While being rained on in Oregon, Monte Lin edits, writes, and plays tabletop roleplaying games. He has stories in Cossmass Infinities, Cast of Wonders, Flame Tree Press, Dark Matter, and Ignyte-nominated nonfiction at Strange Horizons. He is also Managing Editor of Uncanny Magazine and Staff Editor for Angry Hamster Press.
***
The Moon was bleeding again. Selene’s mother gestured to the crimson circle high in the sky, her silver chain in her hands, whispering a hurried prayer. Selene merely shrugged.
To Selene, the Moon had always bled, a carmine drop slowly forming every month underneath. People held a collective breath before each plump drop fell onto their world. And then she would hear rumors of an ichorthing rampaging through the land. Once, when she was small, Selene had wished aloud to see an ichorthing, and her mother clamped her hand on her arm and shook her, shouting, “Never say that! This is why we live out here. Let the ichorthings demolish those fools, collecting in the village like so much bait.” So now, Selene kept her wishes to herself.
Her mother claimed that the Moon had once been pristine and white. A bright white coin in a tapestry of diamonds. The bleeding worried her mother sick: “Moon forgive us!”
Selene ignored her and let her ramble on as always. How could ancient history help with present harvests and the butchering of pigs? Let Great Heroes take care of the monsters that emerge from the ichor of the gods. We should ignore these useless rumors, thoughts, and bits, she felt.
Selene had been hunting, bow in hand, arrow nocked, when she felt both the sky thunderclap and the earth shudder from the blood drop, enough to shake the trees and scatter her prey. She ran back home to see the telltale crater and scorched earth where her home once stood, trees burned to cinders, and soil hardened and dead. She saw no sign of her mother, saw no glint of her polished silver prayer chain—the only thing bright and shining in this otherwise bloody land.
That moment, Selene regretted not listening to her mother, not only because her mother was right, but because she had been trying to express her terror of how wrong the world was. Selene should have understood this worry as real, should have taken her mother away from this cursed, bleeding land. But she would have refused and where could they have gone anyway?
This guilt compelled her to run into their now-shattered barn to grab her grandfather’s rusted sword, left over from the Nighttime War. Rage propelled her through the forest, chasing the trail of blood-burnt grass. Despair loosed her arrows from her hunting bow. But it was sorrow she felt when the arrowheads broke on the ichorthing’s hide and shame when the creature’s bladed fist smashed the ground, throwing Selene in a shower of earth.
Winded, she dug herself out of the soft soil, dirt falling all about her in a cloud. She lifted her left arm and saw her hunting bow had snapped in half. She still had her sword, but an ichorthing can’t be harmed by a single dulled blade, much less wielded by her, a child. She knew this by the rumors and stories, and now understood how truly the Moon hated the earth, to send her children every month. The loss of everything, the farm, her mother, struck her harder than the ichorthing’s blow.
It charged, its four legs with human-like hands striking the soft earth like thunder. Though it struggled against the loam, its powerful legs propelled it forward with such speed that all Selene could do was stupidly shout, “Why? Why did you kill my mother?”
It came out more a whine than a battle cry, much to her embarrassment (if embarrassment was the right word when faced with certain death). The tears that streaked her dirt-covered cheeks also betrayed her dignity, so she surrendered, letting the sobs wrack her body in small earthquakes.
Her sobs softened when she realized that the ichorthing was crying too.
*
Whatever hate she had for this creature evaporated when it cried, staring up in the sky, at the Moon. All ichorthings are the Moon’s rage, the stories said. Yet looking up at its own tears trailing down its face like hers, claws reaching up to brush them away, but unable because of the blades, Selene realized the ichorthing was just as much a victim as she was. It had been cast off from the Moon, a lost child orphaned from its mother. Like her.
The terrible ichorthing remained still, weeping, so expressively helpless mirroring a strange calm blanketing over Selene, and she must have eventually fallen asleep, the rage and terror draining away into rubbery arms and legs. When she woke, she saw the ichorthing had carried her back to the farm, clumsily trying to prop up the walls of the ruined house. The wall snapped in half and it roared.
Selene found herself running up to it, waving her arms, and shouting, “It’s all right. It’s all right. You don’t have to fix it.”
