong now, because of what the Quadrivium did! You have your daughter! Edmund can change, and walk!”

  The bosom inside the jade dress heaved with a sigh. “Otto made arguments like that to me, all the time. One life, traded for another. Werachnid in, dragon out. We’re creators, and yet we’re also murderers. It doesn’t feel like an improvement.”

  She reached out tentatively to Jennifer, who let her replace a strand of platinum hair behind her right ear. “On top of that, I made an orphan of the daughter of the man I truly loved. And, of course, my own son is dead.” Now, finally, Dianna walked over to where Skip lay. Those in her way parted quickly to let her pass. She knelt down by his body, letting her dress soak in his blood. Her breath came heavily, and for a moment Jennifer believed she was trying to cast a spell that might bring the boy back to life.

  Whether or not that was the case, it did not work. The breathing turned to sobbing, and Dianna turned to Edmund and Tavia with pale eyes. “I want to put things back the way they were.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Tavia snapped. “You’ve gotten what you want.”

  Edmund crouched slightly. The threat behind his posture was hard to miss. “Dianna, don’t make us regret including you. Otto told me he had his doubts—”

  “I know what Otto told you,” Dianna snapped. “His mind was always simple, always open to me. He took things too far. And now he’s dead.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s an instructive reflection.” Dianna stood up, letting the thick blood trickle off the hem of her dress. “Please tell me you have more sense than him!”

  Feeling the shift in the room, Evangelina morphed into her stronger, darker form and stepped close to her mother. Jennifer joined her, and Elise and Eddie closed ranks. The other warriors and Nakia followed suit. Andi, dark eyes wide, edged toward the doorway. Jennifer saw the small girl’s fingers flex around her forearms, and she spared a hope that Andi had no knives hidden on her person.

  “I can’t believe this,” Edmund snarled, his good eye rolling. “We finally get things the way we want to, after years of planning. Decades of planning. And you want to throw it all away!”

  “Throw what away?!” Dianna asked with a stomp of her foot. The small demonstration of impatience rocked the observatory and startled Jennifer. “One of the Quadrivium is now dead. Three are left, surrounded by the allies of a fifteen-year-old girl who crushed our guard and entered our inner sanctum. Edmund, we changed the universe…and we still lost! It’s over! How long do you think we’ll be able to hold this universe together as the paradise you believe it to be? How many more people will have to—”

  “We have to stop her, Edmund.” Why Tavia bothered to whisper, Jennifer had no idea. Not only were Dianna and Evangelina telepaths, but even the smallest voice became a magnified echo in this cavernous room. “We have to kill her!”

  Evangelina showed no interest in waiting for them to strike first. With a snarl, she forced the tendrils of her dark aura forward.

  Edmund was directly in her path and had his back to the wall. As the darkness overtook him, he blinked an eye, and vanished, leaving Evangelina to crash into the wall. A moment later, the blond spider reappeared, clinging to a point about halfway up the observatory wall.

  “Settle down, daughter.” Dianna sighed. “Edmund Slider’s jumping skills are, shall we say, better than average. You can’t catch him. And we don’t need to.”

  Evangelina did not listen. She began to chase Edmund around the room. Jennifer heard her try to sound out where he would go next before he teleported, but he was too good at clouding his mind.

  “Evangelina, please! You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do, Mother.”

  Jennifer almost laughed. That didn’t take long. With a wry smile at Elise, she admitted, “You and I have a special mother-daughter relationship, too.”

  In the commotion, she barely noticed Eddie, who still had an arrow cocked in his bow. He began to track the movements of the pair with the point of the dart.

  Tavia ignored it all and made her last plea to Dianna. “You can’t make us give this up! Look at him! He’s so beautiful as a spider. In that other world, he’s never going to change. He’s never going to stand.”

  “And in this world,” Jennifer heard Eddie mutter, “he’s never going to see.”

  He released his arrow just as Edmund arrived at a point on the opposite wall, just a few feet up. The missile plunged right into Edmund’s last eye, knocking the spider off the wall with a blood-curdling scream.

  “Edmund!” Tavia rushed to his side and tried to staunch the blood running down his face.

  Jennifer located Andi, who was still in the doorway. “What are you waiting for? Help him!”

  Andi nodded and jogged over, gym bag in hand. Her delicate features widened in concern as she tried to keep Edmund’s head still. “If you hold him
steady, I can…”

  But Tavia released him as soon as Andi had him, and she charged across the room without a thought of changing or casting sorcery or anything else other than getting to Eddie. “You little piece of shit! You won’t leave this place alive!”

