Legend of the Three Moons (2 page)

Finally, forsaking all knowledge of Extreme Magic for themselves, they awaited the return of Princess Elle. Once she was un-enchanted they intended asking her, with the help of the three moons' magic, to return the children's memories and release them from The Forest.

Alas the Queens were right to mistrust Prince Yor. The moment they gave up their magic, his Raiders invaded M'dgassy.

When King Atric and King Tefan fought back they disappeared. Knowing that they would be next, the Queens prepared this letter and casket hoping that during an eclipse, when their children had grown to adulthood, they would hear the song of the three moons and break the moon dial.

Their only fear was that once this happened the Forest would no longer be a haven for them.

They - we - can only hope that by then our princes and princess will be able to defend and fight for each other.

Until we meet again, precious children, we hope our love has kept you safe.

Your loving mothers,

Queen Ona
, mother of Celeste and Chad;

Queen Hail
, mother of Lyla, Lem and Swift'.

Lyla rolled the parchment up. She knew she should say something about how happy she felt that they actually had parents, just like the characters in their books. Or how awful it was that such a terribly scary and sinister thing had happened to their parents. She really should say something - anything - that would reassure Chad and Swift who were staring at her with big questioning eyes but she had no idea how to begin.

`Well, that answers a lot of the questions we've been asking,' said Lem.

`And what we are going to do tomorrow,' added Celeste.

Chad moved closer to his sister. `What's that?'

`Go and find them of course.' Then biting her lip, she smiled weakly at Lyla. `I always knew we had parents. It just worried me that I couldn't remember what they looked like or that I never dreamed about them.'

Three spine-chilling howls suddenly pierced the night air on the other side of the ox-hide curtain. That night the children took turns guarding the cave's entrance while outside the wolves padded back and forth sniffing and growling.

When it was Lyla and Celeste's turn they huddled together, blonde hair mixed with black, whispering about the letter and whether the ox-hide door was strong enough to keep the wolves from attacking them.

`Do you think our mothers did the right thing, locking us away in this Forest with no way of remembering them?' whispered Celeste.

Tightening her grip on her spear, Lyla pursed her lips thoughtfully. `I can't see what else they could do. They wanted to protect us from Prince Yor.'

`But wouldn't it have been better to have kept us with them? I mean...' Celeste sighed. `I would like to have known my mother when I was little. And I am sure Chad would've loved it too.'

Lyla nodded. `We all would, but what if they disappeared along with our fathers? What if we'd disappeared too?'

`Or,' yawned a sleepy Lem, `because they didn't expect us to discover the truth until we were adults, maybe they were counting on us saving them from whatever happened.' Then he stretched and felt for his sword. `It's my turn to sit guard. Are the wolves still out there?'

Lyla nodded.

Next morning Celeste woke, for the first time ever with all her recent memories intact. It was a truly wonderful feeling.

She pushed aside the ox-hide to find Lem sitting on a rock outside. He told her that there had been six wolves in the clearing during the night but they had all gone.

She held her sword ready and cautiously checked the clearing that was full of broken branches and leaves from the storm.

`How do you know there were six, Lem? And if there where that many why didn't they attack? They could easily have bitten through the ox-hide'

`I told them not to.'

An incredulous Lyla looked up from preparing a fire. `You what?'

`The leader stuck his nose through a split in the ox-hide and I told him that he should not hurt us because we would not hurt him. Then I pushed our smoked meat outside to show him that we were his friends.'

Lyla rolled her eyes in disbelief. `And he wagged his tail and thanked you I suppose. That's crazy!'

`No it's not! He said that they wouldn't hurt us this time but, as they were servants of the Sender of Storms, he couldn't promise that they wouldn't attack next time. He also told me that the Sender of Storms has released other more fearful creatures into the Forest; creatures that even the wolves were afraid of.'

Lyla gave up trying to light the fire, as the wood was too wet. `You're making this up! Since when have you been able to understand wolves?'

Swift, ever loyal to his older brother, stepped up beside him. `If Lem says he can understand wolves then I believe he can.'

