Winter Moon (20 page)

“Snow?” Zemetrios queried. He smiled.

“Indeed. So our sages tell us. At midsummer in this, our world, up there midwinter comes. The snows fall thickly. And so the moon shines so white.”

“The moon is also a world, then?” Clirando asked innocently. It was what the priestess had said. But she thought of Zemetrios's stricture: to ask anything here would be profitless. Perhaps something so esoteric would not matter.

“Do you see that mountain?” The merchant pointed back over the roof of the inn, the other roofs of the village, and up into the sky where all three peaks showed, as if faintly drawn on by a brush. “The central height is known as Moon's Stair. There is, they say, an entrance up there that leads between the worlds and out onto the surface of the moon. Sleepers often travel to the moon, as do sorcerers, or priests in a trance. But physically there's only one way, and that is by climbing the mountain called Moon's Stair.”

Zemetrios said, “I've heard of an entrance to the lands beyond death. That's in the East.”

“Like that, then,” said the merchant. “Or maybe it's all lies.” His grin was crafty, knowing. It seemed he understood quite well what Zemetrios had said to Clirando earlier.

Down in the yard, servants were lighting the tails of firecrackers. Now they dived upward on flights of glittering topaz.

Clirando thought,
Surely they would have done this last night, too—we should have heard something of it, seen it even, far above the forest….

She was unable to feel alarm at this, not even suspicion.

When she glanced back, the merchant had gone in, returning apparently to his meal.

Others were jostling down the terrace steps and across the courtyard.

“Come watch the magicians!” came the cry now.

“Shall we go and see the fun?” he said.

“Perhaps.”

“If your girls are here, no doubt they'd go to see. Isn't that the best chance?”

Clirando thought of Draisis and fifteen-year-old Erma. She nodded.

As they followed the rest of the people out of the alley and along one of the wider village streets, Zemetrios said in her ear, “One further thing, Clirando. The inn's so full the taverner could offer us only a single apartment—I mean it has only one bed. He seemed to reckon us partners, but I assured him
you would use the room and I would take a place in the common area.”

Clirando was jolted. She did not know why, then thought she did. “No, Zemetrios. You take the room. You know I never sleep. A place on a bench is less trouble for me.”

“No, Cliro. You must have the bed. It's more comfortable, particularly if sleep eludes you.”

“What?” She scowled at him. “You think me some soft little lady? Even when I could sleep, I managed as well on a rock as a couch.”

Zemetrios burst out laughing.

For an instant her annoyance increased—then melted. Clirando began to laugh, too. “Excuse me,” she said. “Of course you'd think nothing of the sort.”

“Of course not.”

“It was only your fairness, offering me the bed. I thank you, but no need. You take it.”

Still following the crowd, they were turning now into an open square.

“We'll argue it later,” he said.

The moon fired white arrows through the garden vines that overhung the square. The tall narrow tower, seen previously, rose from one corner, and nearby was a temple to the Father, its crimson-painted columns gilded with torchlight. A grove of trees grew in the center of the space. They were clearly sacred, carefully shaped conifers, strung with baubles and little masks made from fine Lybirican paper. A line of four men sat cross-legged on the
ground before the grove. They wore vivid clothing sewn with glinting beads, red, yellow, green, and blue.

The people elsewhere in the square had also sat down except for latecomers at the back, among whom were Clirando and Zemetrios. Behind them was only the high wall of a house.

To begin with, the four magicians acted out a short play. They were traveling performers, Clirando thought. But during the drama—a burlesque that concerned a runaway servant, a harsh master and a mischievous god—magical effects abounded. At first they were of the sort that Clirando had watched many times from such troupes at Amnos: birds flying out of sleeves, coins found in ears, objects disappearing and then reappearing somewhere unexpected. Bit by bit however, the magic became more miraculous, and much stranger. The man in the yellow robe, who played the servant, opened wide his mouth—and out darted a silver frog, swiftly pursued by six other silver frogs from the same spot. All these bounced about the square, finally leaping together and becoming a silver ball, which rolled away under the blue robe of another man, he who played the god. The actor who played the master meanwhile lit a fire on the bare earth by sneezing—or pretending to sneeze—directly at it. The fourth mage-actor, who had taken all the other parts, suddenly assumed the head of an ass. Clirando could not see how he managed this. One moment he was man-headed and the next not. The ass-head was also extremely convincing, waggling its ears and letting out mad brayings through wrinkling lips.

The play ended with the cruel master punished and the servant rich. All four then danced a maniacal stamping dance to the twanging accompaniment of entirely invisible musicians.

Laughter had rumbled through the crowd, shouts of approval, encouragement or chagrin at the plight of the characters. Clirando and Zemetrios were not immune. They had laughed and shouted, too.

The fourth magician now reached into the fire, and drew out two handfuls of it.

Flames burned and flickered in both hands, matching his red robe and lighting up his face. Then the fires froze. It happened slowly and completely.
Then
he held up before them two dully glowing bunches of steaming orange ice. These were passed into the audience, which in turn passed them around.

When they had reached the back of the crowd, both Zemetrios and Clirando were able to examine these ice-flames. They certainly were ice-cold, sweating at the warmth of the night—as ice would have done. After she had handed them on to her neighbour, she rubbed her frozen fingers and thought,
These mages are very great.

