Beyond The Blue Moon

  The Queen, in particular, had been most unhelpful. She'd agreed to see Tiffany more than once, but seemed more interested in exchanging the very latest gossip than in talking about things that really mattered. She was also totally and very firmly uninterested in all the things Tiffany's magic could do, even when they might have been useful to her. Queen Felicity might not have much use for her official advisers, but it seemed even she listened to them on the subject of how dangerous an Academy witch could be.

  Of course, they were quite right, but still… Tiffany admired the Queen Regent, and would have liked to be able to help her.

  She hadn't been anywhere near Duke Alric. His small army of bodyguards went pale and drew their weapons if she ever looked like she was going anywhere near his quarters, and formed a solid block around him anytime the two of them were at Court together. Which was flattering, but not particularly helpful. The Duke might be obnoxious, arrogant, and a potential threat to the whole Forest Land, but she still needed to talk to him. There were things she needed to know. About his plans and ambitions and what he was doing here at Forest Castle. And why every time she looked at him, she Saw blood dripping endlessly from his twisted hands. A witch's Sight wasn't always completely reliable, for any number of reasons, including the difficulties of interpretation, but some Sights were indisputable.

  Tiffany needed to know whether she was Seeing the Duke's past, or his future. She couldn't afford to do anything drastic to him until she was sure exactly what he was guilty of.

  And on top of all that, the Walking Man was coming to Forest Castle. As if she and everyone else didn't have enough problems. For someone supposed to be an avatar of the good and the holy, that man could cause more upsets, general mayhem, and high body counts than a major war and an outbreak of plague combined.

  She remembered suddenly that Allen Chance was on his way to see her, and brightened up immediately. She liked Allen. He was kind and thoughtful and always treated her like a lady. More importantly, he wasn't frightened of her. And she just loved the way he went all red-faced and flustered when she took a deep breath and stuck out her bosom. Men were so easy to manipulate sometimes. It helped that Chance was very handsome, and even charming, in an awkward way. If only he wasn't his father's son. Sometimes when Tiffany looked at Chance's shadow, she Saw the shadow of a much larger and far more dangerous man.

  She tired suddenly of playing with her hair. She tied the braid off with quick, careless knots, jumped to her feet, and moved over to look out of the room's only window. She usually found the view from this high up on the South Tower diverting, even comforting, but today something was undermining its ability to ease her mood. The Forest looked the same, but Tiffany knew there was a darkness coming, even without using her Sight. The Forest just couldn't help but look different. Everyone in the Academy knew something bad was coming, but not even the most advanced and experienced witches had been able to put a name to it. They were all pretty sure it had something to do with the return of the Inverted Cathedral, but those witches who had tried their Sight on the Inverted Cathedral had come to awful ends. The lucky ones had died quickly. The few survivors lay in straightjackets in isolated cells, bleeding constantly from terrible stigmata, screaming and laughing and speaking in tongues that no one understood. The Mother Witch had made Tiffany visit those poor unfortunates before she let her go to Forest Castle, so she wouldn't be tempted to try the Sight herself. She'd cried for over an hour afterward, and then never cried again. She could be strong when she had to. She could feel the Inverted Cathedral's presence wherever she was in the Castle. A harsh, hateful presence, like the endless pain of a nagging tooth. And going anywhere near the Inverted Cathedral felt like being in the presence of something awful about to give birth to something even worse.

  Tiffany was potentially the most powerful witch the Academy of the Sisters of the Moon had ever produced. She knew this because her superiors had been telling her that ever since her first period, when her magic first began to manifest. The signs and portents surrounding her birth had apparently been something to see. That's why she was here, in the Castle. Because the Academy was convinced she was supposed to be here. But the more she thought about it, the more Tiffany worried she wouldn't be strong enough to face whatever it was, whenever it finally happened. For all her power, she'd never thought of herself as anyone special. Part of her wanted to run screaming from the Castle, right now, and flee back to the safety of the Academy, where she'd always felt safe and protected and secure. Where the day to day world had been comfortingly predictable, decided by those clearly superior to her. She'd cried hot tears when they told her she had to leave the Academy early, because her presence was needed at the Forest Castle. And because there was nothing more they could teach her. The world outside the Academy was so confusing. And she missed her friends. She shook her head quickly. These were a child's thoughts. She was a grown woman now, with a woman's responsibilities. And she was a witch.

