The Wise Man's Fear

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWO The Ever-Moving Moon

Felurian and I were walking down to the pool when I noticed a subtle difference in the quality of light. Looking up, I was surprised to see the pale curve of the moon peering through the trees above us.

Even though it was only the slenderest crescent, I recognized it as the same moon I had known my whole life. Seeing it in this strange place was like meeting a long-lost friend far from home.

“Look!” I said, pointing. “The moon!”

Felurian smiled indulgently. “you are my precious newborn lamb. look! there hangs a cloud as well! amouen! dance for joy!” She laughed.

I flushed, embarrassed. “It’s just that I haven’t seen it in . . .” I trailed off, having no way to gauge my time. “A long while. Besides, you have different stars. I thought perhaps you had a different moon as well.”

Felurian ran her fingers gently through my hair. “foolish sweet, there is only one moon. we have been waiting on her. she will help us enbighten your shaed.” She slipped into the water, sleek as an otter. When she surfaced her hair slicked her shoulders like ink.

I sat on a stone by the edge of a pool and dangled my feet. The water was warm as a bath. “How can the moon be here,” I asked, “if this is a different sky?”

“there is only one slender slip of her here,” Felurian said. “she is still mostly in the mortal now.”

“But how?” I asked.

Felurian stopped swimming and floated on her back, looking up at the sky. “oh moon,” she said forlornly. “I perish for kisses. why have you brought me an owl when I desired a man?” She sighed, then softly hooted into the night: how? how? how?

I slid into the water, not as lithe as an otter perhaps, but somewhat better at kissing.

A while later we lay in the shallows on a broad sheet of stone worn water-smooth. “thank you moon,” Felurian said, looking up at the sky contentedly. “for this sweet and lusty manling.”

There were luminous fishes in the pool. No larger than your hand, each with a stripe or spot of gently glowing color. I watched them emerge from whatever hiding places they had scattered to, startled by the recent turbulence. They were orange as glowing coals, yellow as buttercups, blue as noontime sky.

Felurian slid back into the water, then tugged at my leg. “come, my kissing owl,” she said. “and I will show to you the workings of the moon.”

I followed her into the pool until we stood shoulder deep. The fish came to explore, the braver ones coming close enough to swim between us. Their motion revealed the hidden silhouette of Felurian’s body beneath the water. Despite the fact that I had explored her nakedness in great detail, I suddenly found myself fascinated by the suggested shape of her.

The fish came closer still. One brushed me, and I felt a gentle nip against my ribs. I jumped, though its tiny bite was soft as a tapping finger. I watched as more of the fish circled round, occasionally nibbling at us.

“even the fish delight in kissing you,” Felurian said, stepping closer to press her wet body against mine.

“I think they must like the salt on my skin,” I said, looking down at them.

She pushed me away, irritated. “mayhap they like the taste of owl.”

Before I could make an appropriate reply, she assumed a serious expression, flattened her hand, and lowered it into the water between us.

“there is only one moon,” Felurian said. “she moves between your mortal sky and mine.” She pressed her palm against my chest, then brought it back and pressed it to her own. “she sways between. back and forth.” She stopped, frowning at me. “be mindful of my words.”

“I am,” I lied.

“no. you are mindful of my breasts.”

It was true. They flirted with the surface of the water. “They are well worth minding,” I said. “To not attend to them would be a terrible insult.”

“I speak of important things. knowings you must have if you are to return safe to me.” She gave an exasperated sigh. “if I let you touch one, will you attend to my words?”

“Yes.”

She took hold of my hand and pulled it close to cup her breast. “make waves upon lilies.”

“You haven’t shown me waves upon lilies yet.”

“that will come later, then.” She put her flat hand back in the water between us, then sighed softly, her eyes going halfway closed. “ah,” she said. “ah.”

Eventually the fish emerged from their hiding places again.

“my most distractible owl,” Felurian said, not unkindly. She dove to the bottom of the pool and returned holding a smooth, round stone. “attend you now to what I say. you are the mortal, I the fae.”

“here is the moon,” she said, tucking the stone between our palms and lacing our fingers together to hold it. “she’s tethered tight to both the fae and mortal night.”

Felurian stepped forward and pressed the stone against my chest. “thus moves the moon,” she said, tightening her fingers around mine. “now when I look above, there is no glimmer of the light I love. instead, all like a flower unfurled, her face shines on your mortal world.”

