The Unseen Moon is neither unseen, nor a moon. Any fool can find it if he isn't scared to look, and since it pulls no tides and takes no predictable path through the stars, it cannot be a moon like the others. At least not of physical dimensions.              

                                          — From Heretical Maunderings, Master Tooler Jobbs

Chapter Thirty

Harric woke to something nudging his shoulder. His hand drifted over to push Spook away, but found instead a boot. He opened his eyes to see Willard standing over him beneath the timber ceiling of the tower.

"Get up, son. You've got work to do."

Harric sat up and looked around. He found himself on a fat woolen mattress before the hearth. Outside the window, dawn still slumbered, a mere lightening of the eastern sky.

He had no memory of how he got there. The last thing he remembered from the night before was the forest in the bicolor light of the moons, and... A lance of fear smote him as images of the creature he'd summoned flooded back to him. He closed his eyes, terrified of what he might find in the dark of his skull, only to have his fears confirmed by the sight of the tear-drop aperture the imp had poked through the veil of his mind; beyond it he saw the ghostly world of the Unseen, with its floating strands and eerie glow.

Gods leave me, what have I done?

Harric opened his eyes and watched Willard toss sticks on the fire. He imagined telling the old knight of it, but shame and pride killed the impulse. Brolli might understand; perhaps he could confide in the Kwendi when he returned from the pass. But not Willard. Not Caris. And surely not Abellia.

Until Brolli returned, he was alone in this.

Caris rose from an identical mattress nearby, and pulled a heavy tunic over her shirt. She squinted at Willard, who crouched by the hearth with no apparent pain.

"You're well?" she asked, voice rough with sleep.

Willard turned from the fire. "Surprised?" The old knight's eyes blazed as if with suppressed fury, but his cheeks were pink and healthy, his gaze clear and bright, and no bandage wound about his waist. "Hardly a mark where that wound was, today," he said, slapping his hip to illustrate. "Seems it closed on its own last night. I'd give the credit to good old Arkendian avoidance of magic, but I'm no fool. Our hostess healed me." His gaze drilled into Caris, who dropped her eyes guiltily and busied herself with her boots.

Willard grunted, as if confirmed in his suspicions that she'd been involved.

"Guess sleeping's considered unconscious," Harric observed.

"So it seems," said Willard. "They get you, too?"

Harric ran a hand over his own injured ribs, expecting tenderness, but found no pain at all. The lumps on his head were absent, and the swelling below his eye. Healed! Had Abellia found him in the forest and brought him back? And if so, had she learned his secret? Ridiculous, he realized. She can barely walk alone, much less carry me out of the forest. He must've returned under his own power before she came down to tend their wounds.

"Darn," Harric said. "I was really looking forward to a month of healing the Arkendian way."

Willard lit a ragroll with a burning stick from the hearth. His eyes flashed to Harric, unamused. When the roll burned hotly, he climbed to his feet and made his way to the door, a simple crutch under one arm. He still limped, Harric realized. The old witch apparently hadn't healed everything; something still nagged him — perhaps an old wound, or he was finally feeling the effects of his long-delayed age.

"We'll be staying here long enough to rest the horses," Willard said. "If Bannus follows us, we'll hole up in this tower, so we need it ready for the horses. Enough hay for at least a week. Fill the troughs with water. Bring over the saddles and tack. Is there much to clear out, girl?"

Caris stood. "No sir. A small armory only."

"Show me."

Caris threw on her boots and trotted out the door, followed by Willard.

Harric climbed to his knees and cradled his head in his hands. The breach in the top of his consciousness shone bright in his mind, and larger than he remembered it. Was it widening? Would he eventually see nothing but the spirit world when he closed his eyes, like the second sight his mother could never control? The thought breathed new life into his old fears of madness. Heart pounding, he peered through the aperture, searching for clues and catching the tail ends of the brilliant blue spirit strands that rose up from Caris and Willard. The flames in the hearth, on the other hand, appeared as greedy black tongues casting no light at all. He tried closing the aperture by concentrating on it, but if anything it grew wider the more attention he paid it. Ignoring it, too, was impossible, for it flashed before him with every blink.