The ichorthing fell silent, its roar diminishing through the forest. It reached up a bladed arm toward the Moon, then brought it back down, pointing at the ruined house. Selene understood.
*
It had been Selene who went to the village to sell their grain and their pigs. Her mother had refused to leave the farm when alive, yet she had never wanted anyone visiting, even to buy their stock. Selene both craved and resented her village visits. It provided an opportunity to talk to people, but she also knew what they said behind her back.
“Witch!” a villager shouted.
“A hostage!” another villager cried.
“Cursed spirit!”
“A lost child!”
And on and on.
Selene rode on the ichorthing’s shoulder. Aside from its four legs, the ichorthing had two arms that ended in scythe-like claws. It had no hair or fur to hold onto, only a deep-red tinted hide, but it held its arm high, its shoulder level enough for Selene to stand or sit.
She stared at its head, with its giant hooked beak, its eyes blood red and expressionless. Well, singular eye, since she could only see the one on the right side.
It blinked and the head turned ever so slightly, matching her gaze.
“We’ll get you back home,” Selene said.
The villagers scattered when the ichorthing slammed a blade into the earth.
Selene patted her hand against its iron-strong hide. “No, we are not fighting. Not anymore,” she said, as much as to the ichorthing as to the villagers.
“See how the child commands the monster!” a villager shouted. “I knew they were witches!”
“Why are you helping the Moon, our mortal enemy?” Another villager said, holding an old, rusty spear leftover from the Nighttime War.
“This ichorthing isn’t our enemy,” Selene shouted. “It has lost as much as I have.”
“They are vengeance for us winning the Nighttime War,” said a shout from the crowd.
“The war is over,” she said. “Does anyone even remember why we fought it?”
“The Moon!” someone else shouted, but the rest mumbled and scratched their heads. Yet another villager repeated, “But the Moon …” without conviction.
“See? If we can get this ichorthing back to the Moon, maybe we don’t have to keep fighting.”
“Take it to the Great Archer then,” the first villager spat. “He wounded the Moon and stopped the Nighttime War. Let him deal with it.”
“So he can kill it!”
“The Great Archer doesn’t care about us. He hasn’t left his castle in years.”
“But he can send it back to the Moon!”
“Just go, child, and leave our village!”
Selene patted the ichorthing’s hide again and it roared, choking the words into the villagers’ throats. In the silence, Selene shouted, “Where does this Great Archer live?”
In the resultant answers, Selene noted no one asked what had happened to her mother.
*
The castle, a mansion really, though it once had several towers, sat in decay. Dust covered the roofs and its walls. The walls sported holes, worn down by rain and time. Weeds and grasses grew to the height of soldiers. The open gates stood only because someone had bound them with old, fraying rope.
“If this archer was so great, why is his castle falling apart?” Selene said to herself. The ichorthing blinked once, what Selene decided meant agreement.
Her mother had not taught her anything about the Great Archer or the Nighttime Wars. She had assumed her father and grandfather had died during them, but attempts to learn more had been met with an anguished cry and a shout over why she would bring up such a cursed subject. Yet another unbridged and silent gulf that had fallen between them.
Selene shouted out a “hello?” They waited, but the Great Archer did not come out to confront or greet them. No sound but the scattering of birds and the hiss of wind through the grass.
“Can you let me down?”
The creature knelt, its bladed hands too dangerous to use to pick up or put down anything, much less a girl. Selene slipped off and landed in the grass with an ungraceful thunk. She picked herself up, stretched her back, shook out the kinks in her arms and legs, and shouted, “Hey! Great Archer Hero! You have a lot to answer for!”
No reply. No sound, save the creaking of wood and the clatter and crumble of the walls. The ichorthing stepped up to the mansion’s wall and raised a mighty arm to bring it down.
“Wait! Let me go inside. Find out what’s going on.”
The thing turned its beak to one side, to allow an eye to stare at her. It blinked once.
“If I don’t come back before the sunrise … or if I scream really loud, then start smashing.”
It lowered its arm and turned away. Selene climbed into a hole in the double doors and descended into darkness.
*
On thirteen stone slabs lay thirteen tomb effigies carved in stone. They lay covered in dust, the ceiling open to the sky bathing them in the red moonlight. Each figure depicted the garb from their homelands. One in a wrapped robe. Another bare-chested but with a cloak and waist cloth. At the end of the tomb, lay the Great Archer’s effigy, a real great bow by its side, looking very much the Warrior and Hero with his armor and helmet.
