Saeng frowned down at the old man.
A recent accident?
She remembered a night not so long ago. Her neighbours screaming, pointing up at the black sky. And on the moon: had she glimpsed a flash of light? Then darkness swirling across the scarred round face obscuring it for nights on end.
‘Are you the moon?’ she asked, unable to withhold all wonder from her voice.
He chuckled indulgently. ‘No, child. Not itself, of course. But I live its life and it mine. Long ago I chose to tie myself to it as intimately as if it were my twin. I can still remember when the vision of it first revealed itself to me all those ages ago.’ He laid his head back down on his folded arms. ‘At that time I moved through darkness without being aware what darkness was – it was all I knew. But then, unbidden, the vision came to me of the moon floating among the stars. Glorious, it seemed to me. A hanging pool of quicksilver. Its light was silvery cool. Magical. I swore then that I had found my essence and I took the moon as my patron. My inspiration. My source.’ He glanced back to her once again. ‘Do you know what I mean by that?’
‘I believe so,’ she answered, slowly. She recalled a few of the more ancient shades from her childhood speaking of the greatest of the entities that emerged from the vastness of the past. And how each had their Aspect, their province, or facet. Earth, Dark, Water, Light, and more. Why not the moon?
‘Of course you know what happened then, yes?’
She shook her head then realized he couldn’t see and so murmured, ‘No.’ Before her eyes the spinning glyphs and symbols continued their shimmering graceful arc across the old man’s back, as if mirroring the turning of the infinite night above.
‘The moon fades.’ Ripan spoke up, and he blew a long sad note that trailed down into silence.
‘Yes. The sun rose. The moon was but stealing its glow from the sun. For the first time I beheld the sun and it terrified me. It seemed my wanderings had brought me into Tiste lands. I paid my respects to Mother Dark but kept to myself mostly. Now I live here and I pay my respects to Lady Ardata.’
‘You serve the Demon-Queen?’
‘Demons?’ He cocked his head. ‘Well, there are a
few
, I suppose. But there are one or two of
everything
here. Long ago Ardata offered sanctuary to all the creatures and spirits you humans cared to name monsters. Which, it seems, conveniently includes everything other than
you
. Here you will find many things that have elsewhere disappeared from the face of the earth. Even some things that have been forgotten all together.’
‘Himatan …’ Saeng breathed.
‘Indeed. Some few humans live in the jungles as well. But they are just one kind among many. And they tread lightly for it.’ He closed his eyes and sighed once more. ‘Ah, child. You should have seen it then. The moon, I mean. Wondrous! It used to be much larger in the sky, you know. Very much larger. These late days it is but a shrunken grey shadow of its former glory. And it had brothers and sisters, then. Other moons.’
‘All gone now,’ murmured Ripan, pointedly.
‘Yes. Some lost their way and wandered off. Others fell to break up in great fiery cascades.’ He shook his head in sad reminiscence.
Saeng studied the assemblage of tattooing instruments and what she assumed to be powdered pigments or tints in the coarsely fired earthenware pots. She picked up one long stick to find it tipped in an iron point that glimmered blue-grey in the fading twilight.
Struck by a thought, she said, ‘I always assumed you’d be female, you know. Where I come from, the moon is always portrayed as female.’
The old man nodded where he lay, his head on his folded arms. ‘Yes. I understand that is how it is now – among you humans. And the Tiste as well, I believe. But in the eldest cults, the ones that date back to when awareness first raised its eyes to the sky in wonder, among these, where people move in unison with the seasons, the moon is always male and the sun female. Such is the irrefutable logic of fertility. The sun gives life. The sun provides. What does the moon do? It has no light of its own – it can only steal some small glow from the sun. It is but a pale modest attendant to the infinitely flowing and infinitely giving life abundance that is the sun.’
She found him gazing at her over his shoulder. ‘As part of me is to Light.’