Dazed, he stumbled from the room and down the curving stairs, strangely afraid to be alone. Outside, he found Caris and Willard talking in the yard. Caris had removed a pile of gear from the armory, which she now held before her in both arms: quilting, practice swords, and pot helms so old they might have been fashioned when Willard was a boy. On her face she wore an expression of determination and carefully controlled excitement that gave Harric a twinge of panic.

"A little sparring?" Willard asked Harric, amusement in his eyes. "Your paramour here wants a lesson in bladework. Put on that quilting. You can help."

The look of determination he'd glimpsed in Caris's face now bloomed into exultation. She tossed Harric a musty quilt, which he held before him doubtfully.

"She's not the one who's going to need help," Harric said.

Caris donned her quilting and examined the practice sword she drew from its sheath. Though its edge had been blunted, its polish was immaculate. Indeed, all the gear, though old, was spotless. Mudruffle's work, he guessed.

Harric donned the quilting and pot helm and stood across from Caris with a shield on one arm and a practice sword in the other, determined to at least hold his own.

Willard leaned heavily on the crutch beneath one arm, and studied them, clouds of ragleaf gusting from his lips. "The most important thing you must learn about swordsmanship," he said, "is not so much the how, as the why. We aren't mercenaries, we're knights. Queen's Knights. A mercenary draws his sword whenever he's paid to, but a Queen's Knight draws only under the Code of Protection, which means in three situations: in the defense of your queen, in the defense of her people, and in self defense. That's it. A few of the popular orders these days forget this code, thinking it weak, and go out seeking honor and renown with the Order of the Dragon, or the Order of the Bear, or the Order of the Flame. Troublemakers. And if you want to learn to blast a spitfire, you'll have to go elsewhere for it. I'm going to teach you my way," he said, fingering his earring. "The Order of the Flea. I built my reputation on it. You don't hear ballads about spitfire knights."

 "Now, normally in an apprenticeship you'd spend a couple of years polishing my armor and tending my horses before I let you pick up a sword. But considering our circumstances, girl, I'd prefer to know what you can do if we run into trouble. We'll keep with regular fitness training and practice each day while we're here, and whenever we can manage on travel days. That goes for you, too, Harric."

Willard raised a practice sword and beckoned to Caris.

"Let me see your standard attacks, girl — say, Claxon or Ear Whistle; I'll parry with the Fiddler or Salute. Watch closely, Harric."

Harric watched as Caris leveled a series of crisp attacks on Willard, and the knight parried. After several repetitions Willard called a halt. "Now it's your turn, boy. Same attacks, only against the girl."

Harric faced Caris, and met her eyes for the first time since she'd promised to leave him if he didn't give up trickery. Her gaze was steel. All business, true to her promise, even if it hurt her. Yet he could also see in the sleepless rings under her eyes — that the struggle against her heart was taking a toll.

He performed the Claxon with as much vigor as he could summon, and Caris parried with Fiddler.

Willard frowned.

"You're putting all your weight into it, boy. In a real fight the Claxon's bound to lodge in someone's shield, and that's bad. Even if you wedge it in her head, you can't parry the next man when your sword's stuck in the first. Understand? Control is the thing. Give it just enough power to get the job done. Forget the glory blow. A quick cut kills as well as beheading."

Harric nodded, and labored to heed the advice. Then it was Caris's turn to attack, and though it was the same move each time, she came on with such ferocity that Harric was instantly in retreat.

"The same thing goes for the parries, son. Grand motions like that are good for a stage, but not a fight. Sweeping parries overcompensate and leave you open for another attack. See? She got you. Only Gregan's Lie is meant to be a grand and sweeping parry, and it's meant for very unusual circumstances. Are you concentrating, boy? You're about as dull as a sheep's tail this morning."

"Sorry," Harric said. I'm distracted, he wanted to add. I summoned a monster and might have ruined my life and afterlife, and every time I blink the spirit world flashes through a hole in my head.

Caris raked her gaze over Harric, her chin high, cheeks flushed. There was triumph in her eyes, as if she'd proved a point or won an argument with him.

"Look, I'm just tired — " he began, but she turned away and spoke to Willard.

"Spar with me," she said.

Willard's eyes darkened as he studied her eager face. Harric thought he detected a kind of veiled curiosity in his look, but there was also real opposition and distaste. "Think you're ready for that, do you?" said Willard. Caris nodded. "Very well. You're out, son. But watch as we spar, and pay attention to my movements. Small. Economical. Just enough to get it done. Understand?"

