"Black Moon In A White Night (Part I)" by Diogo Dionisio Teles

Black Moon in a white night (Part I)

The soft humming noise filled the room as he entered it; a green glow revealed the rough contours of its walls. This seemed to be some kind of cellar for the keeping of wine, large barrels upon the sidewalls projected shadows on the ground that seemingly tried to reach the cellar door on the other side. Amidst these was his shadow, short and stern as he entered, but now it grew shorter as the light behind him dwindled. The humming softened and suddenly the gate closed behind him leaving the room dark and silent.

“So what is to be now?” He strained his eyes and the room became clearer to his elven sight as if bathed in moonlight, every colour simplified to a tone of silvery grey. “Well I guess this is where it starts” he thought, “I hope Ennaly was right.” Davien walked towards the cellar door and turned the knob, the door opened, “Unlocked…good.” A flight of stone steps led up to another door which he opened. On the other side was what seemed to be a kitchen, small and square, with about 20 feet from wall to wall. A small round table stood at the centre and the faint light from the moonlit night outside flowed in from a single window on the left wall. Davien looked around and for a moment his thought drifted.

He was now 25 years old, an elf from the realm of Aëndor, the Celestial Garden. There were many souls on the world he now entered that hoped to someday reach that far away land where trees grew taller and more lustrous, water sprang from grey cliffs cascading down into silvery fresh streams, eternal spring brought upon the lands by the hands of nature and perfected by the will and inspiration of cheerful gods. So it was Aëndor, the realm of cheerful goodness, at least to the eyes of the outsider. Davien always felt privileged to grow up in such a place, but he was still very young in the standards of the elves, and eager to meet new places and feel new sensations. It was in the belief of his family that only by sensing with all senses the wonders of reality could one aspire to someday in a further age, be allowed to live forever as a power amongst the gods. Eternity was not their wish, for that they already had. They sought to be One with All, to know the veiled truths behind the masquerade of being. In one way or another that was what all races wanted, but to tell that to an Aëndoreen elf was to ask for a lengthy discussion in theosophy and the motivations of the different races of the multiverse.

The world he now entered was said to be a fountain of opportunity to those who wished to witness and experience all that usually requires many lives of travel between the realms of order and chaos. It was said that somehow here anything could happen, anything from beyond imagination. Yet the view from the kitchen window showed a simple gloomy street, between two rows of wood and plaster houses two or three stories high, paved with large flags of grey granite. Above it was a night-blue clear sky where only the brightest stars shone through the high full moon. All in all, it was not what he expected for a world where “even a demon lord can turn good” as Ennaly always said.      

Not willing to explain to the owners of the house what he was doing inside at this late hour, Davien silently opened the kitchen window and exited to the street after making sure it was clear of later wanderers. Looking around, still hoping for something different or unusual he sighed. “Oh well, just another country village equal to many others. I wonder if she found the right gate. Maybe I should go back.” Thinking this he drew  from the right pocket of his pants a small feather, dark grey in the moonlight, but which he knew to be of various tones of fiery orange and red. Holding it in the palm of his hand he pondered his situation. Even the portal-key looks inappropriate for such a dull realm, a rare and powerful item wasted in the travel to a world that could be any world, to a village like so many. Finally he decided: “I think I’ll give it a couple of days before I head back. I can’t imagine her getting a portal wrong. And now I better get out of town, I wouldn’t be surprised if the locals have never seen an elf before.”

With this he went, looking disappointed, out the small village of Kraler. Past the fields of corn that surrounded it, following a road that went south through a region of small hills known as the Hunchback Fields, into the lands that would someday be part of the Arborean history.