“Get out!”
A young man stood by the Great Archer effigy, wearing the blue robes and the long hair of a noble. With a smooth swoop of his arms, he grabbed the great bow, taller than him by a foot or two, nocked an arrow, and pointed it at Selene, its wood creaking in the effort.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“This is the Tomb of the Great Archer. For even stepping foot here without my permission, I could puncture your heart, a right granted to me by law.”
Selene threw her sword to the ground, the metal clacking against the stone. “I came here for the Great Archer.”
The young man cast his eyes downward to hide a pain Selene recognized. “He is dead. I am his Nephew. You may speak with me.”
Selene looked at the slim man, barely past boyhood. “Can you send an ichorthing back to the Moon?”
The Nephew gave Selene a look of disgust. “No, of course not. My uncle would never do such a thing either.”
“But the ichorthing doesn’t deserve to be stuck here. It belongs with the Moon.”
The young man’s visage softened, letting the bow relax, the arrow hanging loose between his fingers. “The ichorthings cannot be saved. They are a necessary evil to keep the Moon from recovering.”
The young man pointed high above him at an angle with the arrow and gestured to Selene to come closer with his other hand. She stood beside him and noted the edges of his robe were frayed, his waist sash a bit threadbare. He smelled of faint incense with the sweet scent of clove.
She followed his raised arm and saw the hole in the ceiling had been cut or broken in such a way as to be curved, from east to west. The young man’s arm cut a path in the same direction. She said, “It’s how the Moon moves across the sky!”
“Yes. I swore an oath to my uncle to fire another arrow at her, lest another the Nighttime War erupt.”
Selene shook her head in frustration. “The ichorthings and bleedings are just as bad. I lost my mother to it.”
The Nephew’s voice took on the tone of a parent chastising a child. “You’re too young to know. The kings of the Thirteen Armies all wanted the Moon’s hand in marriage but she would not give an answer to any of them. They fought to determine the winner.”
Selene swept her arms across the tomb. “They started the Nighttime War?! But they’re all dead now! We can heal the Moon. We can pull the arrow out.”
“You don’t understand. The Thirteen couldn’t help themselves, not under the Moon’s beautiful light. She causes a madness of love.”
“The Moon shouldn’t suffer for kings who can’t control themselves.”
“Enough!” The Nephew swept his arm across, cutting the air and cutting her off. “Just because you think you can save your mother—”
“My mother? She’s dead.”
“Yes, she is good as dead. The Moon’s blood makes ichorthings monstrous, without mind, no longer the person they once were.”
“Person?! Ichorthings are people?” Thoughts and mental detritus cleared away and finally fell into place. Selene ran back outside.
*
“M-Mother?” Selene asked. The ichorthing twitched its head to blink once at her. Its beak opened and closed as if trying to speak aloud but failing.
“Is that you, Mother? Show me, please.”
The ichorthing’s beak creaked open wider, and it knelt forward. For a moment, Selene’s heart skipped, thinking it meant to devour her. It paused, its breath turning the air warm, moist, and coppery. It curled its pointed tongue, and underneath lay Mother’s silver prayer chain.
Mother had always prayed out in the fields, late at night, the Moon’s bloody glare turning the chain red. Ever since Selene had caught her out there, that chain always seemed like blood spilling from her frail hands. Mother’s prayers seemed so saturated with agony, Selene more than once thought of burying it in the forest.
Selene snatched the chain and the ichorthing closed its beak. The girl stepped closer and pressed her body against it. “Mother.”
“Get out of the way!”
Selene turned around, and through her tear-flooded eyes, saw the Nephew with the great bow, an arrow ready to fly.
The young girl spread her arms wide. “No! It’s Mother!”
“It is not. Not anymore!” The Nephew frowned, eyes steel.
The young girl did not move, but the Nephew let loose the arrow. It cracked the air in half and Selene covered her ears. The Mother-ichorthing leapt out of the way, landing onto the earth, tossing soil into the air, while the arrow crashed its way through the forest, bursting the trees apart.
“Idiot!” Selene hissed. “The village lies that way.”
