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THE MOONQUEST
Prologue
Na'an came to me
in a dream this night. It was early. I had not been in bed long and the
night was newly dark.
"It is time," she said, "time to fix The MoonQuest on parchment."
I was gladdened to see her after so many seasons, but I was not cheered
by the message she bore. I tried to engage her in other discourse, but
she was single-minded as only a Tikkan dreamwalker can be.
"It is not for me to boast of my exploits," I argued. "Others
have sung them. Let them continue."
"No," she said, and her silver tresses shimmered as she shook
her head. "It is your story to tell. It is for you to fix it in ink,
to set the truth down for all to read."
I tried to resist, to shut Na'an's words from my heart, to return to the
dreamless sleep that preceded her appearance. But Tikkan speak only what
we know in our hearts to be true, and my heart would not close to her
even as my mind longed to. Only by forcing my eyes open and my body to
this table was I able to banish her milk-white face from my mind's eye.
Only by letting my quill rasp across the blank parchment have I stilled
her voice.
But my quill hovers over oceans of emptiness. I don't know what to write,
where to begin. The story has so many beginnings and no clear ending.
As a bard, as Elderbard, I am trained to know how to weave disparate elements
into a tapestry of word and song that brings light and meaning to life.
When recounting others' stories, I have no difficulty. The tales unfurl
from my tongue as if by magic, as if M'nor herself were singing through
me.
Na'an says it is my story. Perhaps she is right. Is that why the words
come so reluctantly? So many seasons of storytelling and still I hesitate.
Of all the stories to stick in my throat, how ironic that it should be
The MoonQuest, a tale of the freeing of story itself.
You see how confused I am? I have not even introduced myself. My truth
name is Toshar and I am old, so old that most who knew me by that name
have passed on to other worlds.
Toshar... Even I have forgotten the boy who was Toshar, the youth who
embarked on The MoonQuest all those seasons ago.
They call me Ko'lar now, the ancient word for Elderbard. It is a sign
of honor and respect, but it separates me from the youth I was.
Perhaps Na'an is right. Perhaps it is time to bring back Toshar, to allow
the boy I was to touch the man I have become, the man I will soon cease
to be. Soon it will be time to release the ageless spirit from this aged
body and move on to other realms, set off on other journeys. I have seen
it and I welcome it. But it cannot be mine until I have told this story.
Na'an insists.
She speaks, even as I sit here in full wakefulness, staring at the shadows
cast by my flickering taper. Now, they loom, large and menacing. Now,
they flit and flutter in delicate dance. I see it all now, in the leap
of light against dark. The shadows will tell me the story and I will write
what I see. I will write until my fingers and beard are black with ink.
I will write until the story is told.
Only then will I be free to continue my journey. Only then will my daughter,
Q'nta, be free to continue hers. She is nearly ready. Ryolan Ò
Garan taught her well, taught her the lessons of The MoonQuest. Soon she
will live them through my words and will be free to assume the mantle
of her birthright, according to the ancient orders of succession:
From father to
daughter, mother to son
The mantle passes, the Balance is done
I was an exception
to the Law of Balance, a law as old as the land itself. But those were
exceptional times, the darkest of ages, in a land where "once upon
a time" was a forbidden phrase and fact the only legal tender.
That was the land I was born into, a land of slaughtered bards, a land
dulled and divided by fear. That was Q'ntana, and this is its story, and
mine... a story that begins once upon a time.
I Pre Tena'aa: The
Beginning
ONE
The day Yhoshi and O'ric arrived in Pre Tena'aa began much like the cycles
of other days that had passed since the Circle of Bards straggled into
this remote land. Rising before dawn, we slipped silently through the
labyrinth of underground passageways and out into the gray, timeless time
between night and day. We gathered in a circle, all twelve of us around
Eulisha, following the line of her oak staff as it traced a north-south
arc through the sky and then paused, lingering on a spot just above the
horizon, where a faint shadow-streaked orb fluttered into view then dissolved.
"We send the strength of our hearts to M'nor that she may return
to light in joy and truth," Eulisha said. We touched our right hands
from heart to mouth and repeated the refrain. No other words broke the
early morning still. Only when spikes of pink and white speared the gloom
did we break the circle and file back inside.
