Moonshadow: Rebels Rising

"There weren't always dragons in the Valley."

The ranger didn't look at me when she spoke, but I knew she was talking to me. She had stepped silently up to the bar beside me, slow and deliberate, saying nothing for more than was comfortable. Even now, her gaze was fixed on the barkeep, who was busy pulling pints for a group of rowdy miners. But I had the unnerving sense of being acutely observed.

"There weren't always trolls in the mountains," I replied. I hid my trembling hands by taking a deep swig of brandy.

Of course, no one has seen a dragon or troll since the first age of the ancestors, but it was safer to speak in mythic terms than political ones—even out here in the Far Reach.

The ranger frowned, as though annoyed to have found her informant. Her face was delicately lined around her eyes, but her deep brown skin was otherwise clear and fresh. Long black locs adorned with occasional silver rings were gathered neatly at her neck and tumbled halfway down her back.

She leaned down, resting her elbows on the wooden bartop and putting her palms together with a studied kind of precision that belied the casual appearance of the stance. Her hands, I noticed, were strong but not gnarled or weather-beaten as I would expect a ranger's to be.

The skin on the back of my neck stood up, as I realized she moved more like a soldier than a woodsman. An imperial soldier? A Watcher in disguise? This far from the Valley? It seemed unlikely.

Stay calm, Naledi, I told myself, and sat up a little straighter.

"It's not often we see citizens of Solara in the Far Reach," the ranger said. "This here is what some might call rebel territory."

"You don't know that I'm Solaran," I lied smoothly.

The ranger's eyebrows shot up. The corner of her mouth twisted ever-so-slightly, and I scowled as I realized she was laughing at me.

"You may be wearing a woolen traveling cloak, as a mountain dweller would, but your skin is still brightly tanned and the soles of your boots are barely worn. Plus, their leather is the red of ploughbeast. No fields this far west." She cocked her head. "So, no ploughbeasts." Then, leaning into the space between us, she whispered, "And then there's this, Valley girl: you reek of fear of the Empire. Tell me, what crimes against His Imperial Highness have you committed that you've come seeking refuge amid the ruins of a republic of moon rebels? Running away from a state-sanctioned marriage? Stealing jewels from a petty sun-lord?"

She turned away, disgusted.

I felt my face grow hot with indignation.

"Go home, girl," said the ranger "The Far Reach is not your hidey-hole and we've no room for cowards and runaways here."

"No room to hide?" I hissed, my temper flaring. "What about rangers who move like soldiers, observe like spies, and have smoother hands than any woodsman I've ever met?"

The ranger blinked, surprise registering across her face.

I leaned back on my barstool, enjoying the thrum of vindication pulsing through me. "Perhaps I, like you, am more than I appear to be."

Gibbon said it would take some convincing, I reminded myself, taking a deep breath. Making it out of the Valley unnoticed, let alone north of the mountains, was no small miracle. You can't expect it to all go smoothly.

The ranger looked me up and down, With a resigned sigh, she signaled to the barkeep—a small but wiry woman with tawny skin, freckles, and curly red hair shorn close to her head. The ranger jerked her chin toward a door off to the side of the bar. The barkeep answered with a quick nod.

"You better be worth the risk, Valley girl," the ranger huffed. Her eyes lingered on the barkeep, who picked up a tray of dishes and disappeared through the door. "Hanni had a feeling about you, and I trust her judgment. Come."

I slung the last of my brandy down and followed her through the door. On the other side was a large, round room. A small bed stood in the center. By the window at the far end, the last of the fading evening sun spilled dully onto a delicately hewn wooden table and chairs.

"Thank you, Hanni." The ranger smiled briefly at the barkeep and touched her arm lightly.

Their hands touched briefly and then Hanni busied herself at the sink by the door, ignoring me.

The ranger strode across the room and sat at the table. "Sit," she commanded, but I was too distracted to obey.

All around the room, metallic-looking devices flickered with silver light. A clock sat on a shelf clicking faintly; its second hand ticked fruitlessly, lurching to life each moment but failing to move even a grain's width around the pearly clock face. Another strange-looking instrument rested on the windowsill; a round flat metal disc on a thin metal rod spun round and round, reflecting light back into the room as it spun.

"Moon magic," I whispered to myself, my mouth hanging open in awe.

At this realization, the glow took on a ghostly quality. It was like looking at something haunted. The leftovers of a dead civilization. Not just a dead civilization, I reminded myself. Killed by the Emperor. I winced. By Solarans.

"What's left of it, anyway," the ranger answered brusquely. She unhitched a knife at her waist and at her boot, then set them on the table.

I decided to take this as a truce, rather than a threat, and sat down opposite her.

"What is that?" I asked, pointing to the instrument on the window sill.