  She pushed open the window, put her face out into the morning sunshine, and sang. Her voice rang out on the stillness, calm and sure and quite beautiful. Her liquid, sparkling voice rose and fell as she sang a song almost as old as the Forest Kingdom itself, a simple tale of love and loss, and love regained. And as she sang, birds came from everywhere to sing with her. They came flying in from all directions, in ones and twos and small clouds, dropping out of the morning sky to circle and wheel before and above and around her, dozens and dozens of them, of all sizes and species and colors, to add their voices to hers. The song took on a power of its own, spreading farther than any volume could ever have carried it, till everyone in the Castle stopped to hear Tiffany and the birds singing. And everyone who heard it felt their hearts lift for a moment, and the cares of the day seemed a little lighter for everybody.

  And then something frightened the birds, and in a moment they all stopped singing and flew away. Tiffany faltered, then broke off, though the unfinished song seemed to reverberate on the air a moment longer. Something new had come into the Forest. Tiffany could feel it. She turned her Sight on the view before her, and the Forest changed.

  It was dark, and corrupt, and overhead the returned Blue Moon glowed with the only color eyes can see at night. Its wild malevolence crackled on the darkness, moving over all the Forest, its irresistible influence changing everything. Wild Magic ran loose in the world, and nothing could stand against it, not law nor custom nor reason. Trees and foliage had been replaced by terrible insane plant growths whose shapes made no sense, and between them moved creatures like living cancers, swollen and purulent. There were dark shapes as big as houses, lurching through the transformed Forest toward the Castle, to tear it down and grind its stones underfoot. And demons, demons everywhere.

  And then, in the middle of this Sight of things to be, Tiffany gasped as she Saw herself. Saw her body impaled upon a twisting tree branch, its end bursting out of her wide-stretched mouth, its bark slick with her blood. And she was still alive, her eyes open and endlessly suffering…

  The door opened behind her, and she spun around, the horror that held her bursting out of her in a scream she couldn't hold back. And then she saw that it was Chance, and the last of the Sight fell away. She ran forward into his arms, and clung to him, shuddering and shaking, holding tears back with an effort. Chance held her close, bewildered, and did his best to make soothing, comforting noises.

  Slowly she calmed down, bringing herself back under control through sheer willpower. She hung on to Chance a little longer than was really necessary. She felt safe in his arms, safe for the first time since she'd come to Forest Castle. But still, in the end she made herself push him gently away, and he let go of her immediately.

  "What is it, Tiff? What's the matter? Did you See something?"

  "Yes. A vision of the future. Or what might be the future."

  "A vision so bad it made you scream? What did you See?"

  Tiffany shook her head firmly. "It wasn't certain. The future is shifting al
l the time. It was more like a warning, a prediction of what might happen if we don't do something to prevent it."

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know."

  "Don't worry," Chance said firmly. "I'd never let anything happen to you, Tiff. Never."

  Tiffany smiled at him, and wished she could believe him.

  Hawk and Fisher ate breakfast together in Rupert's old quarters. Fisher started the day as she always did, with twenty minutes' hard exercise, followed by a full and hearty meal. Bacon, eggs, sausages, and a pint of good strong Southern coffee. There was even fried bread to go with the fried eggs. Perfect. Fisher plowed through it all with good appetite, making happy contented sounds amidst the chewing. Fisher believed in attacking the day from the very beginning, bright-eyed and alert for whatever the morning might bring. Preferably something she could hit. She was already fully dressed, her swordbelt close at hand.