  Eddie cocked another arrow instantly and leveled his bow. Jennifer did the only thing she could, and stood in front of him with her back to Tavia. “Eddie, no!”

  In a flash, Dianna was back to back with Jennifer, palms out at her sister-in-law. “Tavia, wait!”

  “Dead!”

  The severity of the word and the tone Tavia used in her sorcery made Jennifer turn, keeping one hand on the point of Eddie’s arrow and raising a dagger to defend…

  But the sorcery never made it that far. It was suddenly not a woman behind Jennifer, but a pulsating mesh of bright and dim green lights, with hints of reds and yellows, suggestive of a spider rather than actually detailing one. Set against the twilight of the observatory interior, her shape reminded Jennifer of a strange aurora borealis.

  A being of pure energy, Dianna swallowed Tavia’s black sorcery whole, adding it to her own kaleidoscope. She reached out with a leg (or what Jennifer guessed was a leg) and tried to stroke her sister-in-law’s face.

  “Tavia. See to Edmund.”

  The other woman pulled back from the touch with hate deepening the wrinkles in her brow. “You’ve ruined everything!” she cried out in a hoarse voice. “Otto was a strong man, and Edmund was magnificent, and then you ruined everything! I’ll never forgive you for this!”

  “Tavia—” The aurora dimmed and wrapped itself back around Dianna’s human form, swishing again like a dress.

  “I hope you die!” The word die echoed through the hollow sphere. Tavia looked at each and every one of them—Dianna, then Eddie, then Evangelina and Jennifer, and then everyone else. “I hope you all die for what you’ve done!”

  “Are you going to help me save him or not?” called out a thin, clear voice. It was Andi, looking angry. One of the girl’s hands was on Edmund’s bloody chin, trying to keep the man’s head straight. The other one alternated between trying to pull the arrow out, and trying to keep her patient’s flailing arms from tearing at her.

  “Not,” Tavia sneered at Andi, “because it doesn’t matter. Not if Dianna has made up her mind. We’ll all go back to last week, and everything will be back the way it was. Nobody will remember anything of this world. Skip will be alive. Edmund will be in a wheelchair. Otto will be dead. And you, my pretty little nurse, will have never even existed.” The thought seemed to amuse Tavia in her hysterical state. “Meanwhile, my dead brother’s wife here gets to float about, wherever it is she floats about, all warm and joyful! Because I’ll bet she’ll find a way to keep her precious daughter around. Won’t you, Dianna?”

  Dianna sucked in her cheeks and narrowed her eyes. It looked as if she was going to say something to Tavia, or perhaps level her, but then she let out a breath and turned to Jennifer. “You want your life back.”

  The open offer stunned Jennifer, in spite of all she’d heard. She managed to open her mouth. “Yes. Please.”

  “You may have it, on one condition.”

  Jennifer braced herself. I have to complete another quest? Or grovel? Or worst of all… not kill Skip the moment I see him again?

  “I want you to forgive my son.”

  Dammit! “Why?!”

  “Because of his sacrifice.”

  They both turned to look at Skip’s lifeless body. His face was paler now. Strands of chocolate hair clung in cold sweat, making small weblike patterns along the fringes of his face.

  “What he did out there wasn’t sacrifice,” Jennifer protested. “He shot at your daughter! He could have ruined everything for you.”

  “And yet he missed.” Dianna shook her head with a sad smile. “He didn’t know what he was doing, dear. He never did. All he knew was that he wanted to save you.”

  “So you let him.”

  “As I said before, I wanted you along, too, by the time he knew what would happen. But us wanting you here was one thing. Having you here required sacrifice. Skip stepped forward. He gave something precious, for something precious.”

  Jennifer walked over to Skip’s body. Hearing his mother’s words, she knew right away what he had given up. That’s why he never changed, all week long. No matter what I did to him. Oh, Skip…

  “You hobbled him.”

  “Gently, yes. Hobbling doesn’t require the brutality of the beaststalker ritual. The right poison, applied correctly, will do the job without pain. He could walk, but he would never change again. And he asked me to do it, for you.” Dianna extended a hand of velvet and lifted Jennifer’s chin to face her. She measured this girl, judging her worthiness of the sacrifice. “The boy who was to become my people’s most powerful leader, hobbled himself so you could live. I took his gift, and spread it across all our kind to break our bonds from the phases of the moon.”