Danger rose with the suns. Little traveled though Pre Tena'aa, we were
outlaws. Though we didn't officially exist, there was a price on our heads
- heads King Fvorag craved as the crowning display on his Wall of Traitors.
No one knew we were here and had been for seven years. No one, save the
Tena'aa themselves, and their legendary ferocity kept visitors, including
the King's Men, at bay. Legend proclaimed them man-eaters, declared that
the suns-bleached bones heaped along the highway and picked clean of all
flesh were all that remained of any who strayed from the road that pierced
this barren land like an arrow.
In truth, the Tena'aa ate no flesh, only the roots and herbs that flourished
in their darkened tunnels and the scratchy grains that swept out across
their treeless prairie. Yet their culinary magic transformed these into
such incomparable flavors that I was always first inside the cavernous
dining hall.
This day was no exception. I raced down the familiar route and took my
place at our table just as a Tena'aa server set a steaming bowl of puna
porridge in front of me. Often, Gwill'm, the Tena'aa chief, or his brother
Heraff joined us for meals. This morning, however, we thirteen bards sat
alone, freeing Zakk to resound a familiar theme.
"You must be tired, mother. Let me work with the boy today."
My father's younger brother forced his thin lips into a smile of forced
charm that fluttered between sneer and servility. His eyes squeezed into
black slits that flicked from Eulisha's face to mine.
Eulisha shook her head. She was my grandmother and Elderbard, a title
that once ranked alongside the king in importance. At least four score
and ten, she smiled with the face of a dried apple, the heart of a child
and the laugh of a wind chime rippling in a summer breeze. She laughed
now. Eulisha and Zakk had taken over my bard-teaching from my father and
tutor, missing these nine years and believed dead.
The solicitous shading faded from Zakk's voice. "I am Am'dar's brother
and the boy's uncle and guardian," he stated. "I am to be Elderbard
when you... I am to be next Elderbard. It is right that I take over all
the boy's education." He silently canvassed the table for support,
but only his wife, Myrym, acknowledged him.
"The boy is no longer a boy. He's a young man," Eulisha chided
gently. "A young man with a name. Why do you never call him by it?"
Zakk glowered at me.
"A young man?" he spat. "Look at him." Zakk's gray
eyes bore into mine with unprecedented malice and I flinched as though
I had been struck. "You see why I call him boy? A man wouldn't cower
like a wounded fahriya. If he is ever to be a man, he needs a man teach
him what that means. He needs-"
"Zakk." Eulisha's voice was chill as ice. "I am still Elderbard.
I will decide who teaches him and when."
Zakk's eyes flared. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. Clenching
his fists, he jerked his shoulders back and stormed from the hall.
And so another breakfast and another quarrel made way for another morning's
lessons with Eulisha. If one day in Pre Tena'aa was much the same as the
last, my time with Eulisha was always magically unique, alive with storytelling
and song as I absorbed the history and lore that all bards must learn
and pass on.
"As the youngest surviving bard, you have a special responsibility
to learn and remember," she said as I prepared to leave her chamber
at midday.
I hesitated at the door.
"What is it, Toshar? What have you been waiting to ask?"
"Are there other stories, Grandmother? Ones you and Zakk haven't
taught me? Ones not yet written?"
It was a question Zakk had answered the previous day - with his customary
smack across the back of my head.
"What does your heart tell you?" Eulisha asked in turn.
I started to shrug, my usual response to this question, but then sensed
an unusual stirring, the faintest glimmer of an inner knowing. It seemed
as though a butterfly had landed in my chest, its wings beating in time
with my heart. It unsettled me, igniting a spark of fear. But I wanted
to please Eulisha, so I listened and pushed and probed, my face contorted
with purpose.
"Don't impose your will on it, Toshar. Let it come as it comes. Free
your breath."
I exhaled - more sigh than surrender - and shook my head in defeat. I
felt nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing.
"You will know what is yours to know when it is time to know it,"
Eulisha whispered. She stood so close I could smell her sweet-scented
soap, the one that always reminded me of my mother. I swallowed hard,
trying to hold back the tears, trying to be the man Zakk insisted I be.
"You will know the stories that are yours to know at the same time,"
she added. "Until then, be still and have patience."
