Ch: 257 It Must Have Been Moonglow

In the forbidding and forbidden experimental forest in the hills, a young man was ‘getting to know’ a new friend. Liam drew back from the surprisingly active animate vegetable with a soft hiss of pain, clutching at a thin line of blood down the back of his hand.

“I thought you said it wouldn’t attack?” He grumbled, glaring at the writhing treelike being.

“That was not an attack, she recognized the scent of your blood… that was among her first meals. She remembers you!” Maple cooed excitedly.

Certainly the tangle of slowly twining thorned roots could have done more than simply scratched him… and it had coiled around the few drops of blood it had caught on its thorns and broad green leaves as if they were precious.

Gary received no such attention. It actively avoided coming near him wherever it could, even becoming visibly upset when he neared the central trunk. He lingered at the edges of the cleared ground, as it watched him with the flower eyes in the bushy upper canopy. “I’m obviously surplus to requirements here, Maple…I’ll take a wander with Dannyl while you three chat…”

He backed slowly away, as the tree wrapped more and more of its fronds and roots around Liam, caressing him tentatively.

“Yes, best you head home… She has made her choice. I will return Liam to you in the evening.” Maple chirped happily.

“Are you really ok, Liam?” Dannyl asked nervously, as the tree creature patted the spiky haired young warrior all over with her long entangling roots. The creature groped and caressed him all over, as though attempting to memorize every detail of his form by touch.

“Yes, I’m fine… everything’s fine. Tell Tawny I’ll be home for dinner.” He murmured distractedly, while examining one of the fanged pitcher shaped blooms.

#

The ducal portrait chamber was new territory for the tremulous middle aged wizard standing awkwardly at a podium bearing a crystal ball. Professor Glinnitz had dropped this mess in his lap and vanished… Now he had the ‘honor’ of telling the gathered upper nobility of the twelve duchies the bad news… or was it good news? “Gods… I think I’m gonna puke…”

Thirty portraits lined the walls, Twelve dukes and duchesses and eighteen counts, countesses and barons of note. He faced that august crowd of painted faces and did his best to sound confidently enigmatic, like a proper inscrutable mage...

“Reports indicate that the fringe continues to withdraw at a steady rate, between four and five miles per week. My lords and ladies.” Lord Purcell Witcomb stammered nervously. “The conclave of mages has not come to a conclusion yet… eminences…”

“So you don’t know why, how, or for how long this will continue…” Duke Erasmus demanded with a scowl, one that was mirrored on many of the faces in the gallery of painted nobles.

“We do not, your grace.” The nervous mage replied.

“You can continue to deny and resist the facts, Erasmus…” Belen interjected smugly. “Or you can get in formation and maybe make a difference in this struggle. Would you rather lose ground? Or surrender this territory to the empire?”

Erasmus sat up straight in his picture frame at that.

“Yes, the empire is moving. I have intelligence indicating that there is an attempted coup currently underway. Civil unrest is bad business at the best of times.”

“All the more reason to proceed as we always have; we should call off this foolishness and let the auctions proceed!” The rotund, sun browned southern lord insisted. “Let their own internal strife be their undoing! I still object to the council meddling in my internal affairs!”

“Lashing out at a perceived foreign foe has been a standard tactic of the empire for generations.” Leopold said calmly. “That is why I was unsurprised to find an imperial assassin in my city.” The warrior duke remarked blandly. “He was captured after attempting to steal a valuable asset of my house, no doubt hoping to create an international incident. We have him confined and should know more, soon.”

The resulting kerfuffle disrupted several portraits, which cascaded into a chain failure, until only Mubarak, Sheng and Erasmus remained active, with duke Belen still dominating the space with his brooding, angry stare.

“Don’t be an idiot Kurt.” Belen told the southern duke through a furious glare.

“Whatever the fallout from your personal…” Leopold paused, turned to his right, out of frame and grumbled. “Damn it Celeste… diplomacy can pound sand!”

He turned back to his fellow dukes and duchess Sheng. “Abed, Grace, could we have the room please?” He asked calmly. “Kurt and I need to have a discussion. In private.”