Harric nodded — relieved, for he had bigger troubles to worry about. Removing the heavy helm, he sat back against the tower, and as Willard donned his gear, he closed his eyes.

The teardrop window hung high in his mind like the rosette in the gable of his chambers in Gallows Ferry. The sight of it sent a stab of fear through his middle. Memory of the hideous creature who'd put it there flashed through his mind, and he shuddered, opening his eyes to banish the image.

Is it any worse than your mother? he asked himself. No. So be strong, Harric. You need this.

He closed his eyes again, and forced himself to study the tear-shaped window. The thing wasn't as bright as it had been when he first awoke. The indirect light of approaching dawn appeared to dim it considerably. But he could still see the vague movements of the spirit world beyond — horrifying, but also fascinating. It was, after all, a window into the mysteries of the Unseen. What treasures must wait there! It was the surprise of the thing that made it so bad last night. Once he got used to it, he might not be bothered at all. And perhaps next time if he could avoid staring into the face of the Unseen Moon — into the soul-blinding mystery of existence itself — if he could avoid doing that again, then he might use it to banish his mother forever, and possibly even master the ultimate trick of invisibility.

Tentatively, he strained upward to get a better look through, and when he finally managed it, the sight awed and thrilled him. Vision was less distinct in the Unseen, because the numerous ghostly filaments that drifted up from almost everything around him formed a kind of spiritual mist that softened lines and contours, and because the advancing dawn effectively blacked out the subtler shades of spirit just as his normal vision darkened at the approach of night.

Nevertheless, Willard and Caris still blazed with silver-blue internal light, and from their forms rose sheaves of wavering filaments like columns of light to the sky.

The beauty and complexity of Caris's soul took Harric by surprise. It was bewitching. Hypnotic. She was the center of a spiritual bonfire, a spirit alight with ghostly blue fire. Stranger yet, it seemed she was enwrapped in deep black hoops, lightless and opaque. The hoops plunged into her breast and flared out behind her like circular wings, pushing and stretching and redirecting the Unseen strands that rose from her spirit.

In a moment of insight he realized what this was: it was the magic of the triple wedding ring. That means it's Unseen magic that makes Caris love me.

The notion was astounding. Could the Black Moon hold sway over the forces of love? Harric licked his chipped tooth, pondering, trying to get his mind around the concept. In a way, it made sense. Matters of the heart were literally unseen, obscure, dark. Why not love, then?

New possibilities flooded his mind. Could he use his Unseen vision to help get the rings off?

"Wake up, boy!" Willard said. "This is for your benefit, it isn't nap time."

Harric opened his eyes, heart bursting with joy. He wanted to shout out what he'd seen, but he dared not reveal how he knew it. Instead he tried to hide his now-labored breathing and the dizziness he felt from holding himself so high in his mind for so long.

"Something funny about that?" Willard asked, mistaking Harric's gasping for laughing.

"No, sir," Harric said, feigning a cough. "I was just...thinking about what you said." He did not dare look at Caris.

Willard frowned, and turned to Caris.

"All right, come at me, girl. Let's see what you've got, and don't hold back because I look lame, or I'll clobber you to get you mad. Do your best. This is a test."

Willard braced himself on the crutch as Caris stalked him. She tested him at first, feeling his defenses and exploring his style with a practiced air. Even Harric could see that her form was superb. This was her element. She was as much a fighter as a cat was a hunter of mice; the sword was as natural in her hand as the claws in Spook's paw.

Nevertheless, Willard breached her defenses and gave her a good loud smack with the flat of his blade. "You're not trying, girl. Give me all you've got."

Harric had to hand it to the old knight: he was fair; he seemed to want her to impress him.

Caris drew his attack with a feint, took his blade high with her shield, dropped and swung at his unprotected legs. However, her stroke was intercepted by a quick move of the knight's crutch, and the next moment her helmet rang with the impact of his sword.

"That was the Thresher..." The knight laughed, breathing heavily and replanting his crutch. "You don't see that too often these days, I'll wager." Caris glared from within the helmet. "Don't give me that look. You aimed the Millstone at an old man's legs! You deserved it."

Caris flew at him anew.

