A Lament of Moonlight (7 page)

“That actually stopped all time on O?” Ruby asked.

“Well yes, it wouldn’t do for me to stop the time only here for then the planet would be all messed up wouldn’t it? I mean if tha
t happened when time resumed the
n it might be the same time here as it is half a plane
t away!” She laughed. “Dear Lady
that would be awful wouldn’t it? Yes, it stopped all time on O, I imagine there is a bread maker in mid kneed somewhere in The Great Realms right now.” They had no idea what she was talking about. In their thinking O was made up of their continent The Middle Garden and the ocean which flowed to the edge of the world. They knew nothing of life outside of O let alone someone so far away baking at this time of night. But Samarra brought them all back to the present.

“
Cailleach Bheur
is the servant of a D
ark Goddess, a Goddess that does not belong on O, but came her
e
a long time ago. She came here from a distant pl
anet, following the beliefs of
her
humans.”

“Helvegr!” Abigail said.

“Yes, that is the path you are currently on. The path to Hel. Hel is an evil Goddess, one of destruction and great dark powers. She came here with the humans from another planet, as did many other creatures and powerful forces that had never lived on O before.

“Now, I will show you more about the humans that came here later, but
for now you must understand
the reason for all of this darkness plaguing your home is because of
Cailleach Bheur
. She has taken up a spot in Eget Row, and she is corrupting the tree of man, what you call Evyndelle.”

“But why would she do such a thing?” Melvin asked.

“Because she wants to make a world perfect for Hel and the Dark Goddess’s family.”

“There are more of them?” Ruby asked.

“Hel is not alone. She has two
brothers. They are not our concern right now
though;
we are talking about
Cailleach Bheur
.” At the mention of the Dark Goddess Abigail couldn’t help seeing the image of the half rotting woman again.

“As I said,
Cailleach Bheur
is at the tree of man, corrupting it and tainting the wyrd that sustains mankind. She must be stopped, and she must be stopped tonight before the shadows overcome O.”

“But Eget Row is so far away!” Melvin said, fear coming over him and anxiousness that they had to go right away.

“It is, but there is a tear in the fabric of reality not far from here, we should be able to use that tear to travel there. It is this tear that
Cailleach Bheur
is using to send her shadows to this place.”

“Why are they attacking us?” Abigail asked.

“Because you are
harbingers of light. You are the children of those people that came from the stars. The people that came from the stars changed many things about O. Now it is up to those descendants of the star people to set things right.”

“And
Cailleach Bheur
is our way of setting things right?”

“No
, fighting the shadows, the chaos that has befallen this world because of your coming, that is how you set things right.”

“I don’t believe this
,” Abigail conceded
shocking everyone
.

“Then maybe it is better that I show you,” Samarra hiked up the copious sleeves of her gown and spread her hands out on the table. In the center of the round table a light blo
omed and spread out as if air
was being breathed into it. The orb expanded and grew until it was like a little sun had come to rest upon the table.

“Now, reach into the light, and you will see.” There was slight trepidation. Melvin moved first, and when he moved so did the other two. Their hands sunk into the warm light that felt like water on their wrists.

Instantly the light flashed and they were no longer in the sugar shanty, but leagues away. When the light cleared from her eyes Abigail stood in a long tunnel of some shiny, hard material. Along the tunnel there were windows, and the windows looked out onto stars.

Lights hung above her, red and orange, and they were flashing in some kind of warning she didn’t understand, but was afraid of all the same. The tunnel tilted as something crashed behind her, and Abigail was thrown to the wall as the tunnel tipped sickeningly. She looked out the window and there was a huge ball under her, a ball that was blue and green and scattered with white mist.

There was
awareness
in her that said this was O, this orb beneath her that she was racing toward was the place she lived. The word planet came into her mind, and though she had never heard it before, she knew exactly what it was.

It was apparent to Abigail that she was in someone else’s body because she knew what was happening. But this person, this place felt like home. All of this felt so right to her like she belonged here. It reminded her of being in the parlor upstairs and recognizing the things there as if they were part of her. She knew that asteroids were crashing into the ship and she knew they were losing power. She also knew that the ship was coming apart
and she was plummeting toward the planet
.

She didn’t expect to live once she hit the planet.

Fire bloomed up around the windows as she entered the atmosphere of O, and the land below became less smudges of colors and more a patchwork of colors.

Off to the north of the land she hurtled toward there was a great tree. A tree that was taller than anything she had ever seen in her life, including some of the incredibly tall buildings on the planet she came from. The tree was like no other she had ever seen because it wasn’t made of leaves or needles, but of both. The tree was both flowering and fruit bearing
and glowed with a light of its own that they had even seen from space
.
Orbs floated around it and if this woman Abigail was inside of believed in myths, she would have sworn they were fairies.

In her mind there came a word, and that word was Evyndelle. But the girl whose body she was in didn’t recognize the name. Instead she had another name for it: Yggdrasil.

There was no time to admire the tree though, because panic at her imminent death was on her once more and she blacked out.