Both nobles froze into still paint and canvas in moments, without further comment, seeming eager to avoid what was coming.

“Duke Erasmus…” He began, coldly. “The council has largely ignored the… activities in your domain, in the interest of peace and domestic tranquility.” The blonde, burly lord’s scowl took on an even more flinty and intractable glare as he spoke. “The Orphan’s League, however… will no longer tolerate your…”

He took a deep, calming breath. “Get your house in order. And I mean in order, before the Orphan’s League is forced to act. I will not warn you again.”

“Warn me? You… will warn me?!” The pudgy duke’s face purpled unhealthily, as he shouted in lip trembling rage. “I am the sixteenth of my line! No jumped up, dirt scratching peasant, is going to tell me what to do with my livestock!” He shrilled angrily, shaking his chin wattle and portrait frame.

“I’ll sell all the pretty ones to the fleshpeddlers and march the rest into the sea if I wish! House Belen does not dictate how I dispose of my property!”

“Kurt… Otho of joy is here with me…” Leopold said softly. “He requested an opportunity to speak with you…” Belen’s smile slowly spread wider and grew very cold.

“Beloved Otho indicates he no longer has anything to say to you… goodbye Kurt. We shan’t speak again, I think.”

Belen’s portrait froze in an exquisitely cruel, knowing smile; with one calloused, swordsman’s hand upraised in farewell.

#

Liam was quiet when he got home just before sunset, pensive and perhaps even a little moody. He vanished into the grotto alone shortly after dinner, declaring a need for some private meditation time.

He found Gary already there, slowly spinning in the gyropope, contemplating whatever internal… thing he had going on inside his eyelids. The mad musician opened his eyes and gave an upside down grin to his friend and leader. “I’m off to the workshop… it’s all yours bro.”

He pulled the release cable and spilled bonelessly onto the floor, before slowly dribbling into the grotto pool, in a way that looked decidedly abnormal. “That thing leaves me all noodly…” He murmured, while he dressed, after a short soak in the pool.

“I’m always here if you wanna talk, Liam.” He said softly, while his brother was strapping himself into the whirling, spinning machine.

“Thanks, brother.” The troubled young man smiled, while the device began to revolve and spin him in unpredictable ways.

#

Down in the workshop, Gary felt the nameless assassin’s eyes boring into his back, while he was studying the scythes, once again.

He spun on his stool and fixed the small, muscular killer with a coolly interested gaze. “You have something to say, suddenly?” He murmured quietly

“How?” The man demanded. “How did you survive my art?”

“The toxic qi you injected into my kidney, the mana venom, or the poison in the false fingernail you embedded in me?” He asked blandly.

“Yes, how do you still live, witch?” He hissed in impotent fury.

“Your boss wondered the same thing. I’m still deciding how much to let her find out.” He turned back around on his stool and declined to elaborate further.

“I know I shouldn’t blame you for jabbing your dirty fingies into my giblets… ‘cause you’re under a serious compulsion curse…” He paused to contemplate his feelings for a moment. “Nope, fuck you, buddy and I’m even less sure about your boss now... I’ll have Willow take you out for a walk when she sobers up.”

He turned back to his studies with a sigh. “Rich people, nobles, now a fucking empress with a personal ninja… I need a better class of guests in my house.”

Willow came marching down a moment later, claiming her prisoner with a smile for the musician, still at his workbench. A few minutes after she took her captive upstairs, Shai and the kids came tumbling down, giggling together in a happy jumble. He covered his dark contemplations and spun on his stool with a grin.

Stolen novel; please report.

“I was thinking Bing Crosby… It’s your turn Wilf, whadda ya say?”

“Bing, I like Sammy and Deano too.” He said firmly, in his old man voice.

“Aww… Wilf always picks slow songs… He likes old people music!” Amy complained weakly.

“It’s his turn… and I like Deano, Sammy and Bing too.” Rio said softly. “We’ll start slow, then up the tempo.”

Gary and Shai watched the kids get themselves organized and formed up behind Rio, as he brought three shades of famous performers dribbling up from the shadows all around.

“How long have you been able to do that, Rio?” He asked softly, smiling at his little drummer boy. “Where did you learn that trick?”

