Dark Moon (Furor)

A black moon rose, a silent and invisible guardian in the darkness of the night. Seamus Keri watched its progression away from the horizon with an increasing sense of anticipation. He had waited years for this night, for all the pieces to fall into place. Instinctively, he turned dark eyes from the new moon to the center of this circle of standing stones and the small boy groggily struggling on the altar there.

“Shh,” the dark fairy soothed, a parody of caring. He ran one hand over the boy’s dark hair. The boy whimpered and yanked on the chains holding his arms at his sides. Seamus smiled down at him. His teeth glowed in the light of the torches that hung on the brackets of each standing stone. The boy stilled in fear and pressed hard against the unforgiving stone of the altar. Seamus gave the child’s arm a pat. “There now,” he cooed in the trade language, “I’m not going to hurt you. You are far too precious.”

“Please,” the boy begged with a heavy accent, “please go scaoile tu. I want my mathair.”

Seamus clucked his tongue. His hand caressed the boy’s hair again before creating a fist in the barely long enough strands and harshly yanking. The boy cried out. Fat tears leaked from his wide purple eyes and into his ears and hair. Seamus pulled harder until the child was forced to lift his shoulders off the altar as far as he could or else have his neck snapped like a twig.

“Your mother should have taught you better manners, whelp,” Seamus snarled. Then the anger was gone and he released his hold. “If you weren’t so necessary, I would enjoy making you scream…but the Fey guard their children too closely to waste even one.”

He gave the dark circle in the sky another measuring look. He clapped his hands once in pleasure and began bustling about the stone circle, setting up for his ritual. The boy on the altar gave a steady melody of soft sobs occasionally punctuated by the dull clacking of his chains as he feebly tried to freed himself. Each stage of the ritual set up caused dark magick to rise in the area. The boy shivered against the winter air’s nip and the chill of the Darkness. The shadow of the moon was approaching its zenith when Seamus returned to the center near the altar.

“You should consider yourself fortunate, you know,” the death mage told the child. “From your sacrifice, the wards protecting this measly plane will be torn asunder. You will be remembered until the end of the world…not that that would be long after the Darkness has won. And all this before your eighth birthday, little one.”

“He’s not even seven winters, you conceited conablach muc dar data eigneoir,” snarled a feminine voice from behind him. Seamus turned with a dark smile upon his face. The small woman who stood there practically radiated rage from the top of her raven-locked head to the tips of her bare toes. Her violet eyes sparked with the power of the emotions. Beside her was an ink-colored panther as long as she was tall. It rumbled low in its throat as an eerie red glow came from its hungry eyes. Seamus’ smile cracked around the edges but otherwise held firm.

“All the better the glory,” he replied. He seemed nonplussed to see the mother of his captive. No matter her place in the Court of Air and Darkness, she hadn’t been active in the Sidhe in over a century. He was confident that she was harmless. “It is good to see you again, Moirin Sidlar of Ciar. But I’m afraid that I’m a bit busy at the moment. Can we catch up later?”

Without warning, the cat took two quick steps and launched itself into the air. It landed squarely upon the death mage. Momentum carried the pair backwards to hit the ground with a sick and wet thud that caused Seamus’ breath to leave him in a harsh huff. The creature’s claws dug into his shoulder.

“No!”

But his denial came too late. Blood had been spilt in the circle, but not the innocent blood required by the ritual. The magick summoned by the circle flared in violent indigo flames tipped in pure cerulean. The rocky ground within the standing stones trembled with the force. Seamus spoke the opening syllables of a release of the circle, but even that was too late, as the panther ripped out his throat.

Moirin wasted no movement as she ran across the circle to her son. She was not a warrior that could kill with weapons, nor was she a battle-mage well versed in spells used in combat. Her strength was, as it always had been, the allies that she could call to her side and how quickly she could move herself and others around the entirety of Gae’ra and even its neighboring planes. And yet, she stumbled as the ground heaved and pitched beneath her feet as if she was attempting to walk across a tempest-tossed sea rather than a plain.

“Hang on, Aodhan,” she panted as she hit the ground again. “Mother’s coming. Mother’s coming, leanbh.”

The stones glowed with purplish-blue power. Her summoned pet, Ronan, was now resting upon the altar atop her youngling. Moirin hadn’t even managed to make it halfway across the circle. The glow was darkening as the moon locked into the apex of its arch. The noble fey wrapped power around herself, seeking to teleport the remaining desistance. The ground sunk beneath where her feet had been even before she appeared beside the stone that held Aodhan.

Moirin staggered against the altar. Magick swirled and grew into a dome of power that seemed to be drawing in all light and life. She could read concern in Ronan’s bestial features. The summoner gave him a nod, even as she felt her control over the panther break. Only the fact that he was her friend instead of merely a summon, kept that loss of control from being fatal. Moirin turned her attention to destroying the iron chains that held her son prisoner. If Seamus Keri hadn’t already been dead, she would have made his death a slow one, just for that.

Just as she was pulling both child and feline into her arms, the stones gave to the force of the magick that had been filling them. The resulting explosion was full of colors that even her sidhe-raised eyes had never seen. The chuck of blue-grey stone that struck her in the back made her arms grow weak and numb. The world was tinged with charcoal and violet. Only one thing mattered and it was her last thought as Darkness began to eat the space that used to be the circle of standing stones.

“Mother,” screamed Aodhan even as Moirin used the last of her strength to move the two unharmed creatures out of danger. He screamed it again when he found himself on a hilltop overlooking the circle without her. He watched with haunted eyes as the dome began to shrink. When it was the size of horse, it disappeared with a loud ‘pop’ and a rushing release of energy that hit the boy. The feyling was knocked backwards by the force. Where the standing stones had been, there was now only a crater.

The little fey child was now alone, with his mother gone and never having a father. The boy wept, wept so hard that his magic shook loose from its mooring to taint the already cold air with an arctic bite of death. Finally, sleep claimed the exhausted and abused child. Even the hiccuping breaths leftover from his sobs failed to wake him, so deep was his rest.

The panther paced a wide circle around the youngling. Magic had summoned him from his jungle home to Moirin’s side. It had called him to serve, but always before, it had sent him home again. Ronan did not even know where he was or which direction was home. He caught sight of the sleeping boy. On silent paws, he stalked closer, a dark form in the dark night. The large predator stuck his nose into the gap between the boy’s neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply of the earthy scent that still lingered upon his skin.

‘Moirin,’ his mind cried and if it had been in Ronan’s capabilities, he would have wept as well. She had been a strong mistress, a fine warrior. Her mate had been the same, full of fire and light. Aonghus was usually beside her when Moirin summoned him for battle. ‘Not for a while and not this time,’ Ronan thought without spite. Any anger that might have filled him was lost under the pain and sorrow of his mistress’ loss. There was only one to do, only one way to continue after such a loss.

Ronan lay down behind Aodhan, pressing as close to the boy as he could. Wherever they were, it was cold. In the time since Moirin banished them from the strange place that had stunk of decay and death, clouds had gathered to obscure the sky. His sensitive nose could smell a bit of natural frost, not the kind that had clung to Moirin and accented the boy’s own scent.

‘Moirin’s kit,’ he murmured sleepily, ‘now mine.’

Dawn that night was a long time in coming. The world had no inkling the important events that had happened, or how close it had come to complete destruction. Perhaps the following years might have been different if the truth was known.