Broken Lands

Chapter 419 – Fable

It wanted to talk? Sophia didn’t expect that; she expected more shadowy attackers, not words. “Ah, yes. We were told to bring it here?”

“By one of the Lapine. I heard.” The shadowy monster sounded strangely disapproving. “They have forgotten the pact.”

Sophia perked up at that. A pact meant that it was possible to reach an agreement that would be kept and the shadow creature seemed annoyed that it wasn’t being kept, so it might well keep its part of a deal.

What was it, anyway?

Sophia reached out to Cliff and knew what she was looking at: an Eclipse Shade, a creature that definitely did not belong this low in the World Tree. This low in the Tree, it couldn’t fully manifest, so it was only partially there. It would be hard to hurt in any meaningful way but would also be severely limited by the weakness of its projection into the location. In fact, the only thing it could really do was serve as a carrier for shadow lurkers.

Oh. Well, that made sense now, didn’t it? If it was somehow carrying the shadow lurkers and had to let them out, maybe that was why there were marks on the ground: where it let them go. Sophia wasn’t sure why that would leave evidence when neither the shadow lurkers or the Eclipse Shade did, but that didn’t make it any less likely. Maybe it was conceptually heavier then or something; Sophia wasn’t certain.

What it meant was that she didn’t have to worry about the Eclipse Shade itself as an enemy. Its minions were another question, and it wasn’t limited to only shadow lurkers, even at the roots of the Tree.

“What was the pact?” Dav didn’t wait for Sophia’s information before he asked the obvious question.

“The bunnies may breed upon the moon when it hides its face from the world. When it turns to face me, however, it is mine to eat if I choose. It was a simple pact, even in their favor, for they gain the use of the moon far more than I do. I do not keep the moon for long; I merely hide its radiance so that my shadows may have their time to spread, as well. The pact lasted centuries, until the day a Lapine carved that thing out of pure moonstone and then washed it in Clear Moon Lake to capture the Spirit of the Moon within it.” The Eclipse Shade waved a clawed hand towards Dav and the rabbit-person statue.

Sophia frowned and glanced at the statue. She only knew moonstone as a gemstone; was it really more or less white? Was that actually moonstone? The sphere on top of the rabbit’s head could be; it was more or less clear other than the glow that came from it. She just wasn’t sure about the stone itself. She’d have guessed granite, maybe, but she really wasn’t good at telling rocks apart.

The sphere on the rabbit’s head pointed away from the Eclipse Shade. No, away from the eclipsed moon, towards whatever lit the moon, below the ground they stood on. 

“This is a fable,” Sophia muttered. The shadow that eats the moon during an eclipse in a conflict with talking bunnies was perfect material for a fable. It could also be an explanatory tale about why eclipses happen, but this felt like more than that. A why story also wouldn’t tell her what to do, but a fable should. In a setup built on a fable, the right choice was to follow the moral of the story.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know the story this was built on. It was probably an Archon fables, and while she knew some of the Suras mythic stories, she didn’t know all of them. If there was a tale about the moon, she didn’t know it; Suratiz was a moon. Arcatiz wasn’t, but it had three, so it made sense that there could be a fable about a bunny moon and shadows.

“We bathed it in Clear Moon Lake at the request of a Lapin,” Dav corrected the Eclipse Shade.

“They do that each moonturning, you simply did it for them this time,” the Shade dismissed the distinction. “Without it, we could not speak, for there would be less light to cast my shadows. It would also be unable to banish me from this place, for its light must outshine that of the moon to pierce my shadows and send me away until the moon goes dark and takes the light of the idol with it. You can do that, send me away to recover my strength and force me to try again next moonturning. Or you can give it to me so that I can destroy it and return us to the days of the pact. I want nothing more than what we agreed to.”

The Eclipse Shade made it sound reasonable, but Sophia was well aware that she was hearing only one side of the story. If this really was a fable, there wouldn’t be any lies, but there could easily be omissions. She needed to listen to what wasn’t being said as well as what was being said. “Why do you care? You said it doesn’t matter if we use the statue on you, since you’ll just try again next month, so why do you want the statue destroyed?”

The Eclipse Shade froze in place and then began to laugh. “Of course it is a child of the world who asks that; it always was. What do I gain? I gain everything! The moon is tasteless and useless when it is not full. I bargained for my rights to cover the only time I care about, when the moon is in its glory.”