“I learned it from you, I learned it from watching you!” He sang happily. “I see them in your shadow… and now in all the shadows, waiting. You showed me how to call them up.” He leaned over his drums and dug in, ‘cause it was music lesson time.

#

“She went to ‘collect’ my Whispers?” Gabbie asked a bit later, once the idea had time to sink in. “How? How would she…?”

“My empress, your guild of Whispers is bound to and will obey only you, until they die, or until you perish, radiant one… At which point so too, do they. The Whispers cannot survive the passing of their empress.” George of Healer, First Physician of the Empire of Light sighed sadly and shrank down in his seat.

“By that token, a new empress cannot be seated on the cubic throne of Light, so long as they still live. The conspirators need to slay you, or all of them, before a new empress can be installed.”

He looked pale and shaken, as he spoke but stronger than he did during previous revelations. “It seems to be getting easier to defy my strictures and geas… I find that worrying.” He mumbled quietly, in the silence that followed.

“They would kill them all…?” Gabbie whispered, her voice cracking with horror. “All my servants and guardians?”

“Yes, Empress of my heart. As has been done many times before, it shames me to admit. This ‘tradition’ has continued unquestioned for generations uncounted, radiant one.” He sagged down on his seat and gasped in sorrow.

“When you allow me to surrender my life for these crimes… I beg you to pray to Secret for my soul, unworthy though it may be.” He sobbed.

“George, your empress orders you to remain in her service.” Gabbie laid a hand on his shoulder, tentative and unsure. “We need you for what is to come…”

“So your ‘auntie’ is off fetching your household…?” Becky asked gently. “Is that something she could manage? A goal she could achieve?”

“Oh yes!” Gabbie enthusiastically nodded and smiled. “Spider is my first guardian, she’s truly amazing!”

“More importantly, So long as the Whispers live, the cubic throne remains yours, my empress.” George looked like he wanted to puke or faint, wobbling slowly in his chair as he spoke, with his head lowered.

“These ‘strictures’ and your geas of obedience are bothersome.” The tiny priestess grumbled sourly. “We should do something about that…” She turned to Willow, who had been observing quietly from nearby, nursing something like a hangover.

“Willow, could you fetch up our prisoner, Gabbie’s little stabby friend? He will no doubt benefit from this treatment as well.”

“Treatment?” George gasped weakly.

“Curses, strictures and bonds are a speciality of the house. We craft and remove spells of restraint and bondage frequently. I think I can help you with that nasty little curse…” Becky produced her harp from a fold in her robes and slowly began to tune up carefully.

“The geas of obedience is a potent Contract effect, Becky. No force can disrupt or undo it.” The exhausted physician sank a little lower and sighed. “Only Healer’s Contract allows me to struggle against it this much. Without those conflicting compulsions, I would perish, as poor Kara did.”

“We’ll see about that…” She murmured happily, as Willow brought the silent, tattooed man upstairs.

At first sight of Gabbie he fell to the floor, kneeling and folding himself as flat as possible, until his face was pressed to the floor with his neck exposed. He lay there in absolute silence, until Gabbie whispered softly.

“Get up Jocomo… that’s always struck me as unsanitary.”

He lifted himself only slightly, so that he would only need to pucker, to kiss the floorboards and remained silent.

“Jocomo, your empress commands your obedience. Rise and stand before me.” Her voice crackled with just a little imperial irritation at his antics.

Slowly, he stood, his head still lowered, staring at his toes.

“Jocomo, my left hand should face me… Please.” She said the last word very softly, but he staggered as if slapped across the face by a mighty foe.

He righted himself and turned to face Gabbie, dressed in brightly colored barbarian clothes. Her frothy lace shift bubbled over the top of her snug bodice of violet silk and monster ivory. Creamy white ribbons of spidersilk bound it together, over sweeping skirts of violet and pale purple.

The imperial head was graced by a small wooden hair ornament, a finely wrought comb with inlaid mother of pearl violets on the handle. It nestled into her tight cap of snug curls and shone behind her in cheeky allusion to her official Moon Crown headdress.

