Chapter Twenty

Going Home

 

On the planet Prime: Two years later

 

 

Red Moon leaned against the wall of the grand saloon of the Royal Palace, pretending boredom, while her eyes surveyed the other people lingering in the room, all of them waiting for the same thing she waited upon. Bruce Foster and Adam Far Ranger had gone off into the depths of the great villa and were closeted with the Rebellion’s bureaucratic leaders, the two soldiers trying to convince the civil servants that war was no longer in anyone’s best interest. There was only one way this was going to end. Both Bruce and Adam had already settled on the terms of peace and disarmament. Both had come to the same conclusion, that the galaxy needed a peacekeeping force which Adam would head up, while Bruce and his armies would stay on Prime to keep the civilian government in line. The bureaucrats were only now finding out that nothing could stand in the way of two determined generals who were tired of war. The peace would come.

Two years of planning and negotiation was finally bearing fruit. It had been the longest two years of Red Moon's long life. She had been on the bridge of Bruce Foster's command ship as he destroyed Leto's hollow moon and she had been the one to help his men chase down the last of the Wizards, though the death of Leto made little difference to Harbinger's state of mind. She still had his egg in her pocket where she visited him often. He was always glad to see her but he was perpetually distracted. The pyramid was reaching epic proportions.

She did not handle frustration well. The need to break things overwhelmed her after returning to the real time-line. Taurok had becoming adept at defusing her tempers, usually by allowing her to beat on him in weapons training until she was too exhausted to stand.

Taurok leaned against the wall by her side, watching the people around them, his hand on the hilt of his long knife. Nothing went unnoticed. Taurok did not trust peace. Humans were inveterate liars with violent tendencies, he insisted. Red Moon could not fault his logic.

The crowd in the grand saloon was too loud, the laughter too raucous as if the good mood was forced. These people had too much to lose if peace became reality. They had every right to feel nervous.

The feelings of celebration among the people of the planet Prime were genuine. In fact, the whole city had broken out into a spontaneous street party ever since the two fleets had made orbit and the generals had come dirt-side to confer with the government of the Rebel Republic. Even now, Adam Far Ranger's officers wandered through the lower rooms of the palace, though none of them were drinking. Sober heads were needed to keep tempers from flaring. The war was not over. It had just become a war of words.

Thankfully, no one seemed to notice the two priests lingering on the edge of the crowd. Taurok kept glancing at his companion every few seconds, waiting for her to do something extreme. He was not fooled in the least by the frigid mask she had fixed to her features.

“Now that they have no more need for a good artillery man,” Taurok grumbled, “I think it is time I got a new profession. And I have watched you for the last two years while you hunted Wizards. I think each death took a bit of your soul. I think you are weary of killing. What say we become Master Thieves? There is not a person in this room who is not wearing a king’s ransom in gold and semi-precious stones and not a one of them is armed. It would be like taking a sugar-tit from a baby. You could use your contacts among the smugglers to fence our ill-gotten gains and then we could buy an asteroid or a small moon and live like kings.”

“Uncouth and tasteless displays of wealth,” Red Moon hissed angrily. “Like pirates who wear the treasures of the people they killed. Plunder. It makes me want to kill something.”

Taurok sighed in resignation as he prepared to deal with his volatile companion.

“You cannot be angry at them for stealing your place in history, surely?” Taurok asked softly. “This was never your stuff. You have never lived here. You have no desire to live here. You don't even like your family.”

Red Moon ignored his logic. Logic was not a balm for the things that were going on inside her heart. It had taken 500 years to get on this planet but now that she was here, something about the place was setting her teeth on edge. It was easier to remain angry. “Is this intrinsic to the nature of being human?” she growled softly waving at the room.

“Er?” Taurok raised an eyebrow, confused by the question. “What is that?”

“That cut crystal vase they are using as a spittoon is worth the price of a small starship. And I am pretty sure I saw some mouth-breathing bureaucrat pissing in the fountain out in the garden a few minutes ago. These people were mucking out pig-shit only a few generations ago and now they think they can run the universe.”

“Just be thankful that vase exists at all. There is still tons of artwork hanging on the walls, but I read somewhere that they built a big bonfire out on the front plaza and burned everything that bore an image of an Ancellian, including thousand-year-old tapestries and works of art by every master artist known to civilization.”

