Chapter Fourteen

Red Moon and the Tarot Deck

 

 

Red Moon hung the completed chain-ring on her priestly belt and then eyed her companion sourly. How had Taurok done that—distracted her with his concern and made her tell him her darkest secret? She had never told anyone about the loss of Harbinger and how it had driven her into madness. Striding over to where he squatted on the stoop, she motioned his up.

“Enough daydreaming! We need to find your outer robe and collect as much of the food as possible. Then we need to go in search of the supply closet full of empty crystals and prayer boxes,” Red Moon said, turning back towards the kitchen.

Taurok watched her solemnly. She was not fooling him, she knew. The burden of friendship between them had just increased a thousand-fold.

“Got the first part done,” he said, holding up the bags for her to see. Red Moon grunted and went into the cook house.

They found the cook’s outer robe in a closet by the back door. Taurok put his costume on. Red Moon eyed her friend when he was done and shook her head. “Why are you so tall? The inner robe is impossible. The outer robed will have to do. The skirt is too short but it is not so long that it will encumber you in battle.”

“At least I have a skirt to hide my weapons under,” he said, tucking the ammunition belt under the kimono. Red Moon thought about that. The disguise would fool people as long as they did not get too close. If they were forced to fight, the small arms would come out when they were close in. She took off the belt and imitated his ruse, adjusting the linen outer robe over the bulky ammunition and making sure the side arm was accessible through the split in the kimonos' skirt.

Crossing back into the monastery, they continued searching.

Taurok found a tall monk lying dead in a hallway. They stripped him naked and stole his silk under robes. These fit, after a fashion, though Taurok had to split them down the back to get them to fit across his broad shoulders. The outer robe was hopelessly too small so he kept the cook’s robe and used it to cover the ripped tunic. It was not as pretty as Red Moon’s disguise, lacking the geometric blue key design along the hem, but it looked real enough.

Red Moon watched as he buckled the bandolier under his kimono. Distracted for that brief moment, her brain happy after eating and meditating, something tugged at her attention. Something laced with dark power. She spun about and got a location.

“Red Moon?”

“Something . . . It is there,” she whispered, pointing. Without waiting to see if he followed, she began jogging down a side corridor. The signal grew more intense and began beating at the center of her skull. Down at the end of the long hallway, they found a chapel behind a pair of ornately-carved doors. Inside, the signal drew her on, past the altar to a door into the rear of the building. The sacristy was the High Priest's domain. If she believed in such things, this place was holy ground but she knew too much about the nature of priest. Somewhere in here, the occult objects of the priesthood must be hidden,

Red Moon crossed to a small door set in the back wall. The energy from it ground at the bones in her face until she was almost desperate to end it in any way she could.

She tried the door. It was locked. She slapped the wood panel in frustration.

“Here, allow me, lady,” Taurok said. She stepped aside. Her giant friend shattered the door with his heel.

Inside they found the crystal amulets and the prayer boxes. “Dark magic,” she growled. She took her knife out and began prying open a star-box. It popped opened. Red Moon cried out in alarm, dropping the box. Something alive and repulsive sat inside, wired to an array of crystals and circuitry.

Red Moon stared at the bit of slimy tissue as it pulsed with life, beating to the rhythm of a heart that existed far from this place. She tried to find that heart, tried to follow the sound of that beating heart across the Oneverse. It was kept someplace else, some-when else, on the other side of the Veil, in a place that no human would dare venture. The horror of what was being done to this being made the gorge rise in the back of her throat.

“Red Moon?” Taurok asked, not liking the sudden pallor on Red Moons skin. He glanced down at the repulsive creature in the priestly box. and flinched.

“It is a wound on the Oneverse,” she muttered, studying it.

“A what?”

“This is not natural.”

“No,” Taurok said dryly. “That much is very apparent.”

“A Wizard created the boxes by punching a hole in the Veil and drawing a bit of something living across the Void. They bound it to this world. What you see is neither here nor there but in both places at once. The being and the Veil and the Void are all trying to heal themselves but they cannot for they work at cross-purposes. The tear in the world is too small to let the being cross but the being is immortal and cannot die. The evil done to them makes them unnaturally attenuated. In their agony, they give off the energy that powers the monk’s crystals. All it can do is try to heal itself as the Void consumes it. The battle will be infinite for neither the Void nor the beast can cease to exist.”