Patience: always difficult counsel for one on the cusp of manhood. I left
Eulisha's chamber and wandered blindly through dark tunnels eerily lit
greenish gold by the phosphorescent maya weed that climbed their earthen
walls. I walked, ignoring the call to lunch, ignoring the call to chores.
I walked until my legs ached and I no longer knew where I was. All the
while I sought the return of that butterfly, only to push it away whenever
it approached.
Day and night are much the same beneath the earth, where time has no meaning
and the shadowy glow of maya never alters. Only when a commotion erupted
around me did I discover how long I had wandered. From all directions,
Tena'aa scurried past and up a ramped shaft to the surface. Curious, I
followed. To my surprise, daylight had fled and Aris blazed defiantly
in the northern sky. With lesser stars it formed a web of twinkling diamond
chips that glinted off the luminous fangs of the Tena'aa.
It was easy to give credence to the legends of their ferocity. It was
said, Gwill'm had told me, giggling, that the play of starlight on their
giant teeth lured travelers off the road to what seemed to be a settlement,
only to be eaten alive, their bones heaped by the road. It was a myth
the Tena'aa encouraged, he said. It kept them safe in perilous times.
So I was surprised to see two travelers emerge from the shadows, following
a snaking, tooth-lit course through the scrub. It could be a treacherous
route, even in daylight, because of the camouflaged air shafts and entryways
that pocked the landscape. One traveler rode a dappled mount, the other
sat atop a wooden coach drawn by two horses.
These were not King's Men. Yet though that fact alone didn't mark them
as friends, I knew them to be such.
I knew and saw much, even as the dim starlight revealed little: the curious
rune-like markings on the coach...the even curiouser horses that drew
it, whose names I knew (without knowing how) to be Rykka and Ta'ar, the
ancient words for dawn and dusk. But for the white bolts that flashed
from forehead to muzzle, Rykka's coloring was the pale blue of morning
sky, Ta'ar's the smoky plum of twilight.
Neither bridle nor reins secured them to the coach or to the most curious
piece of all: the driver, who sat upon a three-legged stool perched at
the front of the coach's flat roof, clawed hands folded on his lap.
Clad in a robe of deep forest green flecked with tongues of flame and
matching conical cap, he paid little heed to his horses' progress. Instead,
his unblinking eyes found first Eulisha, then me.
Bald and clean-shaven, his skin was neither smooth nor wrinkled, neither
light nor dark. It had a translucent scaliness, as though it could flake
off at the touch. Ancient, yet ageless and ethereal: That's how O'ric
seemed when I first saw him.
His companion, who I would soon know as Yhoshi, was near to my age and
wore dun-colored garments that hung loosely on a muscular frame. He had
bristly blond hair and a brush of platinum on his upper lip and chin that
had the opposite of its intended effect on a cherubic face. Sea-blue eyes,
hooded with suspicion, darted warily as he passed me.
It was strange to see so clearly in so little light, but I didn't question
it. I just watched. And listened to the faint strains of music that wafted
toward me from O'ric's coach.
At last they stopped, only to be surrounded by a circle of flinting, glinting
teeth. Panicked, Yhoshi heel-kicked his horse to turn and turn again as
he sought a way through the ring of tightly linked arms. All O'ric gazed
calmly in my direction. Despite the dark, I knew he saw me as clearly
as I saw him.
Finally, shoulders slumped, Yhoshi brought his horse to O'ric's side.
Nothing stirred, Yhoshi's fidgeting the only movement in the statue-like
scene. Even Rykka and Ta'ar, their necks bent over the grass, suspended
their chewing.
Then, as if acting on a signal from O'ric that only he could detect, Gwill'm
stepped forward, the circle closing in behind him. He stood motionless
for some minutes more and even I, who knew his gentleness, was struck
by the savage aspect he presented. Little taller than a child, his tiny
head was a mountain range of warts and moles dominated by a glistening
glacier of teeth and two lakes of fiery, unlidded eyes. His right arm,
three times the length of his left, belted his waist in a snakelike coil
that culminated in three crooked fingers that themselves ended in a hook
of claws. In place of a nose and ears, forked, twig-like antennae protruded
from dark holes in his skull, their tips quivering.
"Welcome," he said at last, bowing first to O'ric then to Yhoshi.