Next thing, the magicians pointed up into the sky. Above, the moon was lifting toward the zenith. Only the most engorged stars gleamed strongly enough to be seen against her extravagant light.

The magicians started to wave their arms and call up at the heavens. “Stars! Stars come down and visit us! No one will miss you up there, on such a moon-white night.”

And the stars came.

They detached themselves from the black sky, circling,
swarming
like diamond bees down toward the island.

Clirando heard Zemetrios murmur beside her. She too was astounded, and filled by the wildest happiness. Why should stars
not
fall from heaven? If they did, what else wonderful might not be able to occur? The laws of the gods were often so harsh. Did this magic signify such laws might be broken?

Scintillant, in drifts, the stars began to festoon the trees. Some were large as a platter, others small as a brooch. They lit up the square with a pure, bluish radiance.

Others fell into the hands of the magicians, who began, carelessly, to juggle with them. Arcs and fire-bursts dazzled as these tinier orbs dashed from hand to hand.

The show went on, hypnotically, until a far-off note sounded from above, musical as any lyra.

“She calls them back!” the crowd bellowed. “The moon wants her children home again.”

And the mages let go the spangled stars, which swirled together, while others swooped from the trees to join them. A vortex of white fire spun above the square, then flew upward.

The great light faded. Each star must be fitting itself back into its place. Clirando thought she saw several do this, settling in unseen sockets in the velvet dark.

The four mages stepped forward, brushing off
their palms—as if the stars had left a slight stella pollen on them.

What now?

Clirando realized he and she stood so close their shoulders and arms were in continual contact. His right arm—sworn arm. Her left. She had not noticed before, as if this were quite natural.

The magicians were reaching out now toward the grove of sacred trees. Also as if
this
were natural, they were drawing down the boughs, drawing them outward and over. Like tall cloaks of thick black-green fur, the trees unraveled, bringing their baubles and decorative masks with them, and wrapped all four figures round.

The men vanished into the mantle of the trees. Then the trees
smoked.
The whole square of people breathed as the mass of men and conifers coiled and spiraled up into the sky—up to where the stars had gone, and the white mask of the moon.

But where men and trees had been—

A creamy lion prowled the center of the square beside a patterned lynx with emerald eyes, an antlered deer black as ebony, a tusked elephantus from the East, heavy with long grey hair—which, providing its own fanfare, trumpeted.

The crowd shrieked, applauded, scrambled to its feet in a mixture of fright and pleasure.

“Illusions,” Clirando murmured.

“Dreams,” said Zemetrios.

But the animals too sprang upward now. Like the rest, they surged away into the air.

Smaller and smaller they became. At the last moment four flashes like miniature lightnings occurred. Each creature became one last star, just visible against the brilliance of the moon.

“I've heard all men,” Zemetrios said, “have a spirit animal that lives inside their soul. Perhaps…”

 

Perhaps.

Zemetrios escorted Clirando up the inn stair to the allotted room. It lay deep in the house, behind winding corridors and countless other chambers, from most of which eddied quiet voices, and now and then unstifled cries of delight.

The whole village had become flagrantly amorous. Returning from the display in the square, they passed through laughing, kissing groups, couples dancing with linked hands to the music of flutes, their eyes fixed only on each other. By shadowy walls, under courtyard trees, embraces. Arms about each other, mouths fused, lost only in the world of love—two becoming one.

A sadness had stirred in Clirando. She shook it from her. She would not become one of those who grudged other women the joy of lovemaking. After all, Oani and Seleti among her girls had both had lovers.

There had been no sign of the band anywhere. Surely they would have come to see the magicians, as almost all the village had seemed to. She believed she had not taken enough notice of their absence as she should.

If they were not here, then—Then tomorrow she must search.

Let me fret about that, not give in to pointless jealousy.

She kept her mind on the problem as she and Zemetrios walked through the inn to the room they were not to share.

The door was of old wood, carved with a sort of tree, a tree of fruit, but the carving was rough and had faded away, sanded off by time. Even so, it was a splendid room when once they had opened the door. The window had been shuttered though the night remained close and warm. Clirando undid the shutters. Outside, the village curled away into the dark, hardly a light anywhere aside from a few last smoldering torches.

They lit the room's two candles. Despite the low ceiling, the chamber was large, and clean. The bed too was large, heaped with covers and furs as if for the cold months.

He said, “Maybe after all you'll sleep tonight.” She said nothing, knowing she would not. “I'll look forward to seeing you again, in the morning. Rest well.”

“Wait.”

“Yes, Cliro?”

Her back to him still, she said crisply, “This is a great cave of a room. Why not stay? There's space for both of us, and enough pillows and covers for an army—enough therefore to spare if one of us sleeps on the floor.”

When he did not reply, she turned and looked at him. In the dull light she could not read his face, saw
only the slight scar on his cheekbone, the lucent steadiness of his eyes.

“If you trust me,” he said.

“I trusted you in the forest,” she answered flatly. “Or rather, Zem, I trusted
myself
if you were
not
to be trusted.”

I too have now called him by a familiar name—did I mean to?

He lowered his head. It was a meek gesture belied by his tall, muscular frame, and for a second she did
not
trust him. But then he said, “You
can
rely on me, Cliro. Don't insult me by making out I'm a mannerless oaf. I won't lay a finger on you. However much—”

She waited. What had he meant to say? However much he would
like
to?