Chapter 129

Hare Moon

An outfit like this deserves to be witnessed. It deserves to be shared and enjoyed. I want someone to admire the little crystals sewn into flower shapes on the bodice. I want someone to see the shininess of me. I want someone to tell me I am beautiful. That what I have done matters.

Alas. I am just a foolish skeleton in a pretty dress, skipping through the desert of death, with no one to watch.

Jenkins and I wander in companionable solitude, as lost as any of the Whisperer’s stolen souls. In the distance I see whispers curling, dustdevils of inky black threads, but they do not come near us. My outfit sees to that. I am glad. At times they solidify into faces, screaming, silent, tormented holes where their eyes and mouths should be, before the soft breath of the wind whisks them away once more. Once or twice I think I recognise a face. People I have killed, people whose souls I have devoured. And not just people - a looming forest of darkness, flowers, shrubs, animals, trees - all that I have taken from the world. It waits for me there in the gloom. Twigs reaching, branches swaying, a thousand pinprick eyes follow me.

I turn away and when I look back the tormented forest is gone.

Sparkling and chiming I trudge across the sands. The little bone fairies flutter after us, and any impressions I make are soon blown away by the softly blowing wind. Jenkins, of course, leaves no footprints. His spirit body is agile and light as a feather, his paws spending more time in the air than on the ground. He seems content to gambol after me, his demeanour as playful as if we were strolling through Downing on a warm afternoon. I am glad of his presence.

I walk, and walk, and walk some more.

I’m not sure how much time passes. Hours, days, a week? There is nothing to mark the passage of time and my body does not grow weary. My mind, however, longs for respite.

In the distance I spy some ruins, which get me momentarily excited. On closer inspection they are just some old buildings long since buried in the sand. Rooftops, a turret… they are as lifeless and empty as the rest of the desert. Resting my fingers lightly on the sand scoured brickwork, I find myself wondering how they came to be here? Whatever whispers haunt these ruins are banished by my silver. I poke around a little looking for clues but find nothing.

Perhaps the buildings got sucked into this realm by accident - the inhabitants dying of starvations, doomed to wander forever more, unable to return to whatever strange place spawned them. The architecture is not something I recognise. I tap a corner with one bony finger. It is hard, making a dull knocking sound. They feel real, but perhaps they are not? Perhaps they are a figment of my imagination, like the hare standing on top of the dune.

Perhaps I am losing my mind at last.

No. I am clad in silver, the Whisperer’s madness cannot touch me. Whatever madness I have left is all my own. And Jenkins can see the hare too.

He lifts one paw, his nose sniffing, questing forward. The hair rises slightly across the ridge of his back. I turn away from the strange buildings and examine the apparition before us. It looks solid, and larger than usual. Certainly larger than the hares I see in the woods around my cottage. Ears straight up, it is alert and listening. The eyes, round, deep, and dark, dark amber fixed on me. Poised to run, powerful muscles are bunched beneath its shoulders. Its mouth… its teeth…The hare grins, and it is not the expression of a herbivore.

Hare’s don’t usually grin…

Jenkins’ backside wiggles, and he explodes forwards, unable to contain himself any longer. Bounding forwards across the sands in great swooping leaps, mindless enthusiasm vibrates through every fluffy black hair of his body. The hare races away, Jenkins close behind.

Foreboding crashes through my bones.

“Jenkins!” I cry, and sprint after them.

My feet slide in the sand, and I pound up the dune, grains flying. When I reach the top the hare is nowhere in sight. Jenkins is stalking the sands, his tail lashing from side to side.

“Did you lose it?” I ask him. He lets out a low rumbling growl, and then sits down and licks a paw. He starts washing his ears, clearly displeased.

A shadow flickers on the horizon. The hare, once again staring down at us.

“There!” I cry, pointing.

We both start running, and the hare rushes off, vanishing down the far side of the massive dune. When we reach it, it is gone. This peculiar behaviour is repeated three more times, and Jenkins grows increasingly irate. He is not used to being toyed with by his dinner.

“It's leading us somewhere,” I say. “I don’t trust it, but it's better than stumbling around mindlessly.”

Jenkins does not comment but he settles down a little.

We follow the mysterious hare through the featureless desert. The ruins are long behind us, and in front only that endless undulating sea of sand.

For the fourth time it vanishes.

Jenkins and I are both grumbling now. Jenkins sounds most peculiar, issuing a noise I have never heard him make. I stare at him. He looks at me, and I realise it's not Jenkins. There is something else. Not the hare, a strange noise. A… warbling, enchanting cry. Soulful. Half song half sorrow. It is very beautiful, echoing over the featureless plane beneath that empty sky.