She stepped back so our arms were straight with our clasped hands between us. Then she pulled the stone toward her chest, dragging me through the water by my hand. “now all your mortal maidens sigh, for she is fully in my sky.”

I nodded, understanding. “Beloved by both the Fae and men. Our moon’s a merry wanderer then?”

Felurian shook her head. “not so. a traveler, yes. a wanderer, no. she moves but cannot freely go.”

“I heard a story once,” I said. “About a man who stole the moon.”

Felurian’s expression went solemn. She unlaced her fingers from mine and looked down at the stone in her hand. “that was the end of it all.” She sighed. “until he stole the moon there was some hope for peace.”

I was stunned by the matter-of-fact tone in her voice. “What?” I asked dumbly.

“the stealing of the moon.” She cocked her head at me, puzzled. “you said you knew of it.”

“I said I’d heard a story,” I said. “But it was a silly thing. Not a story of what truly was. It was a f . . . It was the sort of story that you tell a child.”

She smiled again. “you may call them faerie stories. I know of them. they are fancies. we tell our children manling tales betimes.”

“But the moon was truly stolen?” I asked. “That was no fancy?”

Felurian scowled. “this I have been showing you!” she said, bringing her hand down in an angry splash.

I found myself making the Adem gesture for apology below the surface of the water before realizing it was doubly pointless. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But without the truth of this story I am lost. I beg of you to tell me it.”

“it is an old story, and a sad one.” She gave me a long look. “what then will you trade me?”

“The hushed hart,” I said.

“in that you give a gift that is a gift to you,” she said archly. “what else?”

“I will also make thousand hands,” I said, watching her expression soften. “And I will show you something new I have thought of all myself. I call it swaying against the wind.”

She crossed her arms and looked away, making a great show of indifference. “new perhaps to you. I doubtless know it by a different name.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But if you will not trade you cannot know.”

“very well,” she conceded with a sigh. “but only because you are quite good at thousand hands.”

Felurian looked up at the slender moon for a moment, then said. “long before the cities of man. before men. before fae. there were those who walked with their eyes open. they knew all the deep names of things.” She paused and looked at me. “do you know what this means?”

“When you know the name of a thing you have mastery over it,” I said.

“no,” she said, startling me with the weight of rebuke in her voice. “mastery was not given. they had the deep knowing of things. not mastery. to swim is not mastery over the water. to eat an apple is not mastery of the apple.” She gave me a sharp look. “do you understand?”

I didn’t. But I nodded anyway, not wanting to upset her or sidetrack the story.

“these old name-knowers moved smoothly through the world. they knew the fox and they knew the hare, and they knew the space between the two.”

She drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “then came those who saw a thing and thought of changing it. they thought in terms of mastery.

“they were shapers. proud dreamers.” She made a conciliatory gesture. “and it was not all bad at first. there were wonders.” Her face lit with memory and her fingers gripped my arm excitedly. “once, sitting on the walls of murella, I ate fruit from a silver tree. it shone, and in the dark you could mark the mouth and eyes of all those who had tasted it!”

“Was Murella in the Fae?”

Felurian frowned. “no. I have said. this was before. there was but one sky. one moon. one world, and in it was murella. and the fruit. and myself, eating it, eyes shining in the dark.”

“How long ago was this?”

She gave a small shrug. “long ago.”

Long ago. Longer than any book of history I had ever seen or even heard of. The Archives had copies of Caluptenian histories that went back two millennia, and none of them held the barest whisper of the things Felurian spoke of.

“Forgive my interruption,” I said as politely as possible, and made as much of a bow to her as I could without going entirely underwater.

Mollified, she continued, “the fruit was but the first of it. the early toddlings of a child. they grew bolder, braver, wild. the old knowers said ‘stop,’ but the shapers refused. they quarreled and fought and forbade the shapers. they argued against mastery of this sort.” Her eyes brightened. “but oh,” she sighed, “the things they made!”

This from a woman weaving me a cloak out of shadow. I couldn’t guess what she might marvel at. “What did they make?”

She gestured widely around us.

“Trees?” I asked, awestruck.

She laughed at my tone. “no. the faen realm.” she waved widely. “wrought according to their will. the greatest of them sewed it from whole cloth. a place where they could do as they desired. and at the end of all their work, each shaper wrought a star to fill their new and empty sky.”