Red Moon transferred her glare from the room to him. “Was that an attempt to make me feel better? It isn’t working.”

Taurok sighed. “History is full of the likes of this. Of fundamentalist freedom-fighters destroying four-thousand-year-old statues of prophets who embodied peace and enlightenment. Worse things have been done than that. How about the tale of the freed slaves eating the talking dogs of Palmetterville despite all their protests that they were not food? Why should we be surprised by this?” he asked, waving at the room full of toadies and sycophants.

“You cannot count this travesty as mere ignorance. It is a profound insult. Why else would they prepare a feast for a room full of Royalists by serving that?”

Taurok glanced over at the banquet tables laden with delicacies laid out in artistic splendor on snow-white tablecloths before returning his gaze to what little he could see of her face. Underneath her cleric’s disguise, only her eyes were visible. Between the priest’s hood above and the cowl below those eyes were almost molten.

“That is a distant relative of an Ancellian they have shaved fine and served to us on dragon scales. And that is a dragon child they have boiled alive in its shell. A dragon, Taurok. A being that can trace its lineage back to the progenitors of the twelve tribes,” she hissed in rage.

“Shall we kill them all?” Taurok growled softly, fighting a smile. He was only half serious but Red Moon looked at him with those incendiary eyes and it suddenly did not seem so funny. Taurok cleared his throat nervously.

“You know I would die for you but at least give me a fight we can win.”

Red Moon snarled softly as she watched the resplendent and lushly dressed fools who were using their long silver forks to pluck gobs of baby dragon meat from the neatly cut eggshell.

Taurok pushed away from the wall and turned his back to the room. “Moon, listen. Far Ranger is too busy conquering the realm of politics to have time for his friends. Let's leave this place and find a ride off-world,” whispered Taurok, touching the back of her hand. Her skin was hot. It was a sign that she was near to the edge of her control. Taurok hissed in dismay. She was getting ready to kill someone. He glanced around, setting the exits in his head and deciding who he would take out first should they need to fight their way clear of this place.

“Find out where the slaughter house is,” Red Moon said, her voice inhumanly serene, her self-control almost absolute. Except her eyes. She could not control that.

The Ancellian queen in priest’s robes turned and made her way across the great ballroom. Taurok went in search of the caterer.

Moon paused near the banks of open glass doors that led out into the gardens to sucked in the fresh air. Something was blooming out there. It gave the air a sweet smell. She set the smell in her mind as a trigger and memorized every face that she could see for future reference in case she decided to come back and kill them.

She had, on purpose, put a half a room between herself and the raw dragon being served on its bed of ice, the cold making the meat turn a metallic blue. Red Moon could not shake the sight of the egg from her memory. Was it because she was female that the sight of the dragon child disturbed her so much? How would it be if they served baked human infant at the next party? It was more than a sane being could bear.

An impeccably dressed gentleman with a mottled neck-beard and long ears that sat too high on his head settled near the doors and lit up an expensive looking hash pipe. Red Moon studied him. One of the hybrid Rok people, there was a cold look in those inhuman eyes and a look of repugnance on his face, as if his long nose smelled the decay under the surface glamor on the people in this room. The smoke that drifted her way smelled of cherries and pine, with a hint of something acidic underneath. Whatever he was smoking, it was not hash.

“Jack?” he said politely, as he held out the pipe.

Red Moon shook her head. She did not want to know what jack was. There were far too many dopers and trippers in this city.

“What do you think of our fine circus?” the Rok asked, lifting his chin beard towards the crowd. The predatorial look on his face enhanced the features that spoke of his canine ancestors.

“The war has changed much,” Moon said after a moment. “I would fear for the artwork and the crystal but none of these people seem to know their value or show any interest in finding out.”

The man with the hash pipe grunted, nodding as he puffed on his pipe. “It might as well be children’s finger-paintings and cheap glass. Were you here before the Occupation? I have seen photos. The Ancellian wealth was legendary. But how could you remember. You hardly seem old enough.”

Red Moon glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He had heard the rumors that Far Ranger had a pet Ancellian, but he did not believe them, this sly dog-man. Bruce Foster had been talking, careless of who was listening. Red Moon looked him in the eye and lied. “My great gran told stories of when she was a girl. She was a spit girl in the kitchens. The staff shared all the secrets of the House of the Crimson Eyrie.”