It disappears as quickly as it came.

I shake my head.

“Did you hear that?” I say softly.

Jenkins lifts one paw inquiringly, his ears pricked.

The noise comes again, drifting over the air like… like nothing I have ever heard before. Deep, melodic, sonorous. No. That’s not true. Once, when I rested briefly at the bottom of the ocean, as I took respite from the battle of Fairhaven, I heard a mystical song beneath the waves. A song that sounded like dreaming.

But what is it doing here? There are no whales in the desert. There is nothing here but bad spirits and whispers! Certainly no water to speak of. I don’t understand. I turn on the spot, seeking the source.

I see it.

Drifting over the dunes, glowing blue with magical light, a great whale swims through the air. It is easily the size of a barn but it floats as easily as a cloud. It floats and it sings, the sound reverberating across the sands to set the dunes aquiver. And it is not alone.

By its side fly various other creatures. Some are sea creatures, lazy fish, swimming through the skies, emitting gleaming lights, spots and shining gills. Schools of glowing amorphous flickers dart here and there. Between them drift creatures half fish, half bird, with wide wings of dappled, glistening grey. None of them move fast. All of their movements are slow, graceful. Unhurried, the schools of magical creatures spiral and turn in a complex ballet of movement that somehow complements all its parts, though I cannot see the pattern to it.

All of them singing. Each and every creature lets out soft notes that set my silver chiming. They circle the air of the desert like some bizarre dream. But I am not asleep. I do not dream, so I must accept that what I see is real.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. And yet… it is wondrous.

With the whale’s song quivering through my bones, I step towards them, sliding down the dune in my eagerness.

The whale turns one sweet, benevolent eye towards me and lets out a series of harmonious clicks and whistles. The flying creatures turn as one. The implication is clear: follow. So I do.

“Where are we headed?” I call. “Where are we going?”

But they do not stop and they do not answer.

The hare does not reappear. Presumably its part is done. But where are they leading us? Does the Whisperer know they are here? It is clear to me that their songs drive away the whispers in the same way that my silver does.

Our musical, and slightly bizarre procession wends its way across the sands.

Jenkins is having the time of his life, darting up and around the flying magical creatures. They do not take umbrage, merely moving aside if he gets too close. Myself, I have to travel by more mundane means because once again, I did not think to bring a broomstick.

I grumble as I clamber awkwardly up steep sand dunes, and down the otherside. Anyone who has ever climbed dunes in a ballgown will understand my pain. I reach the top and my mouth falls open. I have reached my destination.

Rising out of the lifeless plane is a domed forested city - a gleaming, magical bowl of sparkling light, encircled by more flying sea creatures. Patrolling? Or merely having fun? It is hard to tell. Perhaps both.

Are they guardians? Or do they simply live here?

The trees are so green it takes my breath away. Eagerly my eyes drink in the sight, my mind full of questions. A secret city. Here in the Whisperer’s desert, a secret city full of growing things.

I step forward, ogling the sight before me. It glows soft, and luminous energy. The sky above shimmers, full of dancing light, and colour. It is so good to see those colours, I yearn for them. Watching that place is a strange sensation. Constantly in motion, as if it exists in a current beneath the sea. The forest branches reach up and out, the leaves long and streaming. I have never seen trees like those.

Poking through the great clouds of greenery are graceful spires. They gleam silver. A castle. A castle made of gleaming silver. Turrets and battlements, it is a twin to the one I saw in the fairy realm. The one I left cracked, and tumbling.

Stepping close I can see that the dome of the city rises from a bedrock of silver threaded ore. The sparkling stones spread out and around. I am stepping on it now, already I can feel the ground between my feet is firmer. Less slithery. My footsteps make a pleasant sound. It is a relief after the constant hiss of the sands.

Here and there a tiny plant grows in the crevices. They are alien to me, of no species I have ever beheld in my forest, or anywhere else in Einheath for that matter. Their pale petals are pleasing, and vaguely reminiscent of flowers from the high peaks, if such sprouted from veins of silver and emitted a gentle song. Even the flowers here sing. Sing is maybe not the right word. The flowers are humming.

I bend down, wanting to inspect the blossom further but someone is waiting for me.

A familiar figure, outlined in the gateway: the elven fortune teller from the fairy market. Surrounded by floating, choral jellyfish, she beckons me forward.

“Welcome,” she calls across the silver-threaded ore. “Welcome to Caelestis. I’m so glad you made it.”