Harric could not resist closing his eyes again to see her soul afire in the Unseen. He experimented with widening the window, and found he could do it by pressing more of his consciousness up and through the opening, but only with much exertion, and success brought with it a strangely detached feeling, which was not at all pleasant. His shirt clung to the sweat of his back, and his lungs began to labor as if he were now standing on tip-toe and with someone else on his shoulders. Gasping, he abandoned it and opened his eyes to watch in the Seen.

"It's all right, girl," Willard said to Molly, as she glared at Caris from the spot where Willard had picketed her, pawing up clods of earth.

Crows scolded from the branches of the fire-cones above.

None of this penetrated Caris's focus.

She changed tactics, circling away from his sword arm and leveling most attacks to his head, which made it difficult for him to riposte, since he was continually forced to readjust his crutch amidst the hail of blows.

The sound of steel on steel resounded off the ridge above.

Willard stumbled several times, and his breathing grew ragged. When finally his crutch faltered on a stone, he tottered sideways and Caris lunged for the opening. In the same instant the knight's control returned as if it had never been gone, and with a quick turn of his weapon Caris's blade spun harmlessly to the dirt. He placed his point lightly on her shoulder, his crutch set firmly.

"I've seen that one, too," he panted, eyes blazing. "But never from a novice. Pick it up! Show me again."

Something caught Harric's attention beyond the spirit window. Peering intently through, he realized it was Caris: despite the dimming effect of approaching dawn in the Unseen, her spirit had grown brighter. The looping black rings that bound her were wavering, trembling — actually smoking, it seemed, like grass too close to a fire.

"Come at me!" she shouted to Willard. "Come on!"

"I can't, girl. I have to wait for you to come to me. As you know, I'm not very mobile."

"You're not lame." Caris snorted. "It's a trick. To make me overconfident. To distract me and lure me in. Let's see you come at me. Come on!"

"I tell you, I have to wait for you to come in range."

"Bah!"

Large square teeth flashed behind Willard's gigantic mustachios. "Go ahead and wait, then. I can use the rest."

Caris lunged, engaging, retreating, rotating and lunging, circling and forcing him to turn to face her. Grass tore and flew beneath her boots. Willard kept the crutch planted, and pivoted on his skinny legs, kicking the odd rock from beneath his footing. She tried a dozen feints and attacks in a dozen combinations and scored a few glancing blows against him, but she refused to count them in light of the solid strokes he'd landed on her.

Harric let himself become hypnotized by the steady succession of movements and themes, and marveling at this window to her identity. To watch her fight, Harric realized, was to watch the deepest fires in Caris, and it was profoundly moving. In that moment he desired her more than ever.

Caris landed the final blow — a solid cuff to the knee. A heartbeat later the sun peeked over the hill, and the window in Harric's mind vanished as if it had never been.

"Gods leave me, that felt good," Willard said. He stripped the helmet from his head, beaming. "I haven't had a good sweat like that in moons. I'm going to pay for this in pains tomorrow. Down to my last roll of ragleaf, too, but it might just be worth it."

As they caught their breath, Willard studied her. Caris's eyes glinted with stoic pride, and he frowned.

"Don't be smug, girl," he said. "Your disengage is over-large, and your eyes tell me where your next blow is coming almost every time."

Caris blinked in surprise. She opened her mouth, closed it, and before she found her voice the old knight had turned away to face Harric.

"You're as wet as if you were the one sparring, son. Get fit. Set a practice dummy in the stable and practice what you've learned here. I don't say it's necessary for a valet-squire to carry a sword, but it would shame your blood not to." He indicated the green blood line on Harric's bastard belt with a nod. "Dawn again tomorrow. The both of you."

"Yes, sir," Harric said.

"Yes, sir," Caris mumbled, turning to the barn. Her hands rose to cover her ears as she strode off through the doors. Harric felt a twinge of embarrassment for her, but Willard had already turned and probably hadn't noticed. The old knight limped along the side of the tower, gouts of ragleaf smoke swirling in his wake. "I expect that tower stocked for horses by midday," he called over his shoulder. "Get it done before the day's heat."

Harric sighed, and followed Caris into the barn. He wouldn't approach her now, but he'd be near if she needed to talk. Rag nickered in greeting as they entered, her ears pricked and alert. Caris went to her and Rag nuzzled her ear. Rag seemed eager for a run in a field. Indeed, all signs of her exhaustion had vanished, something he wouldn't have expected to see until after a week or two of rest.