  Jennifer wanted to believe this woman. Why would she lie about it? He’s dead now. “He wasn’t a member of the Quadrivium.”

  “No.”

  “He really only came along to save me.”

  “Yes. He could have left you behind, using his sorcery for himself alone, bringing nothing but his betrayal into this world. Or he could have let the change happen without protecting himself, which would have left him in this universe without any knowledge or memory of you. He couldn’t bear the thought of either path. Only saving you made any sense to him.”

  “And he only betrayed Crescent Valley because you told him to.”

  “We all told him to, and yes.”

  Jennifer looked straight into Dianna’s colorful eyes. They were pale yellow now. She raised a dagger and pointed it right between them. “Then fine, I’ll forgive him. And you’ll set things right. And then the next time you and I meet, we’re going to settle this with a good, healthy dose of violence.”

  The woman’s lip curled up. “I suppose I’m going to have to hope it never comes to that.”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  The curl didn’t go away. “I’m not. But I’m flattered you think I’m in a position to do so.”

  Jennifer looked her up and down. Was Dianna as strong as she seemed? Or was her strength limited to certain situations? In a knife fight, would a simple beaststalker tear right through her?

  Find out afterward. “Whatever. If you’re going to change things back, how about less talk, more back-changing. I’d like to see my parents and friends again.”

  “Yes, of course you would. You’ll tell your father what has happened, I imagine?”

  “Yes.”

  Dianna turned and walked toward Evangelina. “Could you please tell him I’m sorry? For leaving him, I mean. I didn’t mean to hurt him. It just…”

  “…came naturally?” Jennifer offered.

  “It just got too hard,” Dianna finished with a sigh. She walked into Evangelina’s aura, and the darkness faded around her. She stroked her daughter’s reptilian skull. “But let him know I’m happier now. Perhaps he is, too. And let him know our daughter is safe.”

  What will happen to me, Mother?

  The sorceress graced her daughter with an enormous, warm smile. “Oh, Evangelina, dear. Don’t fret. Just stay at my side.”

  “What do you need to do?” Jennifer asked. “To reverse everything. Is it difficult?”

  “It’s always easier to undo, than to do. My role in the Quadrivium was to bend the stars.” Dianna looked up at the starlit sky within the dome, and it flexed as she breathed. “All we need to unbend them is a bit of poison to relax what I’ve constricted.”

  “Will this do?” Jennifer went over to the gym bag, where Andi was storing the cooler with the botulin toxin. “We’ve had it under ice, and it’s been pretty cold out to begin with…”

  The sorceress took the cooler from her and peered inside. “You are prepared for anything, aren’t you? Just like your father was. I mean
, is,” she added hastily.

  “I don’t know about that. A good swift kick seems to catch him off guard.”

  “You will also need something from outside this manufactured world.”

  Jennifer patted herself down with the growing sense that she was going to have to give up one of her beautiful daggers. It’s worth it, she told herself as she examined them both. But which one? Can Uncle Mike replace either one as easily? Would I even want him to?

  Then she thought of Goodwin, who she had placed in Andi’s gym bag before the battle, for his safety. Maybe he’s Geddy and he’ll work. Or maybe he’s just Goodwin, which will blow up the whole—Oh, hey!

  She placed her hand in her jacket pocket, where the silver moon elm leaf still rested intact. Victorious, she held it out for Dianna to take.

  “Finally,” the woman told her, “we will need a beaststalker’s blood.”

  Jennifer bit her lip. “How much?”

  “All of it.”

  “Nothing else will work?”

  “Glorianna Seabright’s young blood,” Dianna answered patiently, “cemented this sorcery. Only a beaststalker’s blood can unglue it.”

  Swallowing hard, Jennifer looked around the room. She hadn’t told any of these people what this was all about. Sure, some had heard about a new universe, but did any of them know if they would still be alive in it? And what if Dianna really was tricking them? Neither Sonakshi nor Seraphina had said anything about a blood sacrifice. Could she ask any of these people to die for what could be a dumb, horrible mistake?

  “Take mine,” she finally offered, rolling up her right jacket and shirt sleeve.

  Dianna shook her head. “You wouldn’t—”

  “Hey!” Elise snapped through clenched teeth as she grabbed Jennifer’s shoulder and spun her around. “I’m still not your mother, but if I was, I’m pretty certain I would be pissed off at you right now!”

  “You don’t—”

  “Eh, why’m I even talking to you.” Elise shoved Jennifer to the floor and turned to Dianna. “You spill her blood, I spill yours. It’s not an option.”