The shadowstorm churned at the brim of the dragonsky, a crackling maelstrom bearing down upon us. Overhead, deepravens and crane-olms fled inland, cawing and screeching. Strana stood beside me, cloaked, travel-worn. I lifted my hand to hail the gate-keeper on the palisade wall as they watched without a word.

“Please,” I called, holding my lute aloft. “We seek only shelter from the shadowstorm! Please…I am Aluno. I’m a singer. I travel with my wife, Strana.”

I could not hear anything over the wind’s wail, and stood braced, my teeth gritted. Finally the gate-keeper returned and looked down upon me, squinting.

“We’ve a sniffer!” he yelled. “Hold a few breaths, will ya?”

I gave a grateful nod. “Very well.”

“If it is not here,” Strana whispered, “we will find a hollow place…”

“I hope it does not come to that. In any case compose yourself before this sniffer comes.”

I had thought, before we were challenged, of a night at an inn, with a bath, hot or cold, and ale, and roasted nickelbuck stew with deeptomatoes. I did not tell Strana that, though I noticed her studying me.

“Sorry.”

“It’s ok…”

She looked wan in the faded light. She was small. She had dark hair and eyes. She wore a purple hooded riding dress, patterned with green and white squares.

The shadowstorm had begun swallowing all the low-slung gleams from the forests. The dragonsky smoldered black and purple like obsidian lit with a sacred flame.

I looked back at the gate, from which they had trundled open a little false door, and there stood what must be the sniffer, a dirty and stringy excuse for a man, alongside two other darklings, these armed.

“Don’t try anything,” one of them called.

It was the same voice from the palisade wall, the gate-keeper. There would not be more than a handful of militia here. I glanced up idly. We’d seen some bad odds in our exile. None worse than this. In the end it didn’t matter.

The sniffer wouldn’t budge. He just stood there, wide-eyed, looking at us. Looking, especially, at Strana.

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His compatriot nudged him. “Hey…bud…get a move on willya?”

I scowled. “He’s clearly drunk, gate-keeper.”

The sniffer turned, and said a few words to the gate-keeper, and then tottered back inside.

“Keeper,” I pleaded, but the gate-keeper shook his head.

“No. She ain’t comin in. Ya ken?”

“Please, folk of Yog,” I said, my voice cracking. “Let us rest herein until the storm subsides, and we shall be on our way.”

“Sorry, singer. I can’t do it. You’ll have to go on…”

I kept my face passive. The gate-keeper met my gaze, his friend nearby leaning idly upon a blackened club. There was no sympathy here. Just fear and sadness. I finally looked down at the dried mud puddle aside the path. We were forever alone.

“If it were you,” I said quietly, adjusting my bladebelt, “you would hope I let you in.”

“Aluno…” Strana chided me, then her voice turned sharp. “Come away, now.”

“It’s hard times, agreed, singer,” the gate-keeper said, his face dark.

“Tell me this at least. How far until Goldenroot?”

“Northernly. Know you the route?”

“Generally. I seek the Gnarlstones.”

“Yes—northernly through the jungle, many cycles, perhaps seven, you will find them, they rise above the jungle as a great bridge, stretching up to the Cliffs of Sanohm, and beyond that the High Moors of Wyro.”

I bowed stiffly. “I thank you, gate-keeper.”

Then I nodded to Strana, and turned as though to go.

Someone cried out, almost a scream. Not someone. Strana. I wheeled back around.

What I beheld, it was not the first time. I saw Strana in eldritch color. Tentacle-things, transparent and ghostly, made of dappled purple color strove to pull themselves forth from her, from within. She was caught in them, like a psychic web. They writhed and shimmered.

I dimly heard the false door slam shut.

Strana screamed now. I took out my blade, though I dared not approach. She growled, feral, ill-lit, and then shouted again, quaking with rage. She doubled up her hands and dragged the moon-spawn forth like a marionette. With a pearl blast she ripped it free and the beast flapped out onto the cobbles.

I strode forth to it, leveraging my blade for the kill. I envisaged a quick deep strike into its bulbous head.

“No.”

Strana came up. The thing was struggling and writhing on the ground. I wanted to put it down. I needed to, and we needed shelter. But I listened. She moved, swaying, like a ghost or a mystic, and stood over. It was mewling.

As she presided over it it quieted, then rose, quavering. She stared at it, her eyes swirling midnight.

“DO IT!” I yelled, as the moon-thing’s tentacles raised.

She simply lifted her hand, palm out, like hello. The moon-spawn reached toward it, a handshake. Her palm suffused with viridian energy. Then the moon-spawn collapsed into nothing. It was like folding up a blanket.

Strana’s face twitched as the thing disappeared. She smiled.

“Now let’s fine a place to hole up.”

“Strana—”

“I’m fine.”

I cast a glance back to the palisade wall to see if they were still watching us. They were.

A rolling crack of thunder rang out and coruscated through the shadowstorm, leaping between the clouds and the dragonsky.

I exchanged a glance with Strana, and we agreed to put this blasted town of Yog behind us.

We found a grotto just before the storm overtook us, and rested within to the blue shimmer of its pool. The shadowstorm howled without like a demon.