“Yes, well. Five-hundred years of occupation will change just about anything beyond recognition.”

“Too bad they executed all the Crimson Clan,” Red Moon said with studied carelessness.

“You part of Far Ranger’s staff? I have not seen you around here before. Just like a Royalist to pity the old ruling house,” the dog-man snorted in derision. “The passing years have turned the memory of their crimes against humans into a children’s horror story. Do you still wish for a king?”

Red Moon scowled. It was a loaded question meant to entrap. Was he a member of the Thought Police? According to Far Ranger, one could not be too cautious in these times when a careless word could put you in the re-education camps.

“Hmph,” Moon said with a shrug. “No. Just saying. Could have put them in zoos or the circus. Seems a waste, really.”

The man laughed, the sound almost a bark, and turned a dial on his pipe, extinguishing the smoke. “Speaking of circuses. Take a walk down to the lake. Follow the song. You will see something to write home about.”

Red Moon nodded. “Thank you. You are too kind.”

The man laughed again. It was a mirthless laugh. Red Moon watched him saunter away, suddenly convinced that she should have killed him while she had the chance.

“What did he want?” Taurok asked. He stood at her elbow, having slid silently out of the crowds. Her giant friend scowled at the retreating back of the sly man.

Red Moon managed not to jump. She was getting used to him popping out of the woodwork like that. For a big man, Taurok could be singularly silent. Red Moon shrugged. “We were talking about the finer points of art appreciation.”

"He is the head of the secret police. You’d best be more circumspect about who you talk to.”

“Is he?” Red Moon breathed. “That makes what he said all the more interesting.”

“What did he say?”

“He said we need to go visit the circus.”

“That makes no sense. Now I am feeling nervous. Let’s get out of here. I got what you wanted, by the way. An exotic meat market down on the lake front.” Taurok growled, scanning the room.

“Good. We can stop there on the way,” Red Moon said, pushing off from the wall.

“On the way? Where?” asked Taurok.

“We are going to the circus. Did I not say as much?”

The two priests stepped out onto the plaza abutting the ballroom, casually descended the steps and strolled through the gardens. At the back of the gardens, behind a trellis of scarlet roses, they found a postern gate. It was not locked. Rumors of peace were making everyone sloppy. They slipped into the lower city unnoticed. No one would have commented on their presence nor their absence. The end of the Five-Hundred-Year War had brought people of every sort to the capitol city, all of them intent on extracting what wealth they could find as the last of the bones of the old ruling house were picked clean and the armies were dismantled and reassigned.

Rich houses surrounded the palace, some still showing the scars of war. As they walked down towards the lake, these buildings gave way to luxury apartments and these in turn became high-end shops selling all the splendors of the human universe. Somewhere in the chaos of tightly packed shops and sidewalk vendors, they picked up a shadow.

“We got a tail,” Taurok said out of the corner of his mouth.

“Small boy in the gold shoes?”

“That’s him,” Taurok said.

“Let’s see if he sticks after the butcher shop,” Red Moon said softly.

The butcher shop was one of those gaudy affairs meant to attract the nouveau riche and the wannabe’s trying to claw their way to the top of the social food chain. They stood on the sidewalk and stared through the window with the ornate gold lettering that read Alonday's There was a small water dragon swimming in a giant tank behind the counter. Red Moon could not tell what clan it belonged to because it was ill, all its scales faded to gray.

Taurok took her arm and tugged her through the doorway. She stopped there, unable to come any closer.

Taurok approached the counter to talk to the clerk while Red Moon turned to check the street. The boy with the gold shoes was nowhere to be seen nor could she sense his attentions aimed at her from the crowded street. But it was hard to hear anything over the static of the dying dragon. She closed her eyes and tried to build a wall against the misery radiating from the animal in the tank.

The dragon grew quiet. Red Moon turned. It had pressed itself against the glass, its great golden eye fixed on her. It had no sunlight, no fresh air, no clean water. She wondered how it still survived. A being meant to swim the limits of an ocean now coiled around itself in less than three cubic meters of putrid water. Red Moon shuddered as a wave of horror washed over her, feeling unclean. She hated herself for feeling this about her own kind. Hated the humans for making her feel this. Hated her small dragon cousin for being so weak. Red Moon snarled silently behind her veil. Hate was for fools. She let her fury rise up inside her instead, setting it to burn like cold fire in her heart.