  Hawk, on the other hand, was still in his dressing gown. He sat slumped in his chair opposite her, trying to work up the energy for a good scratch. He hadn't shaved, and his hair was sticking out in all directions. Hawk was not a morning person. He watched bleakly as Fisher wolfed down her food, his face expressing barely concealed horror. Hawk had a bowlful of bran cereal and a small glass of fruit juice, that being all his system could tolerate first thing in the morning. Fisher chatted cheerfully about what they were going to do that day, and Hawk answered her with grunts and the occasional low groan. Hawk tended to not really wake up until he'd been out of bed for at least a good hour. Which was why they'd always done their best to avoid the morning shift in Haven. That early in the morning you could rob a bank right in front of Hawk, hit him over the head with a club, and set fire to his trousers, and he still wouldn't notice.

  In Haven, Fisher usually shoved Hawk under the shower, turned the water on hard, and then joined him. That usually did the trick. However, the Forest Castle's plumbing apparently didn't extend to showers yet, which was possibly why Hawk was still in a decidedly grumpy mood when he and Fisher set out, sometime later, to start the day's round of interviews. Hawk was dressed, shaved, and awake, and looked like he hated every part of it. People tended to back away and give him and Fisher plenty of room as they strode down the branching stone corridors, following the guide the Seneschal had provided them.

  Hawk had lived all his early life in the Castle, and still remembered most of the main routes, but even so, he still needed a guide to lead him through the ever-changing locations of rooms, stairways, and corridors, some of which doubled back on you when you weren't looking. The Forest Castle's internal geography had always been eccentric, if not downright willful, and things had only gotten worse since the return of the missing South Wing and the reappearance of the Inverted Cathedral. On bad days you were lucky if you woke up in the same room you went to sleep in. Or at least, that was the excuse people used. In the old days the Seneschal, or more usually one of his people, would have led the way, following their magical instincts and well-trained internal maps, but apparently these days the Seneschal rarely left his rooms. Instead he relied upon a series of magical guides, directed by his will, or his people's. Hawk and Fisher's guide was a bright glowing light that bobbed cheerfully on the air before them, like a candle flame without the candle. You told it where you wanted to go, and it took you there. Simple. Fisher was having none of it. She took the nonappearance of the Seneschal as a personal slight, and demanded the guide to tell the Seneschal to get his arse down here sharpish. There was a pause, and then the light spoke with the Seneschal's voice.

  "You're not that important. In fact, at this hour of the morning no one is, except the Queen. And possibly the Duke. I don't do personal appearances anymore. I'm very busy. Don't bother me again, or I'll have the guide take you on an extended tour of the Castle's sewer systems."

  And that was that.

  "He hasn't changed much," said Fisher. "In fact, he's just like I remember him."

  "Then he's about the only thing that is," growled Hawk. "This isn't the Castle I remembered."

  "Is that good or bad?"

  "I'm still deciding."

  "God, you're moody first thing in the morning. Did you have a good bowel movement?"

  "You always ask that," said Hawk, with some dignity. "And the answer is always yes."

  "You can get bashful about the strangest things, Hawk."

  "Can we please change the subject? Where are we going first?"

  "We went through all this last night, Hawk. When you weren't complaining about the lumpy mattress. We're starting with a visit to Harald's tomb, remember?"

  "Appropriate. I feel like death warmed up and allowed to congeal."

  They followed the bobbing light through the Castle corridors, heading down into the depths of the Castle, down to the great Hall and Crypt of the Forest Kings. Fourteen generations of the Forest line lay at rest there. Hawk hadn't been there since he was a child, at the funeral of his mother, Queen Eleanor. He'd found the sheer size of the place awesome rather than frightening, but even so, it hadn't looked to him like anywhere he wanted to spend his final rest. He'd said so, and his father, the King, had hit him, and then hugged him tightly. King John took the death of his wife hard, and only held himself together through the service by his sense of duty. Hawk understood there was a tomb for his father in the Crypt now, even though there'd been no body to inter. Custom had to be followed. Hawk hadn't been there for that funeral. He'd felt it more important to get himself and Julia out of the Castle and some distance down the road before Harald got around to having him killed. Harald had never taken competition lightly. And now Harald was dead, too, laid out in the family Crypt. It made Hawk feel old.

