Page 49 of Tidal Creatures

BOOK IIIHalf Moon

Thou sayest well, and it holds well too, for the fortune of us that are the moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by the moon.

—William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I

Night, and the holy hunter rides:

And the stars stand still and the pale moon hides

And the brave deer run, but the King Stag knows

He will fall at the end to Ceinwen’s Bow.

—Talis Kimberley, “Ceinwen’s Bow”

“By now you know the Up-and-Under is in the service of the elements, and each of them belongs to a monarch,” Niamh began. “The King of Cups owns the waters, for example, and the Page of Frozen Waters serves him, and the Lady of Salt and Sorrow was by his side. She may yet be again, if she decides to take him back, if the Page allows it. Not every monarch has a consort. The ones who do tend to last longer.”

“We know all this,” said Avery crossly.

“Why should the Page have a say?” asked Zib. “She serves the King, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, but she’s never left his side, and the Lady has. If the Page objected loudly enough, the King might refuse to bring his consort home again.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Avery.

Niamh fixed him with a look. “There’s no point to arguing with how much sense the truth does or doesn’t make when we’re all inside the same mosasaur—I like that word, it’s much kinder than most of the things people from the land call the denizens of the deep depths, and it has a friendly sound to it. We’ll get where we’re going when we get there. If you want to hear the story of the sword, why I found it and why Zib has it, you’ll be patient and let me tell it in my own way, and not whatever way you want me to.”

Avery opened his mouth to say something else, and stopped as Zib slapped her hand over it, cutting him off before he could begin. “He won’t interrupt anymore,” she said. “I promise, even if he doesn’t. I want to know. Please, tell me.”

Niamh nodded, seemingly appeased. “All right. The consorts of the kings and queens are not kings or queens in their own right, because there can only be one crown to a quarter, and if they were to be crowned, we would have eight crowns, and that would be too many. But the Queen of Wands, who stands for fire and change and the bright burning lands of the Coalcatch Caverns, has never taken a consort, nor set one aside; she has only and ever ruled alone, singular and complete unto herself. And when she first took her place, the Lord of the previous queen was still in his place, and very angry to see a succession when he, himself, had never been in consideration for the crown.…”

—From Into the Windwracked Wilds, by A. Deborah Baker

Sinus Amoris

TIMELINE: AUGUST 18, 2017.

THREE DAYS TO THE ECLIPSE.

They have two possible directions at this point: Diana, or the alchemists. Judy is much more in favor of going to talk to Diana. She knows Diana. She’s comfortable with Diana, or as comfortable as she can be with a powerful moon goddess who’s been manifest for decades longer than she has. Best of all, she’s reasonably confident that Diana isn’t going to decide she’s crossed some indefinable line and try to have her taken apart.

She’s not sure she’s ever spoken to an actual alchemist. But what she knows from stories and rumor doesn’t exactly make her want to. Alchemists are the selfish, petty, terrifying monsters in every Lunar’s closet, and she doesn’t need to pull them into the open to understand that when you know where the monster is, you leave it there.

David’s in favor of starting with Diana too … from a distance. He thinks that if she’s involved with this, the best thing for them to do is leave school and go home, all of them, returning to their families and taking a leave of absence from their studies while all this works itself out.

Of the three of them, only Anna wants to start with the alchemists. Only Anna thinks hunting down and confronting the people who are most likely to be killing Lunars is a good idea. During the day, no less, when stepping up is more difficult and the Moon is slower to respond. Not that they have great cosmic powers at the best of times, but Judy feels a little sturdier at night, feels a little more equipped to deal with danger.

But Anna says the alchemists will be expecting them at night, and somehow this has become her show, even though David still thinks her other half is Losna, still believes she’s a minor moon goddess with no real parlor tricks to speak of. Judy’s trying not to be offended at that. She knows Artemis has always been charismatic; she’s a hunt leader, and that means she needs to be able to convince people to listen when she wants them to take wild risks on her behalf. Chang’e does paperwork and gardens.

Maybe it’s reductive, but watching David nod as Anna describes a plan that seems to center on them magically tripping over an alchemist in downtown Berkeley, it’s how she feels. Judy produces a peach pit from her pocket to center herself, spinning it between her fingers. She doesn’t want to be in charge. She’s never wanted to be in charge, wouldn’t have been so happy to let Diana continue playing the figurehead role while ignoring the duties she should have been performing as senior Lunar if Judy had wanted to be in charge. In charge is where the blame lies. In charge is where the responsibility is.

But someone’s hunting Lunars, and someone knew enough to go into the everything and leave Aske’s body there to rot, and someone knew how to find where Máni lives and leave the key for him without closing the gate to the everything. Were they trying to taunt or frighten the other Lunars? “Look, you’re not safe even here, when you’re outside the rules of normal reality”? Or was whoever left the key trying to send a warning? “They’re hunting you, be cautious”? There are so many possibilities! None of them good.

Judy clears her throat. Anna and David turn to look at her. She sighs.

“This seems to rely a lot on things just happening to go the way we need them to go,” she says. “Anna, you didn’t answer before. Do you know another Aske we can call?”

Anna shakes her head. “Sadly, no. The last one I knew was years ago, in Chicago. Aske’s not the most common manifestation, because not many people remember her. I think the universe spits us out less because the City needs us—the City could get by with a perfectly generic Moon, and that’s what the Man is for, really. Just make a few dozen Men in the Moon and let him handle the transit every night, none of these personalities or preferences or immortality-granting peaches—and more because the City somehow remembers that humans used to believe in us.”