The shop owner came out of the back and caught her staring at the thing in the tank.

“Are you interested in dragons? I can get you one. They say they sing when they are happy.”

“Does this one sing?” Red Moon asked, her voice a low purr.

Taurok threw up his head at the sound, his hand going for the rapier he had hanging off his hip. It was the only weapon Far Ranger had allowed them while on Prime beside the formal belt knives.

The fool laughed. Taurok flinched, expecting him to die.

“No. This one is worthless. Good only for the table. You have a taste for dragon sashimi?”

Taurok turned. It was a clumsy move that sent him careening into Red Moon. “Ah, sorry. Too much wine at the High Council’s bash, I fear,” Taurok laughed, his fist clamped tight over Red Moon’s hand where it clutched her knife hilt. “Why don’t we go get something to eat? Clear my head.”

Red Moon stared at him coolly, her eyes now incandescent. Taurok pulled her around and threw his massive arm around her shoulders. He laughed as if she had told some droll joke and pulled her out into the sunlight. When they were well away from the butcher shop he let her go. She pulled her knife. Taurok danced away as the tip whistled past his nose.

“Calm down, Red. The bone breakers and head crushers of the Watch would love to take a crack at Far Ranger’s crew. They do not need any more of an excuse than public brawling.”

“Yes? What do they think of a public execution? That man needs to die.”

“They are ignorant savages. You kill one, a dozen more step up to take his place. Do you plan on purging the entire planet?”

“The thought has crossed my mind,” Red Moon hissed, but she slid her weapon back into its sheath all the same.

“By all that is holy,” Taurok swore. “I knew this was a bad idea. You are not ever going to find what you are looking for here. It has been over for five-hundred years. If it wanted finding, it would have been found by now.”

“Do that again,” said a small voice at her elbow.

Red Moon looked down. It was the boy with the gold shoes. He was staring at her like she was a steak and he was a starving dog. He had one blue eye and one gold, and the golden eye burned bright and hot in the sunlight.

Red Moon looked up at Taurok. The giant warrior eased near to see what she was seeing.

“How is that even possible?” Taurok breathed.

Red Moon shook her head. “Where is your father, boy?”

“Don’t got no Ma or Pa. Missy Cilla takes care of me. Do you want to go see her? She will tell you your future for five sou.”

“What?” snorted Taurok. “Five sou for a fortune teller. High robbery. What do you think we are, boy? Outer-rim hicks fresh off the ship?”

“You are. Fresh off the ship. You are one of Far Ranger's people. And you are a Searcher. All the Searchers come to Missy Cilla in the end.”

Taurok’s fist shot out and caught the boy around the throat. “What do you know of our business, you little gutter whore?”

“Nothing, good sir. Nothing.” he squeaked. “But you bleed your need for any who can hear such things.”

Red Moon took the boy away from Taurok. “And you can hear me?” Red Moon asked, touching a finger to the brow above his golden eye.

“Not all the time. But if you know how to listen for it, you can hear the song.”

"Song?”

“Yeah. Like the golden dragons in the lake.”

“There are golden dragons in the lake?” Red Moon breathed out in wonder, tracing a pattern with her finger down the side of his face. The boy’s eyelids drooped in pleasure.

“. . . and they sing,” nodded the boy absently.

Red Moon let her cowl drop off her chin as she bent down to look into his one golden eye. “Do they? How wondrous,” Red Moon whispered against his cheek, her scarlet lips like butterflies on his skin.

“Missy Cilla says I can hear stuff because I am part dragon. How can that be, I wonder? Can a dragon mate with a human?”

“Shall I tell you a secret about dragons?” Red Moon said, sliding her fingers around his skull.

“Yes, please,” the boy said sleepily.

“We can shape-shift.” Red Moon said into his ear as she tasted his flesh and sent a coil of light and shadow down his spine. The boy threw back his head as if to howl but his breath only rattled silently in his throat.

