A group of locals loitered just beneath their window. Songs broke out, crude and vile lines. Raucous, they began throwing stones, little pebbles at first, and then larger rocks that clattered against the wall and eventually broke a window. Cold air and bitter voices washed into the room. Verain huddled on the floor along with the others, next to the fireplace — no one spoke about their situation, as if they might be able to ignore it completely.
A firecracker smashed through their window, landing by her foot; she leapt up and kicked it against the far wall before it exploded. Everyone in the room cowered back in shock. They turned as Dartun suddenly stood.
Without looking at them he calmly walked out of the room, closed the door and they heard as he walked down the stairs. A few moments later, a quarrel erupted outside.
Verain tiptoed to the window, navigating her way carefully around the broken glass. She peered down to see Dartun had emerged down below, and the crowds began surging towards him. There must have been nearly a hundred people there, packed in along the quayside, where boats gently moved against each other in the strong breeze.
A few at the head of the throng steered towards Dartun and began hurling abuse at him. He moved out of sight, back towards the tavern, but a gurgled scream followed — then another.
‘What’s going on?’ Tuung asked, grabbing her elbow and trying to glimpse past her.
She tugged herself away from his grip, threw on her wax coat, ran out and rushed downstairs to the front door which was still open, but it was too late…
A dozen bodies already sprawled at Dartun’s feet, their forms bent awkwardly, limbs severed in places. Blood was pooling on the wooden veranda, glinting in torchlight. Still people came at him, brandishing swords and maces. Someone fired an arrow, which pinged off Dartun’s chest, he caught another in mid air. The locals gasped.
Verain screamed his name, but he ignored her.
She stepped outside but slipped on the spilled blood, collapsing uselessly to the ground. Looking up, she saw Dartun heave his arm into someone’s stomach, their eyes bulging as they hunched over, more than winded. Another man tried to hit him with an axe but Dartun grabbed it at the handle, pulled the attacker forwards, and smashed the weapon backwards into their own face — cracking their skull with a simple ferocity.
Two, three more bodies fell, six, eight, ten — it was hideous, but she was too scared to move. This was beyond her control, beyond her scope of understanding. Why would these people not move away from him?
Eventually the immediate crowd dissipated. Someone hurled a firecracker by his feet but he didn’t flinch. Where it exploded, it should have ravaged his leg. She followed his still-emotionless gaze to a line of townsfolk, who were standing by the corner of a street, each carrying a bow. They fired at him and he stood there, arms out wide as the arrows rained down.
Verain clawed at the door frame as she scrambled back inside, shuddering as the arrows impacted on the tavern wall. When silence came she peered around the corner. Moonlight broke through the cloud, revealing the massacre in full. Dartun was standing still, arrows imbedded in his body — he strode forwards, plucking them out one by one, happily gesturing for the archers to try once again, but they looked at what was approaching them and retreated around the corner.
Verain joined him outside, where under the light of both moons she surveyed the scene. Her hand across her mouth, she gazed on the wreckage of the community: the corpses and dismembered limbs were everywhere. Where bodies were still moving, she longed to do something to help them, to call for medical attention.
Dartun began to hover then, as before, raising himself above the ground.
‘Dartun, what the hell are you?’ she screamed. ‘Just… This is your doing. You killed all these innocent people.’
‘Verain…’ He looked down at her, his face twitching. ‘I’m discovering something… new.’
Dartun’s arms fanned out wide, and a gentle trail of purple light radiated below his toes. He drifted away from her, many yards above the harbour and — in a sudden burst — he rocketed skywards, becoming an arc of light ascending to the heavens.
*
It wasn’t even midnight when people began returning. Verain feared for her life, feared for all of their lives. Dartun had suddenly abandoned them to face the aftermath. They held a rapid meeting in their room.
‘We’ve nothing but a few clothes,’ Tuung said. ‘No weapons, no relics, no food, nothing.’
‘The townsfolk will be wary of us at first,’ Todi replied. ‘It might permit us an opportunity to get out.’
‘Aye, the lad’s right,’ Tuung said. ‘If no one objects, I say we get our stuff, get on our boat and move up the coast.’
‘It’s pitch-black,’ Verain observed. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m not optimistic about our chances of navigating at night.’
‘We’ve got no choice, lass. Either that or get lynched.’
They packed, then crept through the darkness of the tavern, seeking a back window or door to get through. Verain heard wailing and crying from the front of the building, where families must have been picking through all the flesh in an effort to find loved ones. She felt sick because there was nothing she could do.
*
Unobserved, deliberately or otherwise, they managed to make their way through the narrow streets to the boat. They set off.
Moonlight glittered across the water up ahead, broken up by the waves. For a long while no one spoke or didn’t know what to say. Their purpose was as before, simply get to Villjamur, only now there was no one driving them like cattle.
They might have been sailing for an hour — maybe two, Verain couldn’t be sure — when there was a trail across the night sky, a purple jet of sparks and, moments later, there it was again, except moving the other way. Is that him?
‘Tuung,’ she called.
‘What is it?’ he replied from his position at the tiller.
‘Come and look for yourself.’
‘You come here and tell me.’
Verain stepped cautiously across the deck towards him, then pointed up past the sails. ‘There was something up there. It was moving across the sky.’
‘Meteor?’ he asked.
‘It could be, but there — no look! There it is again.’ Sure enough, there was another trail, this time curving much closer: it zigzagged then hovered, approaching the boat very slowly, like some inquisitive firefly.
Then, a final rush and it clattered aboard the boat, rolling and skidding to a stop at the far end.
‘Dartun!’ Verain called, and instinctively rushed towards him before remembering what he had just done. She paused, waiting for his reaction to define the following engagement.
Dartun brushed himself down and limped around to face her. His face was bizarrely pale, even in this light, and his clothing was almost non-existent.
‘The moon,’ he declared, ‘is not a moon.’
‘What the fuck?’ Tuung called out. The others had stirred from their rest now, and sluggishly moved to Tuung’s side. Verain was between her order and Dartun, uncertain which way to go.
‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘One of the moons,’ Dartun replied, as if nothing had happened. As if he had not just slaughtered dozens of people. As if he had not just flown around the sky like a human comet.
‘What about it?’
‘It isn’t a moon!’ he replied again, exasperated. ‘It’s an immense city. Or rather, it was an immense city — however long ago.’
‘You aren’t telling us you’ve just come back from there?’ Verain enquired in disbelief.
‘I am,’ he said, watching them now with great sorrow.
‘Why did you go up there?’
‘Because it is in my nature, Verain. You of all people must know my tendencies to push the boundaries of knowledge. I… I could not help myself. I found these new abilities and, perhaps selfishly, I simply flew higher, and higher, until all I could see was the moon. I’m sorry I abandoned you.’
‘Never mind that,’ Tuung spluttered, ‘what the hell was up there?’
Verain glared at him.