The ranger's gaze flicked over the moontech, then back at me.

"It's a lunar calendar," she answered, finally. "When fully powered, the device shows you the current and upcoming moon phases. Certain magics work best at different times of the month."

"But this looks full," I said, frowning. "I've been traveling for weeks and the moon is waxing now, barely a crescent."

The ranger clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Most moontech was destroyed on the Emperor's orders. What's left is practically junk." She flicked the metal moon disc so that it spun faster. "You can't power the tech without the magic. And the magic is dead." She gestured around. "Or dying, clearly."

It wasn’t just the magic that was dead. Hanging unspoken were the lives of the people who practiced that magic. The generations of Yemayans who kept the moon and our planet in balance.

“No match for Solaran suntech," the ranger continued, eyeing me over the table. "Manipulating weather, thinning the atmosphere to maximize sun exposure and crop yields. Who needs dragons with Solarans breathing fire onto the land day after day? How many generations can that last, do you think?”

I dropped my eyes, ashamed of where I came from—ashamed of what I didn’t even know my people were doing to the land until I met Gibbon. The clinking of dishes in the sink across the room stopped. I imagined Hanni and the ranger exchanging a glance, wondering what I was going to do next.

“Not long,” I answered, looking up. I put a hand on my heart, introducing myself in Yemayan custom Gibbon taught me, "Naledi.”

The ranger hesitated, then did the same. “You can call me Sono," she replied after a beat. "And it's Hanni's house you're in."

I nodded at Hanni, who nodded back.

“So …” I could feel the shift as Sono got down to business. “How did you know to come here?” Her fingers were inches away from her knives, a subtle signal, I knew, that she would not let me leave here if I was a liability.

"He worked for my …” I caught myself. “He worked in the palace. His name was Gibbon," my voice fluttered as I said his name.

Crash!

Sono was out of her chair, dagger raised, in an instant. But all we saw was Hanni, staring at me with one hand clapped over her mouth. Shards of broken glass littered the ground around her feet.

Sono quickly sheathed her dagger and walked over to Hanni, murmuring something in her ear. After a moment, they both returned to the table, Sono pulling out the chair for Hanni and standing behind her.

“My brother,” Hanni choked, looking shaken. “He was a spy during the Conquest. I thought he died since he never returned."

"Sister," I gasped. A spy, I knew. But how could Gibbon not tell me he was sending me to meet his sister? "Well, it seems he didn't trust me with all his secrets." My heart throbbed to learn that he'd kept this from me.

"Where is he now?”

Hanni’s face was so eager. I felt my hurt fade into an all-too-familiar kind of sorrow. What point was there in being angry with a dead man?

“It was the scorchplague,” I told her quietly. “They said it came from the mountains where the Empire was blasting for new metals. Suntech traders brought it in. From there it spread from the industrial barracks to the servant quarters. And Gibbon ...”

Gibbon's face swam into view. His face had been pale at first underneath his thicket of dark hair. Then later, he turned so red with the effort of simply trying to stay alive—his veins bulging bright red as the infection leaped from capillary to capillary, burning up his body. Boiling it from the inside. I shook my head trying to forget.

I reached out and curled my fingers over Hanni's. She flinched but then met my eyes. She must have seen what he had meant to me in my face because she didn’t let go. For a moment, it was just us—each one of us grieving a man the other had never known.

I found my voice again and kept talking. “He found something out. He said to come here, said that if I could get to the ranger in the Reach, you would know what to do.”

I looked up at Sono now.

"And what did he find out,” she asked, squeezing Hanni's shoulder.

“He found the second moonstone.”

Sono's eyes went wide. She and Hanni stared at me.

"Impossible!” Sono whispered. “It was destroyed a generation ago during the Conquest."

“But what if it wasn’t?” Hanni turned to her, her eyes shiny with tears and something else. Hope? Vengeance? “What if Gibbon’s mission was successful? We could bring magic back. We could finally fight back and end the occupation!”

Sono was about to answer when she stopped and drew the dagger from her waist again.

“What—” I began but Sono held up a hand.

"It's too quiet out there."

It was true. The background din had faded. The footsteps of a single pair of boots sounded across the floorboards.

Hanni stood up. "Stay here. Don't do anything stupid." She grabbed a tray of clean dishes from the sink and darted out.

"What can I do for you, Watcher?" Hanni's voice ran out, after a moment.

"A Watcher?" Sono hissed, fists curling. "In the Far Reach?"

"Oh, you know. Just doing the rounds.” The Watcher’s voice was light but sharp, like a piece of flint. "Haven't seen anything unusual lately, have you? No deserters from the mountain mines? No runaways or strays … rangers stirring up trouble?"

Sono tightened her grip on her dagger.