Red Moon let him go and stepped away. The boy with the gold shoes looked up at her with two golden eyes. “Take me to see Missy Cilla, boy,” she said, tossing him a gold eighth.

Catching it adroitly out of the air, the boy grinned at her and darted away.

Red Moon replaced her veil and jogged after. Taurok caught up and settled into a long stride beside her.

“That was not wise,” he growled.

“No,” agreed Red Moon.

“People will wonder why his eye has changed. He will tell them about you.”

“He is a clever boy. He will figure it out before that happens.”

“You risk too much. And for what? A father you never knew? A mother who abandoned you in on the edge of the Deep Dark? Siblings whose skulls sit on display in the great entrance hall behind us?”

“I have family somewhere. The boy proves it.”

“It only proves that a thousand years ago your great grandda did a little cross-species pollinating.”

“Crude,” Red Moon sniffed. “I mean to find what I am looking for.”

The boy darted down a dim alley and stopped in front of a storefront with a picture of a hand outlined in red neon in the front window. A woman, dressed in beribboned skirts, lacy shawls, and ten pounds of cheap jewelry, stood in front of the door, calling out to the passing crowd.

“Really?” sighed Taurok in resignation.

“I will initiate this meeting. Just follow my lead.”

The boy said something and the woman studied his eyes before looking up as the duo approached. She stared at Red Moon in wonder before remembering herself. Shaking back the bangles on her wrists, she threw her hands wide. “Seekers,” she cried loudly. “Come to Missy Cilla for advice. Let me be your guide.”

“I would rather my business with you be private, good woman,” Red Moon said.

“Your money is no good, here, Priest. I cannot help you find God,” Cilla proclaimed. The boy giggled and ran away. People in the crowd laughed.

“I would buy the boy from you,” Red Moon said, following his path through the crowd with her eyes.

“Ach,” cried Cilla, “A priest is a priest no matter what the religion. Are you a collector of young boys, then, good Father?” Some of the crowd laughed but some muttered in outrage.

“By the sacred Tree, you are going to get us killed,” growled Taurok softly as he grabbed Red Moon and shoved her into the woman’s shop. Celia stepped aside for them but not before she completed the farce she was enacting for the crowds.

“Never fear, I shall get to the bottom of this,” Cilla yelled to the crowd. Great gales of laughter follower her as she sailed into the shop and closed the door. “Sorry about the theater. I did not want to give them a hint to your true nature,” she said, steering them into the back room.

A young girl was busy measuring out powders into an array of tiny bottles.

“Ilene, watch the front while I read for these fine gentlemen.”

The girl wiped her hands, giving Red Moon a lascivious once-over before strolling out, her hips swaying like a ship at sea. Cilla snorted, amused. “She's got no sense of the underworld, that one, otherwise she would be setting her sights on your friend and not you. I only keep her around 'cause she looks good behind the counter.”

Red Moon raised an eyebrow and then shrugged, pulling the cowl from her chin and pushing back the hood, ruffling her puffy, ebony hair with her fingers. Her lips had faded but there was just enough of a lingering blush to mark her as part of the Crimson Eyrie.

Cilla grunted, nodding, and then settled into one of the chairs that surrounded a round table covered in a purple cloth embroidered with gold thread. Red Moon sat across from her. Taurok stationed himself behind his friend, his eyes sweeping the room, his fist on the hilt of his long knife. Cilla watched him for a moment and then let her eyes settle on Red Moon.

Red was busy studying the cloth. “Do you read Ancellian, then?” Red Moon asked.

“Aach,” said Cilla. “No one reads Ancellian anymore, nor have they for nigh on a five-hundred years. I copied those symbols off the walls of a temple-ruin before the High Council had it razed. Bloody waste, that. But I don’t need to ask how you recognize these runes, do I, Highness?”

“My ten thousand grandmothers taught me to read Ancellian. One of my many useless skills. Do not call me Highness. The Crimson Eyrie is no more. The time of thrones is done,” Red Moon said. “You can call me Priest. It is closer to the truth. Or you can call me Red Moon, for that is my name.”

“It is not what your mother would have named you, had she lived long enough to do so.”

The woman knew things or just guessed over much. Red Moon leaned across the table, her eyes hard and glittering. “No more games. What do you know of my quest?”

“The boy said you seek family.”