Felurian smiled at me. “then there were two worlds. two skies. two sets of stars.” She held up the smooth stone. “but still one moon. and it all round and cozy in the mortal sky.”

Her smile faded. “but one shaper was greater than the rest. for him the making of a star was not enough. he stretched his will across the world and pulled her from her home.”

Lifting the smooth stone to the sky, Felurian carefully closed one eye. She tilted her head as if trying to fit the curve of the stone into the empty arms of the crescent moon above us. “that was the breaking point. the old knowers realized no talk would ever stop the shapers.” Her hand dropped back into the water. “he stole the moon and with it came the war.”

“Who was it?” I asked.

Her mouth curved into a tiny smile. She hooted: “who? who?”

“Was he of the faen courts?” I prompted gently.

Felurian shook her head, amused. “no. as I said, this was before the fae. the first and greatest of the shapers.”

“What was his name?”

She shook her head. “no calling of names here. I will not speak of that one, though he is shut beyond the doors of stone.”

Before I could ask more questions, Felurian took my hand and nestled the stone between our palms again. “this shaper of the dark and changing eye stretched out his hand against the pure black sky. he pulled the moon, but could not make her stay. so now she moves ’twixt mortal and the fae.”

She gave me a solemn look, so rare a thing on her fair face. “you have your tale. your who and how. there is a final secret now. so all your owlish listening lend.” She brought our joined hands back to the surface of the water. “this is the part on which you must attend.”

Felurian’s eyes were black in the dim light. “the moon has our two worlds beguiled, like parents clutching at a child, pulling at her, to and fro, neither willing to let go.”

She stepped away, and we stood as far apart as we could, the stone gripped in our hands. “when she is torn, half in your sky, you see how far apart we lie.” Felurian reached toward me with her free hand making futile grasping gestures in the empty water. “no matter how we long to kiss, the space between us is not ripe for this.”

Felurian stepped forward and pressed the stone close to my chest. “and when your moon is waxing full, all of faerie feels the pull. she draws us close to you, so bright. and now a visit for a night is easier than walking through a door or stepping off a ship that’s near the shore.” She smiled at me. “ ’twas thus while wandering in the wild, you found Felurian, manling child.”

The thought of an entire world of fae creatures drawn close by the swelling moon was troubling. “And this is true of any fae?”

She shrugged and nodded. “have they the will, and know the way. there are a thousand half-cracked doors that lead between my world and yours.”

“How have I never heard of this? It seems it would be hard to miss, Fae dancing on the mortal grass. . . .”

She laughed. “but has not just this come to pass? the world is wide and time is long, but still you say you heard my song before you saw me singing there, brushing moonlight through my hair.”

I frowned. “Still, it seems I should have seen more signs of those who walk between.”

Felurian shrugged. “most fae are sly and subtle folk who step as soft as chimney smoke. some go among your kind enshaedn, glamoured as a pack mule laden, or wearing gowns to fit a queen.” She gave me a frank look. “we know enough to not be seen.”

She took my hand again. “many of the darker sort would love to use you for their sport. what keeps these from moonlit trespass? iron, fire, mirror-glass. elm and ash and copper knives, solid-hearted farmer’s wives who know the rules of games we play and give us bread to keep away. but worst of all, my people dread the portion of our power we shed when we set foot on mortal earth.”

“We are more trouble than we’re worth,” I admitted, smiling.

Felurian reached out and touched a finger to my mouth. “while she is full you may still laugh, but know there is a darker half.” She spun away to arm’s length, pulling me through the water in a slow spiral. “a clever mortal fears the night without a hint of sweet moonlight.”

She began to draw my hand to her chest, dragging me through the water toward her as she spun. “on such a night, each step you take might catch you in the dark moon’s wake, and pull you all unwitting into fae.” She stopped and gave me a grim look. “where you will have no choice but stay.”

Felurian took a step backward in the water, tugging at me. “and on such unfamiliar ground, how can a mortal help but drown?”

I took another step toward her and found nothing beneath my feet. Felurian’s hand was suddenly no longer clasping mine, and black water closed over my head. Blind and choking, I began to thrash desperately, trying to find my way back to the surface.

After a long, terrifying moment, Felurian’s hands caught me and dragged me into the air as if I weighed no more than a kitten. She brought me close to her face, her dark eyes hard and glittering.

When she spoke her voice was clear. “I do this so you cannot help but hear. a wise man views a moonless night with fear.”