The Nephew paused, and Selene saw doubt in his eyes, a doubt borne from youth, a doubt she recognized in herself. The Mother-ichorthing crouched low, circling the Nephew back toward Selene. He drew another arrow with pressed lips and grim eyes.
“Your uncle is not a Hero,” Selene said, breaking the silence.
“What?! How dare you!”
“He’s not a Hero. A Hero would have stopped the war without hurting the Moon,” she repeated. “And you are not the Great Archer.”
“Foolish girl! The ichorthing will kill you!”
“Have you even killed anything with that bow? I’ve shot plenty with mine.”
The Nephew’s arms shook with rage. He pulled the bowstring and fired but he had lost his focus, the arrow carving a furrow into the earth. Selene leapt onto Mother-ichorthing’s back and they vaulted into the air. By the time the Nephew could fire again, they had lost themselves in the woods.
*
They stopped in the middle of a field, the grasses tall and waving in the wind. The trees provided shelter, protection from prying eyes, and save the bloody light above, Selene saw no lanterns or fires. She and Mother were alone with the Moon hanging overhead.
Selene spent the next hour sobbing and holding onto the massive thigh of her Mother-ichorthing. It, she, breathed slow and steady, a soft, mournful bellows. After a time, the ichorthing brought an arm to envelop her daughter, warming her against the chilly breeze.
“I should have—” Selene started, but Mother hissed, her beak open wide.
“I’m sorry I never—” she said, but again, Mother cut her off with a hiss.
“All right,” Selene said, “no regrets of the past, only thoughts of the future.”
She looked to the sky. “But where can we go? Villagers will chase us away. If only I could carry you to the Moon, if there was a mountain high enough to climb, or if I had wings—”
Thoughts and bits fell into place once more, and Mother-ichorthing cocked her head at Selene’s potent silence.
*
Selene stood naked in the field, her clothes neatly folded by a tree. Perhaps a hunter could use them. Or maybe an animal will use them for bedding. Either way, she didn’t want them to be destroyed by the change. It seemed a waste.
“Let me help you, Moon. Give me wings and I will pull the arrow out of your flesh.”
She raised her arms above her head and stared straight at the dark red eye in the heavens. Soon, she felt the Moon cry a tear of blood.
It struck the earth nearby, and Selene fell to her knees. She had no time to cover her face before it consumed her, searing her skin. She felt her body ignite, save for where her mother’s prayer chain pressed against her neck, bitingly cold compared to the blood of the Moon.
Selene prayed. This saved Mother, kept her as her. This will keep me as me, she thought, with a lack of doubt borne from youth.
*
The Nephew did not realize that the arrow had been removed from the Moon until he looked up and saw the bright white-gray orb bearing down on him through the ceiling hole in the tomb. He grabbed the great bow and an arrow, pulled back, and aimed at the gleaming, pale eye staring back at him.
“Uncle, please guide my arrow. For the sake of the world.”
He let loose and he heard the arrow whistle fading through the air, until a dark shape, a bird, swooped by, cutting across the coin of the Moon. The Moon remained pristine.
He nocked another arrow, aimed, and let loose. The bird swooped by again.
As he prepared a third arrow, he heard the whistle, but this time, it grew louder. He dove out of the way as his first arrow burst through the roof, sending stone and fragments scattering throughout the tomb.
*
Selene hovered in the sky, careful not to be silhouetted by the Moon. She beat her blood-red wings and dropped the second arrow from her claws. She looked down with her slitted eyes, the irises brown-red, to see Mother catch it, then rear back an arm and hurl the arrow back. A quiet but distinct crash echoed from the Tomb.
Selene settled on the central spire of a tree, her weight almost bending it double. She purred, not a word, but with enough meaning for Mother to look up and exhale. Selene cocked her serpentine head to one side, waiting for another arrow’s whistle.
In the silence, she wondered if the Nephew was dead, crushed by rock, or pierced by his own arrow. No, Selene thought, that is not our goal. The Moon, after all, only wanted to be left alone. And now that Mother and Daughter were together again, they had no other desires than ending the Nighttime War.
When the silence stretched into minutes, she let out a breath. When the silence stretched into hours, Selene smiled, her dagger-teeth gleaming in the bright gray light. When the silence stretched into years, the Moon and the world finally learned to live peacefully together.
Copyright © 2023 by Monte Lin.