Lem smiled a `thank you' at him before answering his sister. `It's not only wolves, Lyla. This morning I heard Celeste's snake complaining that she was squashing him.'

Celeste felt for the green diamond snake that she wore looped around her neck like a necklace. `Now you
are
making it up! Splash is a girl snake and if she could speak she would speak to me.'

`Splash is a boy and he does speak to you. You just don't understand him.'

Lyla twisted a strand of her black hair behind her ear and eyed her brother suspiciously. `So when did you start understanding snakes and wolves?'

`Since I sat on the moon dial. I can understand all the Forest animals. They speak to me in my head.'

`What are they saying?'

`That they're afraid and they are leaving the Forest.'

Lyla looked surprised. `All of them? The squirrels, the possums, the wild pigs, the ox-peckers and the blue-tails?'

`I can't talk to birds but the animals are leaving.'

`Maybe understanding animals is Lem's magical gift,'said Chad, scratching one of his four braids. `You know, the one given to him by Queen Ona and Queen Hail. I mean by our mother and aunt. Maybe we all have our gifts now that the moon dial is broken.'

Then his eyes lit up. `Heh! I can remember what we did yesterday.'

`Me too,' Celeste said. `And Lem remembers the wolves. Can you remember anything before yesterday Chad?'

Her brother put on his thinking-hard face and then relaxed. `No, just yesterday. What about you, Celeste? Can you remember what we did yesterday?'

`We went swimming and ate peaches.'

`Lem?'

`We chased the ponies and Swift almost caught one.'

`I did catch it. By its tail,' argued Swift.

`So we remember yesterday but no further back,' concluded Lyla. `It must have something to do with the magic spell that our mothers put on the Forest. Do you think it's been broken?'

The others looked at each other and shrugged.

`So what about
our
gifts?' asked Chad. `I don't think I can do anything that I couldn't do yesterday. Can anyone else?'

They stared at each other as if their gifts would show on their tanned faces. When they didn't, Lyla spoke up.

`It's not magical and it's not a gift, it's just odd, but last night I had a dream and I never dream, never! I dreamt I was flying over a white and gold palace. Inside was a throne room hung with red and gold curtains and on a royal dais were five golden thrones. One was empty. On the others sat two queens and two kings.'

Celeste edged closer. `What did they look like?'

`They had no faces and their arms and feet were chained to their thrones.'

`That's awful!'

Lem, who loved listening to stories as much as telling them, edged closer. `What happened next?'

`I woke up.'

`Did you fly with bird wings or bat wings?' asked Swift, whose greatest joy was to pretend he was a bird and fly from tree to tree.

`No wings. I just held my arms out and flew.' She showed them what she meant by stretching out her arms.

`Dream flying might be your gift,' said Lem, while secretly thinking that his gift of talking to animals was a much better one. `But dreaming doesn't help us if the Forest is no longer safe.'

`Unless we're supposed to find the palace I dreamed about before your precious wolves come back,' Lyla replied sharply.

`And on the way we might find an oracle, elf-speaker, sand-reader or bone-diviner to tell us what the three moons' song means,' added Celeste who, being the peacemaker of the group, always knew what to say to stop an argument.

It didn't take long for them to eat a cold breakfast, pack their ox-hide bags and choose their weapons. Then they took one last look at the cave that had been their home for longer than they could remember, stepped out into the clearing and pulled shut the ox-hide curtain for the last time.

They stood in front of the broken moon dial, agreed they were doing the right thing, then set off for the river.

`We could raft down it,' suggested Chad, as they walked single file along the path that, according to Celeste's diary, led to their favourite sandy beach.

`Or swim down it,' said Celeste, who loved swimming more than anything.

`Or build a boat and sail down it,' said Chad, whose efforts so far to build a boat had failed.

But on reaching the beach they discovered they could do none of these things. The river was no longer a smooth waterway meandering past half-moon beaches and shaded by twain-nut trees. Instead it was a turbulent, log-filled torrent that had broken its banks and flooded the nearby meadows. Eyeing the debris spinning by they all agreed that entering it or floating on it would be too dangerous.

`And it stinks,' complained Swift holding his nose against a powerful stench that hung over the water's surface.