“The boy is part Ancellian. Sell his contract to me.”

Cilla shook her head. “I found him in the trash when he was but hours old. He is mine. More son to me than cousin to you. He is happy here. Leave him be. What little power he has will not keep him safe in your company, but with me, his gift is of use. If it is a lost relation you seek to keep you company in the long, lonely nights, go down to the circus. The golden ones do not have a serious bone anywhere in their bodies but there is a dark soul hidden in the mountain. You will find what you need there.”

Red Moon waved her hand as if to shoo away the woman’s annoying words. “Ancellians should be raised by Ancellians. The boy should know his people.”

Cilla slammed her palm down on the table. “They are extinct, your people. What would it serve to teach him something that would only get him killed? He is mine. Leave be.”

Red Moon glared at her. Cilla sighed and shook her head. She dug a deck of cards out of her pocket. “Come. Let us complete this charade. I will tell your fortune and you will leave and no one will be the wiser. You are a Seeker. The boy said as much. Whom do you seek?”

“What does every Seeker want? True love.” Red Moon said, sarcasm heavy in her voice.

Taurok snorted as he tried not to laugh.

Cilla held out her hand. Red Moon blinked, not understanding the gesture. It took her a moment to remember Taliba and her fortunetelling but by the time she got her wits about her, Taurok was already reaching into his pocket.

Taurok slapped the fiver-note into her hand. The money disappeared into one of Cilla’s pockets. She nodded and shuffled the well-worn deck. Without any other preamble she dealt the cards in a pattern Red Moon did not recognize. Cilla studied the spread and then scooped the cards up again only to repeat the process twice more. The fortune teller gathered the cards up one last time and put them in her pocket.

“Well?” Red Moon asked.

“Well, I am beginning to understand why it was necessary to kill you all, down to the last babe. Hell, I heard that they even killed your servants.”

Red Moon sucked the air in around the darkness that threatened to turn her blind. Taurok clamped his huge hand on her shoulder, the pain giving her focus. She blinked back the rage and was surprised that Cilla still walked among the living.

“Watch your mouth, witch,” Taurok rumbled.

Red Moon held up a finger to silence him.

Cilla stared at Red Moon as if she was only just now seeing her.

“Ancellians. Terrible are your rages but devastating is your grief. One should never wound the heart of an Ancellian, they used to say. I did not understand that until now. They broke your heart too many times so you sucked the light out of that world where you were born and turned it into ice. For how long? One-hundred years? Two hundred? What was the name of that planet? The one that used to be covered in rain forests but now is only ice and snow? The giant stone pyramid still stands there, amid the ice fields, a testament to the last male who loved you.”

Red Moon shuddered. She did not want to remember that time. Taurok gently wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, his touch giving her strength.

It took her a moment before she remembered to breathe.

“I do not remember. I am ghost-ridden by past lives," Red Moon lied serenely. "You confuse me with someone who does not exist anymore.”

“Yes? Just so. What of this life? It is said the High Council ordered the Ancellians wiped from existence and when it was finally done those great men went mad. A convenient madness if one were to look at it from an Ancellian point of view. Magic became a crime. The magic that could contain our Ancellian overlords has passed into myth, destroyed by the very people who sought to use it as a weapon. All bureaucrats are fools."

“I am looking for any who might have survived as I have,” Red Moon said, trying to divert her attention.

“Four-hundred years ago, after the death of the last Ancellian, the High Council, in a show of inclusiveness, declared a great holiday and invited all the magic practitioners, true wizards and warlocks, witches and sorceresses to the capitol to be rewarded with money, titles, and land. The Dragon Masters were the guests of honor. The doors of the hall were sealed and boiling oil was poured in through the ceiling vents. Then they threw in torches and lit the oil. Any witch or sorcerer who was not part of that genocide went into hiding and ceased all practice of magic. Most of the magic passed out of the world that night. The remaining Dragon Masters fled to the unknown parts of the galaxy. Hell, those who call themselves witches are barely that. Is it you I must thank for that? Did you infect the minds of the fools who feared you? They saw rebellion and collusion behind every shadow. Of course they had to kill those with the power to destroy an entire species.” The witch could barely hide her rage.