"Welcome to the land of the Tena'aa. And to you, my friend -"
he uncoiled his preternaturally long arm and extended it upward to O'ric,
"- most special greetings. It has been too many dark moons since
we have seen you."
O'ric nodded in reply, finally turning his gaze from me. He grasped Gwill'm's
claw and stepped down as Gwill'm wrapped his lengthy arm around O'ric
in a Tena'aa embrace.
"M'nor has called," he said to Gwill'm, even as one yellow eye
wandered back to me. "The time is now."
TWO
Dinner was always a special time in Pre Tena'aa - served in the largest,
grandest and deepest of the subterranean chambers, its lofty ceiling hung
with thousands of starry tapers. Yet this night was more special still.
Instead of random clusters scattered through the hall, the low, wooden
tables were set in paired concentric semicircles that enclosed a small,
central inner circle: the ring of honor, where we bards were joined by
O'ric and Yhoshi, and Gwill'm, his mate Minda'aa, and their son, Bold'ar.
Yhoshi said little at first, and ate less. He picked suspiciously at the
strange stew that filled his bowl, wrinkling his nose at the aromatic
curls of steam that rose lazily from it. I devoured mine greedily. Served
only on rare occassions, the lustrous orange-yellow concoction was one
of my favorites, its naturally sweet broth an ideal base for the red bela
nuts, green zanga fruit and elegantly thin strips of purple gela'aa that
floated within.
"Aren't you hungry, young man?" Myrym asked.
Yhoshi's gaze shifted nervously from Bold'ar, cleaning his second bowl
of stew with a long yellow tongue, to the two great cooking fires that
danced at the far end of the hall. Loud crackling pops exploded from one,
where a sapphire oval of oil-brushed p'yan root sizzled. A man-size cauldron
bubbled into the second.
"H-hungry? No, I mean yes. But I can't." He shuddered as Bold'ar
held his bowl up for a refill. "How can you?" he asked Myrym.
"It isn't true, you know," O'ric interjected, his first words
since the start of the meal. Until that moment, he had stared silently
into the middle distance, eating nothing. Now, he dipped a spoon into
his bowl and ate distractedly.
"What isn't?" Yhoshi asked.
"The bones. You asked about the bones."
Gwill'm bugged his eyes, bared his teeth and lunged. All color drained
from Yhoshi's face.
"Stop it. You're frightening him." Minda'aa's long arm caught
Gwill'm in mid-charge.
She turned to Yhoshi. "Forgive him, Yhoshi. He thinks he's playing.
Someone," she glared at Gwill'm, "should have told you about
the food. Tell him, Toshar."
Once I did, Yhoshi's face grew as red as the untouched bela nuts on his
plate.
"I-I thought...," he stammered. "They say..."
"And we're glad they do," Minda'aa said.
"The Tena'aa are as kindly as they are feared," Eulisha said,
"which has made them the ideal sanctuary for us until The Return,
may it come soon."
"It will," said Zakk, clearing his scowl as his voice rose above
the mealtime clatter and din. "I have seen it, and you," he
proclaimed to Eulisha, "will lead it."
Eulisha laughed gently. "My leading days have passed, Zakk, and my
traveling days along with them. No, one of you-," she glanced from
bard to bard, from Zakk to Myrym to Plenath, from Mord'c to Polit to Kayn,
from Komr'a to Sitha'aa to Ghônn, and all the way around the circle
to me. "One of you will lead The Return, will lead the great journey
that will restore the truth of the tale to Q'ntana. I pray only to live
long enough to know that the journey has begun, that The Return has been
joined."
"But Mother -" Zakk began.
Eulisha raised her hand to silence him. Shaking his head, he returned
to his meal. Myrym patted his hand as an uneasy silence fell over the
table.
"Here," Minda'aa said at last, "take some more stew."
She ladled a cup of the aromatic broth first into Yhoshi's bowl then mine.
Turning back to Yhoshi she asked, "Tell me, young traveler, what
brings you here - and in such fine company?" She tilted her head
toward O'ric.
"I'm not sure I know," he said between mouthfuls. "I was
riding toward the capital. I'm a Messenger, you see. I had taken the road,
something I hardly ever do, but this time I counted on the King's Men
being even more scared of those stories about you than I am." He
smiled at Minda'aa. "Than I was."