When Abigail gained consciousness once more she wasn’t in the
girl’s
body any longer, but at the site where the ship had wrecked.

The land was scorched with more than just fire. It was burning with hatred and with a foreign power that didn’t belong on this world. This was a land of magic, where a
person’s
thoughts and beliefs could manifest. This was a place where the fears of the planet they left were walking menaces.

Where the ship had wrecked the people were forever changed. Those people that lived on O near the site were deformed, sometimes horrifically and sometimes to the point of death. But all of them lost their shadows that day. The shadows separated from their bodies and became entities of their own, that walked and talked and fed on the fears of the people, often taking shapes into what they feared the most.

So it was the first shadkin were born and so it was that other things came to walk on O. Things of myth and legend, things of great beauty and things of unimaginable darkness.
All of those things had converged on O the day the ship ripped through the atmosphere. They had slipped in from the dark matter of space, and were making a home of their own.

“Your forefathers brought many
things
with them, but their coming allowed Chaos to slip in. Their belief in their gods called those gods here, and while some of them didn’t take an interest in O, a few of them did. One of which was Hel.”

“And
Cailleach Bheur
is here to make this place
homier
for Hel?” Ruby asked.

“Yes,
Cailleach Bheur
is a shadkin, working on O for the Dark Goddess.
There are varying degrees of the shadkin. Some of them are very powerful while others not so much. Some more powerful shadkin may rule
over a type of lesser shadkin
.

“The shadkin
have roots in this land
, roots they have fought hard for. There are pillars of darkness in this world, pillars that allow the darkness to be.”

“Is
Cailleach Bheur
one of those pillars?” Melvin asked.

“Yes
. Her
darkness is creeping into you
r woods
and it is growing to a dangerous extent for even tonight you walked into a world created by that darkness, a world that is both here and not here just as Singers Trail is. You walked into
a grove of lime trees that was
never previously there.
She is threatening this land with eternal winter to bring the dead season. Already she has made Eget Row a land of perpetual ice.

“And that
is just the beginning. If the darkness succeeds in claiming the forest of your ancestors it will sweep out from there until it has contaminated the entire world.” Samarra threw her hands wide to indicate just
how big a pandemic it would be.

“And the sugar shanty is a Pillar of Light?” Melvin asked.

“
It was built on an
energy center that is one of th
e last Pillars of Light on O
. Each night it shines like that, beckoning to any that see it to come and learn, come and be part of the Light, come a
nd be a h
arbinger of the Light.

“While
Cailleach Bheur
is the Pillar of Darkness, she has someone on this side of the tear working for her, trying to corrupt the Pillar of Light.

“Your cousin is odd behaved I understand?” Abigail and Ruby seemed to catch on then. “Your cousin wasn’t always a bad child, or at least she wasn’t born that way. There is a race of fairies that covet the way humans look. They love the color of human
skin, for theirs is bluish
, they love the fullness of human bodies for theirs are gangly and knobby. Sometimes they fall so in love with the notion of human youths that they will actually steal a human child to raise as their own, forsaking their own brood in the place of the human child they have taken. I am sure that your cousin is rather ugly? She is thin and knobby and often
makes
odd comments about her age?”

“YES!” Ruby said believing this much faster than the others were willing to.

“That is because she is a changeling, a type of shadkin that has minor control over other shadkin.”

“Wait, what?” Melvin asked. “I don’t understand this, can’t she just be bad? Why do we have to make up fanciful tales of why some people are bad? C
an’t someone just misbehave
?” He scoffed.

“No child is as bad as she is all the time. No, from what I have heard I can tell that your cousin is a shadkin. Milk often curdles when changelings are present as well as butter going rancid. It is hard to keep food in the house because of their seemingly insatiable appetite. They don’t like fire, and they are very devious.” Samarra said with much conviction

“That’
s Gretchen alright!” Ruby said.

“
Being a changeling
her wyrd is capable of control
ling the darkness in your world. I
n fact her very existence
here
gives the darkness a foothold
.

“Do we have to kill her?” Rub
y asked
.

“The only way
you would be able to is with fire, because that is her one weakness, though because you are in the forest I would not suggest it. I do suggest, however, that you find where the real Gretchen is being detained.”

“And where is that?” Melvin asked.

“She is being held with
Cailleach Bheur
. She is the one
holding your cousin captive and if you were to get her back from the shadkin you would be able to stave off the
effects
of the darkness and rid your trail of the shadkin the changeling has sent after you; the wolves, snakes and birds.”

“What do we need to do in order to get her back?” Abigail asked.

“By stealing
Cailleach Bheur’s
necrotic staff
. Without the staff the Dark Goddess gave to her, she has no power
.”

“How can we do something like that?
H
ow are we
able to defeat her?” Ruby asked
.

“There are three things that keep her strong. The changeling, the staff and the grove of lime trees. If you destroy those you can get your cousin back and put an end to
Cailleach Bheur
.

“You will have to brave the shadkin and detour from the wood roa
d to reach her.