“What did you think would happen if just one of us was left alive?” Red Moon said softly, her eyes gone incendiary. “I did not turn into stone with calm grace. No. Chained in that clearing, I raged at the Fates who had placed me on that path. What you said is true. I sucked the life out of my birth world and used that power to send the coils of my hate out into the Oneverse. I ate the magic until a witch could barely produce a witchlight without exhausting her supply of energy. They were toothless, there at the end, powerless against the ill will of the High Council, having lost the ability to see the future or deflect the simple magic of fire. I slept, but as I slept I dreamed of their deaths and was pleased.”

Taurok made an incoherent sound behind her.

Red Moon looked at Taurok. “It was not enough. Their suffering could not erase mine. By the time I woke, the fire of my rage had burnt itself out. I had become as frigid as the planet I was born on. Since then, I have lost the taste for revenge.”

Taurok was staring at her, perhaps wondering what else she had not told him. Red Moon turned back to Cilla. The conversation she and Taurok would have later would be painful.

Cilla stared at her coldly. “Go away. Take your ill-luck to some other planet. What you seek is hidden under the mountain.” The mystic rose and held open the door.

Red Moon had no choice but to leave. Once again, Red Moon and Taurok found themselves out on the bright street, Moon’s disguise back in place.

“That was a waste of five sou. Now what?” Taurok asked.

“I promised you a circus. Come on then,” she said, stalking down the street towards the lake, her rage bleeding out into the broken stone and making the world shudder at her passing. Taurok grimaced, loosened his weapons in their sheaths, and followed.

It cost them twenty sou to get into the circus. Red Moon ignored the diversions clustered at the entry way, passing through them as if they did not exist. The singing drew her on, down to the lake’s edge where someone had built an amphitheater, the stone seats carved out of the bedrock of the shore, each rank of seats stepping down to the next, right down to the water’s edge.

Red Moon found a seat on the highest rank and studied the things frolicking joyously in the sun-dappled waves. Golden water dragons. It was hard to count how many – their long, bright bodies coiling about each other in a playful dance above and below the surface.

Their song was beautiful, if you were human with human ears. If you were Ancellian, the super-sonic and sub-sonic ranges told a dark tale of pain and loss and suffering. The bright tones were the tones of hope. Red Moon snarled at the foolishness of that emotion. What hope had these creatures? Even from Red Moon’s vantage, the steel mesh net that held them in this cove was visible, though there had been an attempt to disguise it behind walls of cheaply-painted canvas depicting wild scenes of oceans, verdant islands, and snow covered mountains. Someone had run a pipe up to the heights of one of the mountain paintings so that the painted stream actually spouted a cascade of water.

Red Moon sat and listened to the singing as the sun crossed the brilliant blue sky. Taurok went in search of food and came back with spicy sausage rolls and a fermented fruit drink. Red Moon turned her head away. Taurok shrugged and ate his meal and then hers for good measure.

“What did she say?” Red Moon asked as the sun sank low in the sky.

“Who?”

“Missy Cilla. A mountain.”

“What you seek is under the mountain,” Taurok repeated from memory as he nibbled on a plate of fritters.

Red Moon rose and shook out her priest’s robes. “Up for a climb?”

Taurok looked around. “Climb what?”

Red Moon nodded at the five story scaffolding that held the mountain scene. “That.”

Taurok froze and let his eyes scan the surrounds. “I do not see any security.”

“There is none. Have you not heard? They won the war.”

“More fools, they,” grunted Taurok, putting down his food.

“Precisely,” Red Moon said, strolling down the promenade that ran along the top of the amphitheater. Taurok followed, studying the lacework of scaffolding.

“Are you sure that will hold my weight?”

“It holds up things a thousand times more weighty than you, my friend,” Red Moon said.

They made their way to the base of the canvas paintings, and when no eyes were turned in their direction, they slipped behind it. Divesting herself of her priestly disguise and all her weapons save for the throwing knife strapped to her calf, Red Moon began to climb. Taurok stripped down to his loin cloth, put a long knife between his teeth, and followed her.

There was a room at the very top. A glorified pump room, the machines that pulled the water up out of the lake thumping loudly. The door was not even locked. It swung open soundlessly, revealing a windowless darkness.

“This is embarrassing,” snorted Taurok in disgust. “Where are the thieves and the villains of the world, to keep these people on their toes? I will have to lie and tell my grandchildren that it was guarded by trolls.”