"Can't say that I –"

"Don't bother lying," snapped the Watcher, his voice slicing through Hanni's. "It's so predictable. Let's speed this up, shall we?"

An instant later, a strangled shriek filled the room, followed by an uproar of shouting along with tables and chairs skidding across the floor.

Sono and I flung ourselves into the room. The Watcher, burgundy cape unfurling from his shoulders and golden “W” gleaming on the breast of his black uniform, had come around the bar. He held Hanni by the throat with a long-gloved hand. A ring of fire blazed around her neck. I could see the thin metal wire under the flames. A suncollar. I'd only ever heard the servants speak of them with terror. I gagged.

Sono threw the dagger at the Watcher as patrons scrambled for the door. He laughed at our surprise when the dagger bounced off thin air, barely a foot from his body. Confused, I squinted at the spot. A translucent shimmer of silver light floated between him and us.

Sono growled furiously.

"Ah," the Watcher smiled."There you are." He clicked a button at his waist and the flames around Hanni’s neck went out. He threw her over the bar, where she crumpled, unmoving. "Sun science is so advanced these days.”

"That moontech does not belong to you," growled Sono, though her eyes were on Hanni.

The Watcher shrugged. "No, I suppose it doesn't. But I have it, so why get hung up on the existential question of belonging?" He held out his hands as if helpless. Then he focused his gaze on me. “Hello, dear Naledi. My, but you've been naughty, bringing me all the way out here to the Far Reach.”

Sono bent down and touched Hanni's face, gently stroking her closed eyes and freckled cheeks. She shifted her torso to me, turning her back to the Watcher. I almost warned her but then she began to cry.

The Watcher made tutting sounds of false sympathy.

No, wait. She's not crying at all. I realized Sono was muttering to herself and that her hands were moving in strange gestures. As the moon rose into view in the window behind the Watcher, I suddenly understood.

She needs time. A distraction.

"I'm not going back with you." I tried to ignore the fear knotting itself in the pit of my stomach. The cold squeeze in my chest.

The Watcher pouted like a sulky child. "Come now, that hurts my feelings. The Emperor would be so disappointed."

Sono's gaze flickered toward me in surprise, but I made myself keep my eyes on the Watcher. There will be time to explain things later. The glittering silver of the shield had begun to flow, almost imperceptibly, into Sono's hands.

"He misses you, you know, Naledi," the Watcher said with all the softness of a hunter speaking to his prey. "Come home and all will be forgiven. What you took will be returned. But if you don't …" he sighed.

I breathed an inward sigh of relief. If he was asking for our return, he hadn't found the hiding place.

The Watcher's shield had all but dissipated now. Sonos's face scrunched with the effort of siphoning its power with whatever moon magic she seemed to possess.

Suddenly, the Watcher's face changed. He shot his hand out, seeming to realize the shield was gone.

"Now!" I yelled. I didn't know what Sono could do, but I guessed our best shot was while we still had the element of surprise.

Force exploded from Sono's hands, knocking me to the ground and pinning me there. I could feel waves of heaviness, like gravity, pushing—or was it pulling?—me down. It was hard to breathe.

"You can get up now." Sono's voice rang out above me.

I pushed myself to my feet and saw that the Watcher had been blown to the ground. Moonlight streamed across his unconscious face.

Sono bent to check his pulse.

"He's dead," she said and straightened up. “And so is Hanni.” She turned to face me, her face looking decades wearier. “And so will you be if you don’t give me the moonstone.”

“It’s not that easy,” I said, tears swimming in my eyes. This was my fault. I hadn't gotten out of the Valley unnoticed at all.

“Make it that easy.”

“I can’t." I gestured at the door. "I’ll show you.”

Sono didn't move.

"Please," I begged.

Sono took one last look at Hanni’s body. She knelt and gathered her into her arms, letting out a single ragged sob. Then she rose and walked out the door without so much as a glance toward me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to Hanni and ran to catch up with Sono.

“This way,” I said, and ran briskly down the path into the woods behind the inn. Almost there. Please let him not have found it. Not too far ahead, nestled in a thicket of trees by the river, was a small abandoned shack.

I knocked on the door—the special knock we agreed upon before I left for the inn.

Sono's hands drifted toward her dagger.

"You don't need that," I said sharply.

Sono looked murderous but seemed startled enough by being given an order by me that she let her hand drift down to her side.

The door latch clicked.

"It's okay. It's me," I whispered.

Then Luna came out. Her yellow school uniform was so caked with dirt from our trek from Solara that it was almost brown now. She shivered in the damp evening air and looked from me to Sono. In the moonlight, the golden tattoo of half a rising run glittered on her forehead.

Sono gasped, stepping back. "Is that…?"

"Yes," I replied, meeting her horrified gaze. "The Emperor's daughter."

***