“Speak, Jocomo. Explain why you attacked my host.”

He blanched and swayed, but remained on his feet, with Willow’s firm assistance. “Majesty… Glorious, radiance… I was ordered in your name to come to this town. My task was to secure a supply of this new confection for your blessed table.”

“Yes, a task for which you are deeply unsuited, a task I did not assign you.” She replied frostily.

“Yes, imperial majesty. I am unworthy and in truth, I failed. I was captured by these… entities before reaching the borders of this realm. Please allow me to die.”

“That fails to explain why you attacked that man.” She snapped. He shifted and squirmed subtly under her glare.

“I was commanded never to speak of it. By your order, my glorious empress.” He shuddered in Willow’s implacable grip. “Even to you, my empress.”

Becky began to strum one of her favorites. ‘Linus and Lucy’ sprang out into the room, bringing a sense of expectant and joyous anticipation into the room.

“My harp is enchanted to ease restraints and unbind curses…” She crooned softly to the empress and her unwell physician. “Listen to my music and let it into your souls and you will find relief.”

The kids and their parents slipped upstairs as the evening aged, walking into the scene unfolding around Becky’s harp. The imperials were huddled close, Gabbie, George and Jocomo, as though her instrument exuded heat on a bitter cold day, rather than sweet, calming music.

The kids and Shai slipped in for hugs and kisses with Becky and Gabbie, while Gary hung back, loathe to approach the empress and her attack dog.

“You may approach safely, Gary Ward.” Gabbie said soothingly, as though to a skittish pet. Sensing tension, his family backed away, swaying to Becky’s sweet music involuntarily.

“Yeah… Thanks…” He muttered without drawing nearer.

“You need not fear. My man Jocomo was deceived into attacking you, as a part of some plot to start a war between our homelands.” She cooed. Holding her hand out, palm down and fingers relaxed, as if he might kiss it, or sniff it.

“Yeah, not my first international hitjob… not even my first interdimensional contract killing.” He grumbled at the empress, further enraging her pet ninja.

He nodded at Shai and pulled up a stool, while she took the kids upstairs amidst their sleepy complaints and demands to stay up later.

“Someone keeps sending people, entities and beings to try and snatch or kill little ol’ Gary. You guys are just the least successful of the lot.” With a smile and a wink, he made a mandolin of extraordinary beauty appear in his hands with a darkling twinkle of mist and haze.

“Mind if I sit in for a few?” He asked his diminutive high priestess. “There’s a little gas in my groove engine tonight.” He sighed happily and winked at Gabbie in a way that Jocomo found intolerable, but was forced to ignore, by his empress’ command.

“I get to interrogate an immortal demon tomorrow… that always makes me… excited. I’m not proud of how much I enjoy teaching them about the mortal condition.”

He grinned as, with his tiny instrument dangling from a long worm leather strap, he fished in his own bottom for a moment. A battered leather case appeared. He opened it and removed an exquisitely carved quartz crystal, in the form of a human skull. He carefully inserted a pair of silver and amber earrings in the crystal lobes and set the skull on the bar.

“She can hear us, but can’t otherwise perceive anything or interact with the world.” He gave an off hand grin and took up his instrument again.

“Gary… is that a demon trapped in a skull? Again?” Becky demanded in irritation.

“I’m not the one using the hackneyed premise and obviously sinister reliquaries!” He insisted, picking a stream of sweet music in his defense. “And yeah, demon in a skull, again. This is Damsen’s boss, I filched her while taking a walk on the wild side.”

“How did…?” Becky gave up before even asking, with a shake of her head and a smile.

“Don’t ask me any questions tonight…” He told Becky gently, before turning to Gabbie. “And don’t tell me anything about where you come from. I’m trying to be less… pointy and jagged.”

Becky and Gary played into the evening, until long after the kids and Shai went up to bed, gently unwinding the music into the room and spinning magic unseen among the notes.

Becky’s talents, enchanted harp and smoothly practiced skill relaxed and soothed her prey, while she gently insisted that the natural Animus of each of them smooth out and relax, seeking its own shape and form. Once they were in an open and vulnerable state she could ‘see’ the long, tangled threads of obligation, obedience, dominance and subservience, wound among their normal colors and shapes.