Saeng frowned and opened her mouth to ask what he meant by that but he raised his head, announcing, ‘Ah! Now we can begin.’ Saeng peered about, wondering why suddenly it was time. Then she saw it. The moon had risen. Its pallid magical light streamed through the trees. A few narrow beams of wavering liquid silver now
fell
across Old Man Moon’s elbow and one shoulder. The tattoos within this light blazed to life like distant stars.
Saeng raised the instrument in her hand. ‘But … what do I do?’
‘Ah! Simplicity itself!’ Moon shifted an arm and smoothed a patch of earth. He scratched a symbol in the dirt. ‘Start with that one.’
Swallowing her distaste, she examined his right buttock. ‘Where?’
‘The outside top. Work inward.’
Wonderful. Work inward! But what do I do when I reach … well, maybe I should cross that bridge when I come to it
.
‘And what do I use, you know, for ink?’
‘Ah. Take up the nearest pot …’
Saeng lifted it and peered inside: the dust scintillated like powdered silver.
‘… and spit into it.’
Spit
? ‘What? Spit? Really?’
‘Yes. Quite so. It is required.’
Gods look away!
This was getting worse and worse. Hanu better damn well appreciate it! She spat, but as she did so a great gust of the powder blew up into her face and she coughed, nearly dropping the pot. She wiped her watering eyes. ‘I’m so sorry!’
Ripan laughed, and it was not a friendly laugh.
‘It is fine,’ Moon assured her. To Ripan, a curt, ‘Play!’
The youth took up his flute and blew a squalling note. He winked over the instrument.
‘Try not to exhale next time,’ Moon explained.
‘I’ll try,’ she answered tightly, rather annoyed that he hadn’t mentioned it before.
She crouched next to him, tucked her legs beneath her, and bent down over his withered flanks. She dabbed the tip of the instrument into the globe of liquid silver her spit had become, then studied the symbol the old man had drawn.
Taking a deep breath, she set to work.
Old Man Moon talked the entire time. Concentrating on her task, Saeng hardly heard half of what he said. Occasionally he would raise a hand, saying, ‘good enough’ or ‘extend that line’. But other than these simple instructions he seemed content to leave her to it. Each new glyph or arcane symbol he traced in the dirt for her. As the work progressed Saeng was disconcerted to see some of her handiwork join the orderly march of signs spinning across the old man’s flank and back. Ripan kept up a low tuneless accompaniment that seemed to wander drearily, and frankly was no help to her concentration.
It might have been her imagination, but it seemed as if the moon shone brighter for her as she worked.
After one particularly screeching note Old Man Moon caught her glaring in the youth’s direction. He smiled indulgently. ‘Never you mind Ripan, child. He and my other offspring, they have no sympathy for me. That is just how it is. Not as among you humans, I know. So long as I remain strong and whole they will remain in my shadow – so to speak. They are merely waiting. Waiting for my destruction or dissolution. Then all my power will devolve upon them. Then they will rule all that is the province of the sublunary. Is that not so, Ripan?’
The youth blew a long eerie note, and winked. ‘I can hardly wait.’
Saeng sat back from her work, appalled. ‘That is awful.’ She shook the long-handled needle at Ripan. ‘You should honour your father. Wish him long life, health, prosperity.’
Old Man Moon chuckled. ‘Yet is this not how it is among you living kind? When you strip away all the sentiment and affection – real or not – the old must make way for the young. The new generation replaces the prior. Is this not so?’
Saeng bit at her lip ‘Well. In the harshest possible light, yes.’
‘That light is the cold radiance of the moon, child. That is one aspect of the sublunary. I call to that most basic of drives. The unsaid half of procreation. A drive that supersedes even the urge to survival.’
Moon reached down to scratch his buttock and Saeng had to comment silently:
I’m feeling no such urge right now, old man
.
‘Did you know,’ Moon went on, oblivious, ‘that on one certain moon every year animals of the depths heave themselves up on to beaches on many lands to lay their eggs, to procreate, even though it means their death? This is what I speak of.’
Saeng spat into another roughly formed earthenware cup. ‘It’s different for people.’
He sighed. ‘So they tell themselves.’