Taurok growled. “What is the more evil? The Darkness it creates or the Dark Heart who did this to them? Can you free it?”

Red Moon scrubbed her palm across the ebony stubble on her head, thinking. “I don’t know. For now, we need to amputate the piece of it that is here and let the Veil heal itself.”

“How do we do that?” Taurok asked patiently.

Using the tip of her knife, Red Moon disconnected the bug from the wires as she muttered something that sounded like a cross between an incantation and a prayer. Once untangled, she sliced it free and flipped it across the room. The thing began to swell. Then it grew bug-legs.

“Whoa,” yelled Taurok, drawing his rifle.

“Kill it,” Red Moon shouted, dancing backwards.

Taurok needed no more encouragement. He put half a dozen rounds into it. The bug disappeared in a cloud of oily smoke.

Red Moon checked the box. The rip in the fabric of the world seemed to be closed.

“Let’s not do that again, until you figure out how to do it right, OK?” Taurok said acidly.

“How do I know what is right? I am not a Wizard!” Red Moon shouted at him, her frustration boiling over.

“I did not say that you were,” shouted Taurok back. “But it cannot be a coincidence that all the bugs that were being actively used by a priest turned into a grease smear just about the same time you were ripping a hole in the world with nothing more than a wish and a prayer, ending a war that had gone on for 500 years.”

Red Moon opened her mouth to yell something and then stopped. “It was not like that.”

“What was it like then? You said yourself that your magic put you on a collision course with General Far Ranger. Can you repeat the trick or was it an accident?”

Red Moon looked down at the dead bug. “I need to think about it.”

“OK,” Taurok said. “But I need you to figure it out before we meet the next Wizard and you go off half-cocked.”

Red Moon pressed her lips together as the memories of Taliba’s death washed over her. Half-cocked. Out-of-control. The image of the giant crater was newly seared in the back of her mind. Is that what happened? Had she lost control? Was destruction her natural reaction when things got dicey?

“Ach, don’t get that way,” Taurok begged, seeing the look on her face. “I did not mean to make you afraid. I was just being an ass. We are heading away from the Wizards and the Rebel army, right?”

Red Moon scowled down at the prayer boxes. “We can’t leave them behind. They will become a weapon to be used against us. We have to destroy them,” she insisted fiercely.

“What would happen if we built a big bonfire and incinerated them?” Taurok suggested.

“Maybe I can enhance the fire so it burns hotter,” Red Moon ventured.

“Fine. I can help.” Taurok yanked a curtain from the window, spread it on the floor in front of the cupboard, and began shoveling the prayer boxes and amulets onto it.

In the back of the closet Red Moon discovered a handful of clean crystal amulets empty of their connection to the star-boxes. She saved two, hung one around her neck and gave the other to Taurok. In a drawer down below the shelves, they found a handful of empty star-boxes. Red Moon opened one up to make sure it was safe. The components were intact. It just lacked a bug.

Red Moon handed him one. He strung it on one of the prayer box cords and tied it to his belt. Red Moon copied his example. Their disguises were now complete.

Red Moon studied him. “From a distance, people would think we were real priests.”

Taurok grinned. “I can mouth a good blessing with the best of them.” He made a sign for the rune Ing, Harmony. “May all in your life be as one, brother,” he intoned.

Red Moon laughed.

Taurok grinned at her, the sound of her mirth infectious. Still smiling, he picked up his crystal amulet and shook it roughly. “Aren’t they supposed to glow or something?”

“Your little box is empty of the creature stuck between the layers of space-time,” she reminded him.

“Oh well, it was too much to hope that our disguise would be undetectable,” Taurok sniffed.

Red Moon looked up and scowled at the amulet. No. Not scowled. More like listened intently. The amulet began to glow. Taurok dropped it in surprise and fumbled at the chain that kept around his neck.

“Calm down. Rebel Wizards and toxic priests are not the only ones who can play with the layers of heaven,” she said.

Taurok looked up at her. She was pale again and there was a red stain on her lips.

He swore. “Do not use yourself up so wastefully! Save yourself for the real battles.”

Red Moon sighed and scrubbed her hands over her face. When she took them away her lips were only reddish. “I am not quite recovered, I will admit. That was harder than it should have been.”