“And you would eat all of that time,” a woman’s voice countered. Sophia glanced around until she realized that it came from the statue, which had started to move. The apparently female humanoid bunny turned towards the Eclipse Shade with a fierce glare. “The statue was carved because you broke the pact. You swallowed the moon at its height and then did not release it until I came and tore it from your belly!”

“You mean my mouth,” the Eclipse Shade protested. “You burned my tongue and broke one of my teeth!”

“I can’t help it if your mouth and your belly are the same thing!” the statue stated indignantly. “You were slobbering on the burrows!”

“I don’t have slobber! I’m made of shadows!” The Eclipse Shade moved his arms in front of his chest. It was probably supposed to look intimidating, but it mostly looked defensive.

Sophia snorted, then commented mentally to her team. “Is it just me or is this beginning to look like an argument between a married couple?”

“Could be enemies who have to get along because neither can really win,” Xin’ri countered. “Either way, I doubt there’s a right answer, just a good enough answer.” 

Xin’ri stepped towards Dav and held her hand out for the statue. Once he handed it to her, she held it up towards the eclipsed moon. The light of the statue streamed onto her chest. She spoke out loud as she interrupted their argument. “Tell me, what would happen if the statue was broken? Would that harm the spirit of the moon?”

“No,” the statue answered. “I would be unable to banish the eclipse until another Lapine carves a new statue. Moonstone of this size is rare and Lapine are not the best at carving, so I could be hidden for years.”

“Nonsense!” The Eclipse Shade flicked at least six clawed hands up in the air. Sophia was pretty sure it manifested a couple of them from the shadows just to make the gesture. “The moon is worn out and tired long before it grows dim. It tastes like dust and sorrow without the light to brighten it. An old treat gone stale. I wouldn’t keep it for more than … oh, five days, maybe seven. By the tenth, it’s not worth eating.”

“And you know that because you’ve done it! More than once! Multiple moons in a row there has been no light from the height of the moon to nearly the dark!” The statue screamed. “My children need more than that! The pact was that you could take a bite of the light while the moon was full, not that you could hold it in your mouth until the moon was dark again! That’s why my children made a way to push you back. Not to kill you, no, for you are as eternal as the tides but to push you back to the darkness where you belong!”

“And that means you can banish me while I am within my three days? Send me packing after only an hour, immediately when your child comes here?” The Eclipse Shade shifted as if it was putting its weight on its left leg then stepped forward, but it didn’t actually come any closer. 

It wasn’t really there, and that was very obvious now.

“So what do you think we should do?” Xin’ri asked telepathically. She probably could have whispered, but she was better about remembering to use Dav’s mindlink than Sophia was. “I think giving the statue to the shadow demon is the wrong choice.”

“It’s not a demon,” Sophia answered absently. She didn’t think she’d seen a demon in the Broken Lands. That made sense in a lot of ways, given that demons were an artificial creation in her universe. They must not have been created here. “Not that it really matters. I think you’re right, the statue shouldn’t be destroyed. It wouldn’t solve anything anyway. We should probably use it, but … wait. I know.”

Sophia looked back and forth between the arguing statue and headless shadow. She wasn’t certain which to ask, but maybe if she asked both of them she’d get a good answer. “So what state is the moon in? Is it really in eclipse like the one up there? I didn’t see one in the sky outside. Or which moon is it? Arcatiz has three.”

“I am Arsalos,” the statue answered, “And you did not see me because I am eclipsed by the Shade.”

Arsalos was not one of the three moons over Arcatiz, but Sophia still recognized the name. Arsalos was Suratiz’s name before the Suras fled there to seek refuge from the disaster that made their home planet unlivable. That was an extreme coincidence, enough of a coincidence that Sophia had trouble believing in it. Was this really a tale of the Archons … or was it an old tale of the Suras, the same way that the Archons spoke the Suras language?

Sophia was willing to bet that it was the second possibility. There were too many things that seemed to tie back to her home universe for it to be a coincidence. That might explain why she landed here, too. With luck, it might make it easier to get home.

“How long have you been eclipsed?” Sophia guessed it couldn’t have been too long. “And for that matter, why isn’t there a sun outside either?”

“I have held her in my mouth for four days,” the Eclipse Shade said with a note of satisfaction in its voice. “And she tastes good.”

Sophia sighed at the Shade’s phrasing. She knew he didn’t mean anything by it, but that definitely was not the way to say it.

“The Lapine who was supposed to bring my idol here fled instead,” Arsalos clarified. “They are not the bravest of creatures. It is good that he found your help. Now, will you use the statue and banish the Shade until the next full moon?”