She forced herself to examine the man’s flank. She’d been given a rag to wipe away the blood and excess dye from the tattooing and this she balled up once more to wipe the skin. Yet in the pale watery moonlight the stain looked more like melted silver than dark like blood. ‘How much more am I to do? The moon will set, surely.’
The old man chuckled again. ‘Do not worry. We will have as long as is necessary. You are almost done, in any case. Just the one side.’
Well, thank the ancestors for that mercy!
‘Very good. What’s next?’
‘Ah! This one is tricky.’ He scratched in the dirt. ‘A circle with a line through it and an undulating line beneath. The line beneath must be marked in the fifth cup’s ink, if you please.’
‘Fine.’ Saeng clamped that needle between her teeth and asked through it, ‘Why me? Why not Ripan, or anyone else?’
The old man now had his chin on his flat hands. ‘Ripan? Tiam’s blood, no. He is not suited for such service. You, however, are perfect.’
‘Oh? How?’
‘Thyrllan moves through your heart and your hands, child. I feel it like a surge, a tidal pull, when you touch me.’
‘Thyrllan? Whatever do you mean, Thyrllan?’
‘Light, child.’
Saeng jerked, stabbing, and the old man hissed. Mercury drops ran down his tattooed flesh. Saeng wiped them away. ‘Sorry.’
‘Quite all right. Unfortunately, there is no narcotic in creation powerful enough to dull my senses.’
Light again, dammit
. But what was she to
do
? She took the second needle from her mouth and began working on the undulating line. ‘I’m looking for a temple to Light. The Great Temple.’
‘It lies within Ardata’s demesnes.’
‘Where?’
The old man shrugged. ‘I do not know. You must simply look for it. You will meet the multiform denizens of Ardata’s protection. Some will be of no help. Others will help you.’
How very helpful
. ‘I was warned that something was coming. Something terrible.’
He straightened an arm to point to the west. There the unearthly jade light of the Visitor played through the trees. ‘Perhaps it has something to do with that.’
‘Don’t you know? I mean, the moon. The stars. Divination! Foretelling the future and all that?’
An indulgent chuckle from the man. ‘Oh, yes. All
that
. My child – the moon rises, the moon sets. Every day is the same to me. I cannot see the future any more than I can revisit the past. I see only what I am looking down upon.’
‘But people …’
‘People will always believe what they want to believe. Grant things as much power as they choose to give them.’ He shrugged again. ‘Such is how it is.’
‘But you know what I’m talking about, don’t you? The prophecies. The Visitor. Some name it the Sword of the Gods. An evil curse. It would be a cataclysm.’
The old man rubbed a shoulder and grimaced as if at an old wound. ‘Yes. As it happens, I know exactly what you mean … but child, what is that to me? The world revolves on. The moon rises. The moon sets. It matters not who walks upon the face of the land.’
Saeng sat back once more, the needle forgotten in her hand. Such indifference! It almost took her breath away. Didn’t he care? And he’d seemed so
kind
. Then she remembered the angry snarled words of the leopard-man:
those who would stand aside
…
‘So you won’t help me.’
‘I
am
helping you, child. A service for a service. And you are almost done. Just a few last symbols and we are finished.’
She
was
tired. Bleary with exhaustion, in fact. To see clearly for the work she had to squint her eyes until they hurt and her back felt as if daggers were stabbing it. ‘Then you will heal Hanu,’ she said, blinking heavily.
‘Yes. Surely. For if I do not all that you have given me will drain away into nothing. Like moonbeams cupped in your hands.’
‘Fine. What’s next?’
He sketched once more in the dirt.
In the end she could not remember whether she finished or not. All she knew was that she found herself jerking her eyes open again and again. The needle wavering in her hand. She remembered a sea of beautiful arcane symbols dancing and gyring before her as if in a sea of stormy night-black ink. Then the old man’s voice rang as if from afar, deep and profound. ‘That is enough. You have given me so very much, Priestess of Light. Sleep now, safe and warded, under the light of the moon.’