On the way back to the kitchen, Taurok stopped at the next dead priest and ripped a sleeve from his inner robe. With his knife he fashioned a head-cloth of a sort and placed it around Red Moon's head, the long loose bit draped around her throat, then he pulled the hood up so that it shaded her eyes. “You gotta keep those scarlet lips a secret. Pretend that you hide a birth mark or something. When you feel the urges come over you, cover your face with this drapey bit.”

Red Moon did not mind the extra layers. Being too chilled was a normal state for her. Humans liked it far colder than she was comfortable with.

“Where were you born, Taurok of Gar?”

“My home world is Zendal, but I do not think anyone is left alive there. Zendal was rabidly loyal to the Royal Houses and it was too close to the Royal planet so it fell in the early days of the Revolution. I was born on a star freighter somewhere between Kite and Girdon. My family now resides on the planet we renamed New Zendal.”

Red moon nodded. “I have no home world except the moon on which I was hatched. We are both orphans of a sort.”

“Your world is Ancellia where the Royal Palace is built. Prime, we call it now. It has always been the Ancellian home world but you cannot go back there now. It is overrun with Wizards and Rebels.”

Red Moon grimaced. “There is no one left to go back to. Let’s go to New Zendal. Find your kin. Have the warrior-priests say the rites for your dead brother, Eliar. Hang his name plaque in the Hall of Heroes.”

Taurok smiled. “I would like that.”

Red Moon watched him smile but could not return it. The gods and her ten thousand grandmothers had other ideas. Fate would take them where they needed to go. It served no purpose to make plans.

Taurok grew somber as he watched her thoughts play across her face. He looked away to give her privacy.

They went back to the kitchen garden where Taurok broke the dead wood off the fruit trees and built a bonfire in the fire pit behind the tool shed. She placed her hands over the flames and said an incantation. The flames danced as high as the eaves of the shed. Taurok dumped the boxes and amulets into it. Things started to pop. A crystal exploded. Taurok swore, grabbed Red Moon by the arm, and dragged her back into the kitchen as the fire burst outward and consumed the shed.

“Did that solve anything? Are those pinholes into the other dimension closed now? Do you think the Wizards visit them regularly to replenish the bug stuff?” Taurok asked, gazing out the window at the raging fire.

“I don’t want to find out,” Red Moon said fervently. Suddenly the monastery with its dead brethren and its bugs was wearing at her frayed nerves. “We need to get out of here. It is not safe.” The words came out of her mouth and as they did she became utterly convinced that they were true.

Taurok stared at her and then glanced one more time out the kitchen window at the column of black smoke billowing high into the air. “I think you are right. We need to look like traveling priests,” he said. “I will give you a quarter click to go find bedrolls and backpacks while I scrounge around the ground floor for things to use out on the open road. Meet you out on the front steps.”

Red Moon ran off towards the second floor dormitories. She raced through the sleeping quarters looking for what they needed. These monks were too refined for back-packs. She found a couple of oversized shoulder bags and began stuffing the handful of blankets she had stolen from the beds in the dormitory into them. It would have to do. She was headed back to the grand foyer when a flash of color caught her eye. A card lay half exposed under the edge of a door. She picked it up. It was The Innocent from a Farseeing deck. Taliba’s deck—different from this one—was a beautiful deck, hand painted by a skilled artist on Finn’s End. Taliba had used it for so long the edges of the cards had grown soft. This card was newer, the artist not as skilled.

Red Moon opened the door. A dead priest slumped over a small desk. He had died mid-reading and cards were scattered across the room, as if the priest had convulsed in his last moments of life. The images on the cards caught her eye. None of them seemed familiar. There was something off about all of them. Uglier, more utilitarian—most just a number and a symbol—as if someone had taken the sensual and sensuous deck and made it their own, stripping away the mysteries and leaving only logic.

She searched the desk and the floor around the desk. She was near to giving up, knowing Taurok waited for her, when at last she found the case for the cards hidden in the dead priest’s robes, attached to one of his many belts. The box was beautiful. Dark wood with the Great Tree carved in its top. She ran her hand over the Tree and it began to glow. Intrigued, she placed her finger in the center of the tree and bled energy into it. Light beamed out of the carving, filling the room with its soft glow. Red Moon wondered at the magic or the science that produced the light.