A few hours passed and dawn came. Davien walked now through a succession on small rocky hills of limestone, after every soft climb up the hill through lustrous and still wet grass there was an abrupt descent through bare rock to the bottom, and into the slope that climbed to the next one. Between each rocky formation tiny streams flowed south-east, into what could be discerned at the far eastern horizon as a forest of tall pine trees. The rising sun made the tree tops below to his left seem to glow in the distance and the large river formed by the many streams from Hunchback Hills looked like a glowing blade of silver that ripped the forest in two. Davien started to sweat after crossing the fifth hill. Finding no dry way to cross the stream bellow and not being in the mood to wet his boots, he headed downstream along the limestone ridge to his left. A soft current of air seemed to flow along the small valleys and in felt good. On the other side of the stream, where the gentle grassy slope of the next hill began, a wall of loaded Blueberry bushes framed the water in blue.

Somewhere in the greyish blue dawn sky, high above the tiny green silhouette of the unsuspicious elf, flew the eyes of a distant land. A small creature, invisible to the ones who roamed bellow, with leathery red wings making him hover like a scavenger and eyes that reached far like a bird of prey. “Yes, master was right! Yes, yes! And saw him enter…master will be pleased, very pleased….master will be happy and do happy things to me. Good, good!”

Had someone been nearer it, they would have heard the voice of a small child, for a child it was in a way, which flew high above; a fledgling spawn from the depth of darkness, from the realm where even the purest could be turned into the foulest, and where the foulest would certainly grip and shred with poisonous claws every miserable light that entered it. “Now to return and see master smile and receive my prize…snivelling old man! Someday I will make him eat his forked tongue and burn forever while I feast on his daughters!” After a sudden rush of mad laughter the creature went silent, for it knew that day would soon come, until then he would serve him well. The sweetest pain is that of the unsuspecting victim, or so thought this little imp.

Davien halted and looked up. “What was that? Even the birds sing lousy in the place”. Before his elven eyes glimpsed the shape above the creature uttered a quick word and vanished. Vanished from the dawn at Hunchback hills, through the day at the eastern ocean and into the sunset of Akikage where his master awaited his return.          

At the end of the second day, under a grey sky that darkened as the night approached, Davien saw at last the first signs of people after leaving the village of Kraler. The rain had stopped but the road, which he followed after leaving that land of limestone hills into the pine forest, was now a muddy path bordered by the low stone walls of small farms installed where once there had been trees. He preceded, half bent, dragging his feet through the mud. Soaked to the bones, shivering, hungry and tired, all he wished now was some hot food and a dry bed. He never really got used to long travels. She made it look so easy: “You’ll see hon’, in Khull you won’t have to look for adventure for it will come to you. Just try not to get into something that is out of your measure.”   

Night came and he could now see clearly the lights of a small hamlet, half a dozen houses that seemed to have grown with the trade of the nearby farms. The houses seemed quiet, a faint yellowish glow coming from their windows and smoke rising from the stone chimneys meant that this wasn’t to late for him to ask for lodging. The air was filled with the welcoming scent of burnt firewood and Davien pictured a rocking chair by the hearth and a mug of warm beer in his hand. He couldn’t hold on even another hour, he had to stop.

Half sleeping he followed the sounds of laughter to one of the houses, “the local tavern maybe”, he thought. This house was in fact the largest of the hamlet, an L shaped wooden cottage with two stone chimneys rising through the wooden roof. At the entrance stood a great war horse, a strange sight for such a place he though. War horses were normally used by armies or the occasional adventurer in need of a steed which doesn’t get scared easily. It was starting to rain again and he rushed to the door facing the road, at the left of the horse, between two smudged windows that didn’t allow a clear view from the inside. It was unlocked and he entered, as he did a small cloud of smoke escaped from inside. The air was heavy with the scent of roasted meat and bad ale. A large rectangular table was set in the centre of the room. Three men were sitting at the other side of the table and with their backs to the door two womanly figures. All halted as he entered, he felt suddenly uncomfortable. The five at the table looked at him, the women turned back on their chairs. At the left end of the room was a counter, the women behind it, also human and in her mid forties, opened her mouth as if to say something but no sound came out.