“Who a bigger thief than a planet full of bureaucrats? They are all villains,” Red Moon observed. “There is nothing to guard against anymore.”

She held up her hand and let a witchlight grow off the ends of her fingers. Holding it up high, she searched the room. Back behind the thumping machines, power relay boxes, and racks of tools and spare parts she found a stack of wooden packing cases.

“My life for a crowbar,” Taurok said, trying to pry the lid off one of the crates.

“Step away. Get behind something,” Red Moon said, sending the witchlight high overhead so that she could free up both hands. Taurok dived behind the pump and peeked around it.

“Try not to kill yourself, please,” he said.

Red Moon held her hand over the box as her eyes began to burn and her lips turned scarlet. The screech of metal parting company with wood was all the warning Taurok needed. He crouched low and covered his head with his arms. Not a second later, the nails and screws in every packing case whipped across the room and attached themselves to the metal machines. She had just magnetized every piece of metal in the boxes.

The pump gave a chunk and thump and then it ground to a halt, its guts full of shrapnel.

“Whatever you plan on doing, do it fast,” yelled Taurok as he rolled clear of the dying machine. “They will send up a crew to fix this and I’d rather not be here, if you don’t mind.”

“Help me,” Red Moon hissed impatiently as she tossed pieces of packing crate aside.

“Statues?” Taurok asked, clearing the rubble of one box. “Stone idols? We risked our lives for massive stone idols? I am going to have a hard time getting these down the scaffolding. You might have picked something smaller to steal.” Taurok leaned in closer as the witchlight glittered off the stone. “Holy . . .” He looked up at his companion. “Did you know they were carved from semi-precious stones? This one here is jade. That one looks to be ruby. The one on the end is surely one great big solid emerald. Maybe we can break off a small chunk. Get enough to pay for passage off this cursed planet.”

Red Moon ignored him. Instead she placed her palm on the first idol. After a moment, she grimaced and moved on to the next one. She tried all the lesser stones and approached the ruby idol last. When her hand touched the stone, the witchlight flickered and blinked out.

“Red Moon?” Taurok whispered tentatively into the dark when she did not renew the light.

“What?”

“Is this what you have been looking for all this time?”

“No,” she said softly. Taurok caught the faint glow of something out of the corner of his eye. Was the ruby idol glowing? “But it will do,” she purred. The stone grew brighter and hotter. Taurok began to sweat. “Stay behind me, Tau,” Red Moon whispered sharply.

Taurok did not need to be told twice. He put her between himself and all that heat. The stone began to morph and shift. The eye of the idol turned gold and incandescent. A great serpent head formed around that eye and the serpent uncoiled and lifted its massive head.

“Old Mother,” Red Moon said to the ruby serpent.

The snake opened its mouth and a scarlet forked tongue slithered out, tasting the air. “Daughter,” hissed the snake. Its eyes found Taurok. “I hunger.”

Taurok tried to shrink his height below Red Moon’s head without any success.

“Do not eat this one," Red Moon said. "He is old and mean and will give you heart-burn. I have a gift for you. Look beyond this room. The city is a smorgasbord laid out for your pleasure. All the wizards and the wielders of magic are dead. Those who turned you to stone no longer exist. Our enemies now lie defenseless. If you move quickly you will be able to eat your fill before they wake and flee. Do not eat Far Ranger or Bruce Foster. Let the soldiers retreat to their star ships.”

The great snake lifted its head and swung it from side to side as if sniffing the air. “Good eats. Join me, daughter.”

“I will. But I must rescue the rest of our brethren, first.”

The snake uncoiled and slithered towards the door. The floor creaked ominously under its weight.

“Oh. You are brilliant. I love you,” crowed Taurok in admiration. “While the snake creates havoc, we steal into the Palace and pocket the Crown Jewels.”

“Crown what? There is no such thing.”

“Then some of that priceless art just laying around ripe for the picking.”

“Not yet. I have a pool full of golden dragons to set free. Then I must kill a butcher.”

“Alright,” nodded Taurok. “I am not greedy. After that, can we steal something amazing so I can have something to boast about when I return home to my wives?”

Red Moon smiled. “Sure. Why not?”