The light entranced her. Taurok would not wait but she wanted this box. She tugged the belt from under the priest’s healthy paunch and strapped it to her own waist. The box was clever, with a secret lever that opened its top. Taking her grubby package out of her inner pocket, she unwrapped Taliba’s cards and placed them inside. Her teacher would be pleased that she had found a beautiful home for her deck.

She had tarried too long. Taurok was surely looking for her. Burdened with rifle, ammo belts, and bags, she made her way as best she could down the staircase and out onto the entrance stoop.

Taurok was not on the steps. She was getting ready to go back inside to look for him when she saw him down at the end of the avenue of trees that led up from the gate. He lifted his hand slowly and waved once.

Red Moon scowled. She did not know him long enough to know if he was acting weird but he seemed to be acting weird. Maybe he was angry that she had taken so long. She jogged down the driveway and slowed when she drew near.

“You will never believe what I found in . . .”

Taurok stood frozen in one spot, a bag full of food hanging forgotten from his fist. She stopped. Something was wrong. Where was his rifle? She backed away, getting ready to run. The crunch of gravel underfoot was her only warning. An arm caught her around the throat. Just for a moment, Red Moon thought about killing her attacker, mad at Taurok for letting one Rebel soldier get the best of him, furious that he was not coming to her aid.

Then her brain kicked in. Taurok’s eyes flicked nervously over the landscape. He was telling her that there was more than one soldier. A lot more than one.

Bide a while, whispered her ten thousand grandmothers from across the Veil. Useless as ever, were her ancestors.

Burdened by rifle and bags, she struggled to free herself of the arm around her throat but only managed to have the well-muscled arm press harder, making it hard to breath. She froze as the rest of the Rebel patrol stepped out of the landscaping and from behind the ruined pillars of the gate. Every one of them had a pulse rifle, a sidearm, and a bandolier of grenades. Every one of them was dressed in crisp, clean uniforms of blue and gold. This was no rag-tag band of survivors of the crater fiasco. These were well-equipped, highly-trained commandos. Taurok had a half-dozen pulse rifles aimed at his heart. They were taking no chances with the giant Zendalian, priest robes or not.

The soldier who had her by the throat took her rifle and tossed it to the nearest soldier. Then he began running his hands over her body. He found the bandolier with the grenades almost at once. The belts were tossed to the man holding her rifle. Searching her pockets, he found all her treasures. Dropping the string of beads and the river stone to the ground, he tossed the glass knot across the circle to the man with the insignia of an officer pinned to his collar. The officer studied it and then met Red Moon's eyes, a puzzled look on his face. The long knife on her calf joined the bandolier. The garrotte bracelet was ignored as were the two chain-rings with their religious decoration. His hands moved towards the tarot box. She tried to jerk away from those hands—she would kill to keep his hands from Taliba’s cards—but the arm across her throat cut off her airway. Choking, she began to black out.

“Do not hurt him, I beg you!” Taurok yelled, desperation in his voice.

“Terral!” shouted the officer. “Leave the religious objects alone!”

Red Moon found herself on the ground on all fours, gasping for air, having no memory of how she got there. They needed a distraction. She reached out and made Taurok’s amulet glow to remind the soldiers that they dealt with things beyond their understanding. There was a bit of muttering as the light gave everyone pause which was time enough for her to set her headgear to rights and get the cowl over her chin, all the while keeping her head down to hide her eyes.

“Master!” Red Moon called, her voice low and breaking, like a teenage boy’s. “Master, tell me what to do!”

“Calm down, boy,” said the man who stood over her.

“Has your Master taken a vow of silence, boy?” yelled one of them. “He cannot seem to answer a simple question.”

Red Moon’s guard grabbed her by the arm and dragged her over to Taurok. He did not care if she got her feet under her or not. Taurok caught her under the arms and pulled her upright.

“You did not come when it was time,” the giant Zendalian said looking down at her anxiously. “I thought they had killed you.”

“Look! The boy wears the same Royalist boots. Armed with rifles and dressed as Royals. They are spies. I say shoot them and keep on looking.”

The boots. “Master,” Red Moon said, hanging her head and making her voice break again. “I lied about the boots. They were not in the free-box down on the corner. There were no traveling boots in the box. I had to go looking further this morning.”