  He noticed that everyone was now giving him and Fisher lots of room, far more than could be accounted for by his general grumpiness. He could see fear in people's eyes, and the sudden averting of their gaze. From the highest courtier to the lowest servant, no one wanted to be anywhere near Hawk and Fisher. They hushed their voices and turned their heads aside, and hurried off in different directions, muttering animatedly to each other the moment they thought they were at a safe distance.

  "I was wondering when you'd notice that," said Fisher.

  "They're scared of us," said Hawk. "Why are they scared of us? All right, we put on an impressive performance last night, but only the guilty have anything to fear from us. We're here to protect the innocent. They shouldn't fear us."

  "Everyone's guilty of something," said Fisher.

  Hawk thought about that for a while. "Even us?" he asked finally.

  The Crypt of the Forest Kings was located deep down in the bedrock upon which Forest Castle was built. Entering its dusty embrace was like walking back into the past, rediscovering the legacy and bloodright from which Prince Rupert had sprung. The massive Hall stretched away before the man now known as Hawk, its immense length lit by sorcerous blue flames on the wall that would never gutter or grow dim for as long as the Forest line endured. Standing just inside the only door, the first thing Hawk noticed was the silence. It was like being at the bottom of the sea. There was no sound here, except what the living brought with them. Looking down the long reach of the Hall was almost dizzying, like looking down the side of some plunging cliff face. The sheer scale of the Crypt might originally have been planned to be impressive, but now, fourteen generations later, it seemed simply practical. Lying quietly in their cold stone beds, in neat and ordered rows, the dead Kings and their families stretched away into the distance, protected against time and decay but not the forgetfulness of fickle descendants.

  When Prince Rupert had been brought down here as a small child, to see his mother put to rest, he'd thought for a long time afterward that this was the actual afterlife, where you went when you died; a place of cold blue light and endless quiet. He thought that when everyone was gone, the dead rose up from their marble coffins and communed silently together in the endless Hall. He'd had nightmares for years. Now he found the Crypt oddly comforting. A p
lace of peace, where no one made demands on you anymore. He was here again, after decades away, and it seemed not a bad place to sleep for all eternity, surrounded by your family.

  "Damn," said Fisher quietly. "This place is huge. We've nothing like it in Hillsdown. But then, we haven't been around that long. I'll bet you could spend hours down here, just checking off the names. How many of your family are down here, Hawk?"

  "I don't think anyone knows anymore," said Hawk. "Once, this would have been part of the Seneschal's rounds. He or his people would have kept detailed records on who everyone was and where, and what they did of note, and someone would have been responsible for placing fresh flowers and tidying away the old. But I suppose the place just got too crowded. Too many tombs, too much work, until one of my ancestors decided that such time could be better spent at the service of the living. No one comes down here anymore except at funerals. And no one stays except those who have to."

  "The Hall seems to go on forever," said Fisher. "I can't even see the end from here. How are we going to find Harald's tomb?"

  "The Seneschal's guide should take us right to it," said Hawk. "As a recent arrival, he shouldn't be too far from the door."

  They followed the bobbing light down the wide aisle in the center of the Hall, passing by countless empty marble slabs, prepared for those Forest dead yet to come. It was unbearably quiet, the only sound the soft slap of their boots on the stone floor. It seemed a very small sound in such a large place. The sorcerous light all around them never wavered, reflecting palely from the surprisingly low ceiling overhead. Fisher stuck close to Hawk's side. The sheer size of the Hall intimidated her, made her feel small and insignificant. She could almost feel the pressure of centuries of past history pressing down on her. Hillsdown was a relatively recent country, with only four generations between the current Starlight Duke and Hillsdown's original founder. Walking through the Forest Crypt was like walking back into a past she could barely visualize. Fisher kept her back straight and held her head high. Coming here had been mostly her idea. She'd needed to see Harald's tomb, if only because part of her would never really believe he was dead and gone until she'd seen his final resting place.