The foreign elements failed to resonate in the frequencies of their natural auras. The buzzing vibrations this created on a magical level, exposed the presence of the hostile magic. She slowly and carefully began unwinding it, once the normal noise and activity of living was settled down and they were in a deep meditative trance.

Gary helped, using his own grabby and invasive shadow weirdness to grab and consume the stray threads and fragments as they unwound. Like a hungry herd of goats, following a gardener at their work trimming the hedges.

Finally, the music slowed and dwindled to just Gary humming idly as he carried Becky up to bed. Gabbie followed sleepily, holding the trailing end of his sash, the way Amy did when it was bedtime and she was cranky.

“I have a sense of that spell now… my corrosive moonlight will slowly start eroding examples of it, everywhere I shine.” He whispered to the sleepy girl in his arms.

Shai had the kids with her in the big bed, Becky fussed when he tried to separate Gabbie from her, or them… so it was another awkward night for him. He slid in on the far side, with Wilf wedged between him and Shai, clinging tightly to both in his sleep.

He woke a few hours later with Amy’s foot in his ear and Gabbie tangled with Rio, across his legs. It took some doing to extract himself and slip downstairs for a nosh but he did his best.

While the tea was brewing, Gabbie slid onto a barstool, watching him work. The mad boy danced up a ‘Montecristo’ for each of them in a softly whistle and quietly hummed performance. Egg battered bread slices, cheese, sliced wild boar ham, and shaved turkey breast with wallowbear bacon got griddled, flipped, stacked, assembled and sliced. He conjured it all, to the tune of ‘Wind In The Barley’, a popular dance tune Shai had introduced her to earlier in the day.

“A musician who cooks?” She asked mildly. “Surprising.”

“I do a lot of things, I am a lot of things… so are you, so is Shai, and Wilf… Don’t limit yourself, this is a freakin’ world of magic and wonders! Now pour some maple syrup on that sandwich!”

#

Willow took her prisoner out into her little tree by the bath and bedded the exhausted boy down snugly among the warm dry leaves, wrapping herself around him with a smile.

“You might see tomorrow with new eyes, young mortal… I taste a shift in the light you exude.”

She felt him tense in her arms, distressed by the situation and so many new ideas. The ancient dryad sensed an echo of her own introduction to the boy and his mysteries, in this lost soul.

“I feel you, like a bud, entangled in a thorny vine and unable to bloom for a time. Now you shall begin to flourish a bit, if you can withstand the bees and butterflies that will be coming by to taste your nectar.”

“What does that mean… L… Lady Willow?” He stammered and flushed hot over his whole body, as he transgressed against his training and spoke to her like a person.

“Ahh… that is exactly what it means.” She purred in his ear, snuggling closer. “A few short hours ago… could you have ever considered speaking to me thus?”

“No, lady Willow.” He sighed, relaxing into her arms. “I’m doomed, damned and a failed instrument of her will. What matters it, how low I sink now?”

“And if your empress redeems your honor?” She asked gently, softer than a whisper.

“Even she could not hold that much grace and forgiveness. The shame of my failure burns inside me when I look at her… as if I am worthy of such.” He muttered.

“We shall see, boy. Perhaps she will gift you to me…” Willow nudged him with her chin and sighed. “So serious, so dour… yet, I feel something of sweet lady Joy, hidden in there among the brambles and thorns.” She rocked him off to sleep with a smile on her face. She hadn’t had so many human friends at once… since… “Hmm… Even I can’t recall…” She whispered as he finally fell asleep. Dryads don’t truly sleep, Willow was particularly fond of moonlight on her leaves, since bonding with this fine body the boy’d made her. She felt it now, warm and thick, by moonlight standards anyway.

She basked under that glow in countless instances of herself on this world, and several others. Only this one had that odd, glimmering radiant moon, drifting and swaying through the night. Every cottagewillow, swampwillow, diamond or iron willow tree in every damp, misty fen or creekside, felt that gentle, prickly warmth.

‘He’s up to something…’ She thought, with a pleasant smile.

#