Taurok looked down at her sternly. “What have I told you about lying?”

“Uh, to not,” she said tentatively.

One of the men grabbed her by the collar and shook her roughly. Red Moon squeaked in terror, closing her eyes tight as if afraid of being hit. “Where did you get the guns and the boots?”

Taurok caught her up, jerked her from the soldier’s grip, and put her behind him. “Please do not hurt the boy, kind sir,” he said humbly.

The soldier put his hand on the butt of his sidearm.

“Enough!” shouted the officer whose rank insignia, on closer inspection, said 3rd Order. He stepped between Taurok and the angry soldier. Red Moon studied the officer out of the corner of her eye. This man was low on the food chain of command but too high to be running a patrol. They were on a mission that needed an officer to make command decisions in the field. What were they doing in the monastery?

“Tell them, boy,” growled the officer. “Tell them where you got the guns and the boots.”

“A pair of soldiers came,” Taurok said loudly, trying to draw their attention away from Red Moon. “They shouted at us from the gates, wanting aid and food. The bishop gave me his blessing to let them in. They were badly wounded and soon died of sepsis. We kept the guns in case their people came to claim them. Then the Light of the Gods descended from the heavens and everyone died but me and the boy. We had a problem with looters afterward, as people fled the city, so I gave the boy a gun and taught him how to shoot.”

“The boots are Royalist issue. Did you aid the enemy to get them?” growled Red Moon’s guard. “Or did you kill the men you took these from as well?”

The mood of these men was rapidly turning ugly. Red Moon put an arm around Taurok and glared at the soldiers from under her hood.

“The boots are my fault,” Red Moon said.

“Did you rob the dead for them?” the officer asked.

Red Moon was thinking of ice and snow and serene mountain lakes. Anything to keep the gold out of her eyes and the blush from her lips. She fingered the cowl around her neck nervously, pushing it up over her chin.

The officer reached out and plucked her hand away. “One of you had better answer. Do not think about lying. Let me see your face or I will think you are hiding something.”

Taurok moved to stop him from touching her. One of the soldiers kicked him in the back of the knee. Taurok grunted in pain as he fell to his knees. Red Moon met his eyes. The Zendellian was getting angry. She frowned at him and wished him to be still. The look he returned told her he would endure this and more to keep her safe. Taurok looked up at his tormentors.

“Forgive, kind sir,” Taurok begged. “He is but a boy and self-conscious about the lack of a priestly beard.”

“Boy, I do not care about your beard,” snapped the officer in frustration. “Tell us what we want to know.”

“Everyone in the monastery is dead but us,” Red Moon said nervously, glancing up at the officer from under her lashes. “Master Taurok said we had to go to the temple in Winsortown but it would be a long walk and all we had was our prayer slippers so he sent me out to find walking shoes. I thought to find a shoe store closer to the center of town but all the stores were in ruins and had been looted. When I found the dead mech-soldiers I thought the gods were answering my prayers. Their armor was blown apart. It was easy to take their boots.” Red Moon looked at Taurok. “They were dead, Master! Our need was stronger than theirs. Did I do wrong?” Red Moon asked anxiously, bowing her head in shame. Taurok reached out and brushed his hand over her black stubble and then lifted her cowl, adjusting it over her ears and where it hung under her chin, as if to remind her to be cautious.

“No, child,” Taurok said gently, his eyes telling her other things. His fingers lingered on her too warm cheek. She was starting to burn. This was not good. Red Moon ducked her head down, sinking her chin into the folds of her cowl.

Seeking a distraction, Red Moon made Taurok’s amulet glow once more.

A couple of the men swore softly. Taurok hissed in surprise. She looked up. They were not looking at Taurok’s amulet but were instead staring at the front of her kimono. Red Moon looked down. Her fingers had been resting protectively over the intricate carving of the tarot box with the One Tree on its lid. The Tree was blazing with light. She snatched her hand away and tried to hide the box behind Taurok.

One of them roared in anger and hit Taurok in the side of the head with the butt of his pulse rifle. The sound was like an ax hitting wet wood. Red Moon screamed as the giant Zendalian dropped like a stone.

She tried to catch him as he fell but his weight crushed her and pinned her to the ground. Busy trying to sense the extent of his injury, she only half-heard the officer shouting in his fury.