They were wading ankle-deep through an overflow when they saw something strange floating towards them. At first glance it looked like a log but as it came closer they saw that it had a row of yellow spikes running down its back to the tip of its long thin tail, a sharp tooth-filled bill and two beady black eyes. Swift was already fitting an arrow to his bow when Lyla pulled him out of the water and up onto the muddy bank out of reach of the advancing creature.

`I think it's one of those scary things the wolves are afraid of,' she warned. `And there might be more of them.'

`And it might not stay in the water,' added Chad, walking backwards so he could keep watch. Slimy things in water were not his favourite animals. In fact slimy things in water scared him half to death.

The bank path was waterlogged and slippery to walk on. But after sighting more yellow-spiked movement they preferred sloshing along it than wading knee deep in the turgid overflow. Even so, there were times when they had no choice.

So with Lyla in the lead, her spear held high, Celeste, Chad and Swift in the middle with their short swords, and Lem last, with his long sword held high and ready to slice off the head of any creature that attacked them, they stepped into the water and hurriedly splashed through it.

Each time they reached the safety of an almost dry path they were sure they'd heard the snapping of teeth and the gurgling of regurgitated water snorted through bony nostrils coming from the river. By late afternoon they were tired of mud and slush and had begun searching for a tree to sleep in.

`This is a good one,' said Swift, stroking the smooth red trunk of a tall twain nut tree. `It has nuts for us to eat and a stork's nest at the top big enough for us to sleep in.'

Lem stared up at the tree's thick, leafy canopy. `How do you know there's a nest up there? I can't see one.'

`I just know,' said Swift. He grabbed a branch and swung himself effortlessly into the tree's fork.

Chad followed. Suddenly his eyes widened and he shouted down to the others. `Hurry. Climb up. Something is stalking us!'

But Lem wouldn't hurry. `How do you know-'

`Lem! Just do it for once,' ordered Lyla.

`I was just ask-'

`Lem!' shouted Lyla and Celeste together.

Chad and Swift reached the nest first. Leaving their capes and bags inside it they climbed higher to see what was following them.

`How long do we have to stay up so high?' whispered Celeste, as the slender, pink branches of her perch dipped and swayed dangerously.

`Sssshhh!' hissed Swift.

Above them the sky turned dark and menacing and the air in the tree's canopy hung heavy and fetid with the same stink they'd smelt by the river. Around them the Forest was abnormally still and eerily silent. Lem whispered that the animals were either afraid or the Forest was empty.

Swift hushed him. From the direction of the river came a series of loud thuds, a howl of pain followed by a squishy sucking noise, and the scary sound of trees and bushes being crushed. Soon, whatever was making the thudding was so close that their tree shook from its roots to its uppermost branches. Lyla and Celeste stretched out and clasped hands.

Then they saw it.

It had an elongated, metal-grey body with a long tail, enormous trunk-like legs, huge feet and a weaving, serpentine neck supporting a smooth, eyeless head. Strapped into a metal saddle upon its back, crouched a humped-back rider wearing a spiked helmet, a metal facemask and leather armour. In one hand the rider carried a whip and in the other a light that lit up the branches.

With ponderous precision the creature lifted and leant its enormous front feet against each tree trunk that it passed. Then, sliding its blunt blind head in and out of the tree's forks and branches, it snapped off branches with its neck or guillotined them with its dagger sharp teeth. All the time it was searching, its rider was urging it on with his cracking whip and his loud hoarse voice. At last the creature reached their tree.

Swift and Chad, with terrified eyes, clung to their perches and held their breaths while the creature's long purple tongue with its dripping purple spit, stretched towards their crunched-up legs.

If it finds them I will have to fight it, thought a horrified Lyla, wishing that instead of thrusting her spear into the back of her belt to make climbing easier, that she'd thrust it into the front where she could withdraw it faster.

Unable to reach Swift, who had shrunk himself into the smallest space, the slobbering creature moved on to Chad, who was so scared he had almost become part of the tree. The creature's slime-covered tongue missed his boots by a leaf's width, but then it smelt Lem and triumphantly changed direction and gurgled towards the older boy.