"One moment the road was empty. The next, an odd-looking coach was
right in front of me. It came out of nowhere." Yhoshi looked expectantly
at O'ric. But O'ric, lost in a world of his own, said nothing. Yhoshi
continued. "'I have been expecting you, Yhoshi son of Yhosha,' O'ric
said to me. My first impulse was to ride off, I can tell you. I'm still
not sure why I didn't. And here I am."
"That's O'ric's way," Gwill'm said. He stretched his arm to
the next table and retrieved an ale pitcher from which he refilled O'ric's
tankard. O'ric paid it no heed.
"Where do you go next?" I asked.
Yhoshi shrugged, turning again to O'ric, whose yellow eyes suddenly snapped
into focus.
"Along the road you must take," he said, one eye fixed on Yhoshi,
the other on me.
Once again, I sensed that he knew me, more fully even than I knew myself.
The sensation lasted an instant and was gone, as was his focus.
"What about you?" Yhoshi asked. "I never thought I would
meet a bard. I've heard rumors of living bards, of a community of bards
that had fled Q'ntana, but I didn't believe. And here you are, inside
Q'ntana."
Plenath rose and raised his arms in a prophetic stance. He looked the
role with his white hair, beard and robe and glassy stare. "The long
arm of the Tena'aa extended itself to us in hospitality and security,"
he intoned.
"What my brother means," explained Myrym, "is that Gwill'm's
brother, Heraff, found us, starved and half-dead, in the mountains of
Pinq'an." She leaned across the table toward Yhoshi. "But tell
us, what news do you carry from the outside world? We hear little, though
Eulisha sees much."
Zakk glared at Myrym.
"And Zakk," she added quickly.
Yhoshi's face darkened. "It's not good," he said. "The
King's built a second Wall of Traitors in the capital. There was no more
room on the first," he added bitterly.
"The King's Men kill more Believers every day. They don't just kill.
They rape. They torture. They're... they're evil." He clenched his
fists knuckle-white. "I've seen Believers take their own lives to
avoid being discovered." Anger blazed in his eyes. "No place
is safe anymore, not even this one. Spies are everywhere. Even the rocks
and trees-"
"Yes, yes," Zakk interrupted, "we know all this. Haven't
I seen it? Haven't I told of it?" He drummed his fingers irritably
on the tabletop until Myrym gently covered his hand with her own.
"Pinq'an," I repeated softly, stung by a sharp memory.
"Over by the eastern frontier?" Yhoshi asked.
Zakk jerked his hand free of Myrym's. "That was our destination,"
he growled. "But with an old woman and a young child -" A sharp
glance from Eulisha stilled him.
Still standing, Plenath again raised his arms and declaimed, "And
the blinding snows of the q'eenah blowing clouds of drenched cotton in
our paths -"
"Yes, Plenath," Myrym broke in, "and the blinding snows
of the q'eenah blowing clouds of drenched cotton in our paths... and no
food, warm clothes or shelter, we had settled in to die."
"Better to die in the q'eenah's company than the King's," snapped
Zakk.
"Better not to die at all." Eulisha's gentian eyes burned into
Zakk's until he looked away. She turned to Yhoshi. "My son would
not trust Heraff," she said.
"I was prepared to die, Mother. That is all."
"You were ready to die, Zakk. That is not the same. Heraff's eyes
told me he was no enemy. Heraff's heart sang of friendship."
"But the bones, Mother... The stories..."
"You're a bard, Zakk. You are trained to know when stories are true
or false." This last sentence she uttered sternly, the lines in her
face fixed as in stone. But as quickly as they set, they melted back into
an ever-changing maze of folds and wrinkles. She clasped Zakk's smooth
hands in her own, spotted and quivering.
"We must stop our bickering, son. We must wait. Patiently."
She released Zakk's hands and cupped hers firmly around her goblet, staring
into it as though seeking M'nor there. "We must wait for The Return."
"For how long?" Yhoshi asked.
"As long as we must," she replied, looking at O'ric. As their
unblinking eyes locked, a filament of fire raced between them. All at
our table fell into expectant silence. When the fiery energy linking them
had dimmed, Eulisha smiled and sighed.
"The wait is nearly over," she said. It was the saddest smile
I had ever seen.
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