“You knew we were looking for a Truthsayer and yet you said nothing!”

Red Moon fed Taurok enough energy to keep him conscious while she hid her face in his neck, clinging to him, making sobbing sounds, knowing full well her eyes were glowing. Taurok fought the pain of his cracked skull as he fumbled for her, burying his fists in her robes. The soldiers tried to pull her away from her friend but neither one of them was letting go of the other.

“Fah! Priests. They are not natural,” one of them growled.

Red Moon, busy planning horrible deaths for all of them, had no time to laugh. She could not agree more. Instead, she closed her eyes and thought of an icy plain lit by starlight and moon-shadows.

“Boy, boy,” the leader said gently, crouching down beside her. He tried to touch her arm but she shied away from him, afraid of what might bleed across that connection. “I am sorry we frightened you. Come with us. Someone has need of your skills. The Wizards have infinite talent but Truth is not one of them.”

“He,” Taurok choked out as he shook the blood from his eyes. “He has only just taken the vows of Truthsayer. His teacher lies dead in yonder monastery. A green boy is a poor substitute for an experienced soothsayer.”

Gods, gods, gods, the web of lies was going to catch them up if they were not careful, Red Moon thought desperately.

“As you say,” the officer said, obviously surprised that Taurok was still conscious, “but beggars cannot be choosers. I must have him.”

The soldiers moved in to take her from Taurok’s side. Red Moon howled in terror when they tried to pull them apart. Short of breaking her fingers, she was not letting go of her friend.

“Stop!” shouted the officer. The soldiers let her go but the tension in the air was not eased. Someone was going to get seriously hurt soon.

“Let me come. I will keep him calm. There has been too much death for such a young heart. Have pity,” Taurok cried.

The officer waved them off and stooped once more by Red Moon’s side.

“I will bring your friend, but if you do not do as you are told, he will die. Do you understand?”

Red Moon shuddered as she tried to control the storm inside her mind.

“I need an answer or he dies right here,” the officer said.

Red Moon nodded.

“What was that?” the man said.

“Yes,” Red Moon choked out. “Just do not hurt him anymore.”

“Well that is entirely up to you, isn’t it?” the officer said, standing up. “Take them to the ship,” he instructed his men.

They helped Taurok to his feet. Red Moon kept her fist clenched around his belt in case this was a trick just to make her let go of him. Taurok wiped the blood from his eyes. He stooped to pick up the bags of food but the soldiers, angry with him, kicked them out of reach, scattering apples in the deep grass. Red Moon whimpered, the pain of containing so much anger near to consuming her. Taurok, seeing her scarlet lips, held her close.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “Wait. We need more fuel than this to build a fire big enough for the gods to notice us in the heavens.”

Yes, her grandmothers agreed. Wait. Time enough to un-make the world later.

Bloodthirsty were her grandmothers. They would not be satisfied until the entire universe crossed the Veil to join them.

The officer turned and stepped over the ruined gates. Taurok got a rifle butt between the shoulders to encourage him to walk. Red Moon hissed in outrage, wishing she had killed at least one of them when she had the chance. With her giant friend in the mix, she was not sure she could keep him alive in the ensuing battle. Taurok looked down into her eyes and blanched at what he saw there. Gripping her arm, he squeezed hard, pulling her into motion. Red Moon gasped at the pain he caused her.

“Control it!” Taurok hissed, dragging her after him. “Control it or we are undone.”

Control it? There was only one way. She let the blackness seep out of the hole in her heart. Taurok swore softly as her skin turned to ice under his fingers.

“Gods . . .”

Red Moon looked at him with eyes the color of midnight and smiled a smile that made his heart grow as cold as her skin. “Gods? No. There is no god in here with me. Not even the gods dare this place. This is the first step to taking the long sleep into stone.”

“Can you maintain this or will you truly fall asleep? And if you do, how do I wake you?”

“I do not know. The day is only half done and already I have exceeded the limits of what I thought possible,” she said with a shrug.

It was meant to be a joke but her giant friend did not laugh.

A silver grav-ship was parked in the street outside the gates. Shoved into the bowels of it, Red Moon found herself squashed against a window, Taurok slumped against her side. They lifted and flew south, over the crater.

Staring down into its depths, Red Moon could not shake the feeling that she had forgotten something important.