"Looks like she's had a visit from the healer too," he murmured.

Caris disappeared behind Rag, retreating farther from communication. Into the horse world, Harric guessed.

He picked up a bucket to bring water into the troughs, and was just leaving when

Willard's voice startled him from the yard outside. "Harric? You in there?"

"Here, sir."

The old knight appeared in the doorway. In silhouette, the incongruence of huge arms and torso over spindly legs seemed more absurd than ever. The knight's eyes found Harric, then scanned the barn from under bristling brows. "I suppose you think you're pretty smart setting me up against that girl," he said, eyes twinkling in a cloud of ragleaf.

Harric returned his gaze without expression. "Told you she could fight."

Willard snorted. "You did not tell me." His brows rose for emphasis. "You said she could 'fight.' You never said she could fight. Trying to get me killed?"

"No, sir."

Willard grunted. He scanned the barn again, then stumped back out the door.

When Harric heard the tower door bang behind the knight, he turned and peered into the darkness at the back of the barn. "Hear that?" he said, trying to locate Caris in the gloom. "I think that's as close to a compliment as you're going to get."

Caris stepped from Rag's stall, beaming. A laugh of shared joy burst from Harric's lips as he crossed to her and snatched her into a tight embrace before she could recoil. In spite of herself, she gave him a brief squeeze.

He let her go and stepped back. "He knew you were here, you know. I think you shocked him out of his mind for a while, and he had to wander off to collect his wits."

She blushed. "He made me so mad I had to come in here."

"That's as close to approval as you'll get, so savor it."

"I don't care. He said it, and now I know it." Her chin rose, but her gaze also softened. She seemed to want to speak or reach out to him, but didn't know how, so she stood there, brow pursed.

"You're welcome," Harric said, gently.

She flushed, and nodded curtly.

"Girl!" Willard called from somewhere outside.

"Coming." She gave a rueful smile, and left.

Harric watched, heart rising. He ran his gaze over the shapely shoulders under her clinging shirt, and the graceful hips no longer enfolded in steel.

"Fool," he muttered to himself, as she disappeared. He turned back to brushing Idgit. "It's not her that wants you; it's the rings."

Rag glanced over and snorted.

"Not worth it?" Harric said, as if she had spoken. "Oh, I think you're wrong there."

                 * * *

 By midday they'd filled the troughs in the tower and packed the hoppers with hay. Once they'd moved their saddles in, Caris climbed the stairs to rest in the gallery with Abellia and Willard, and Harric went to the barn loft where he fell fast asleep.

He woke when the light in the hayloft window had dwindled to a faint gray square, and the teardrop hole had reappeared in his mind.

The sight of the hole turned his stomach.

Part of him had hoped it had been permanently erased by the morning sun. Maybe all he had to do to be clear of the whole mess was find the imp in the forest and return the witch-stone to him. The rest of him, however, knew all too well that if he turned over the stone, he'd have no way to drive off his mother. And the thought of her continued haunting was unbearable. Anything would be better than that.

He'd find the imp that night, and use the witch-stone to drive his mother off for good.

Despite this resolution, however — or perhaps because of it — anxiety plagued him the rest of the day. He managed to engage in conversation with the others in the tower, and drank rather more of the honey wine than he intended, but none of it diverted his worries, and none of it sped the coming of night, when all would be asleep and he could leave the tower.

When Willard finally rose with a yawn from his seat at the window, Abellia had long since retired, and Caris was fast asleep by the hearth.

Harric masked his worry by echoing the yawn. "Dawn practice again, sir?" he said. "I'll be there."

Willard grunted. He leaned out the tall west windows, frowning, then drew back in and closed them fast. "We'll close these up tonight, to keep out the damp. I'm a hen's ass if I don't feel a fog coming on."

It took a moment for this to sink into Harric's distracted awareness, but when it did hairs on his neck stood on end, and he froze. "Fog?" he said. "Here on a mountain?"

Willard crossed the room and closed the east windows with a noisy sigh. "Doesn't seem likely, I know. But after your second or third century you get a sense for such things." He winked at Harric as he limped through the door of the closet they'd converted to his bedroom. "Besides, I can see it in the valley, creeping up the slopes like a line of specters. Sleep well, son."

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