‘Yes. The sun rose. The moon was but stealing its glow from the sun. For the first time I beheld the sun and it terrified me. It seemed my wanderings had brought me into Tiste lands. I paid my respects to Mother Dark but kept to myself mostly. Now I live here and I pay my respects to Lady Ardata.’
‘You serve the Demon-Queen?’
‘Demons?’ He cocked his head. ‘Well, there are a few, I suppose. But there are one or two of everything here. Long ago Ardata offered sanctuary to all the creatures and spirits you humans cared to name monsters. Which, it seems, conveniently includes everything other than you. Here you will find many things that have elsewhere disappeared from the face of the earth. Even some things that have been forgotten all together.’
‘Himatan …’ Saeng breathed.
‘Indeed. Some few humans live in the jungles as well. But they are just one kind among many. And they tread lightly for it.’ He closed his eyes and sighed once more. ‘Ah, child. You should have seen it then. The moon, I mean. Wondrous! It used to be much larger in the sky, you know. Very much larger. These late days it is but a shrunken grey shadow of its former glory. And it had brothers and sisters, then. Other moons.’
‘All gone now,’ murmured Ripan, pointedly.
‘Yes. Some lost their way and wandered off. Others fell to break up in great fiery cascades.’ He shook his head in sad reminiscence.
Saeng studied the assemblage of tattooing instruments and what she assumed to be powdered pigments or tints in the coarsely fired earthenware pots. She picked up one long stick to find it tipped in an iron point that glimmered blue-grey in the fading twilight.
Struck by a thought, she said, ‘I always assumed you’d be female, you know. Where I come from, the moon is always portrayed as female.’
The old man nodded where he lay, his head on his folded arms. ‘Yes. I understand that is how it is now — among you humans. And the Tiste as well, I believe. But in the eldest cults, the ones that date back to when awareness first raised its eyes to the sky in wonder, among these, where people move in unison with the seasons, the moon is always male and the sun female. Such is the irrefutable logic of fertility. The sun gives life. The sun provides. What does the moon do? It has no light of its own — it can only steal some small glow from the sun. It is but a pale modest attendant to the infinitely flowing and infinitely giving life abundance that is the sun.’
She found him gazing at her over his shoulder. ‘As part of me is to Light.’
Saeng frowned and opened her mouth to ask what he meant by that but he raised his head, announcing, ‘Ah! Now we can begin.’ Saeng peered about, wondering why suddenly it was time. Then she saw it. The moon had risen. Its pallid magical light streamed through the trees. A few narrow beams of wavering liquid silver now fell across Old Man Moon’s elbow and one shoulder. The tattoos within this light blazed to life like distant stars.
Saeng raised the instrument in her hand. ‘But … what do I do?’
‘Ah! Simplicity itself!’ Moon shifted an arm and smoothed a patch of earth. He scratched a symbol in the dirt. ‘Start with that one.’
Swallowing her distaste, she examined his right buttock. ‘Where?’
‘The outside top. Work inward.’
Wonderful. Work inward! But what do I do when I reach … well, maybe I should cross that bridge when I come to it.
‘And what do I use, you know, for ink?’
‘Ah. Take up the nearest pot …’
Saeng lifted it and peered inside: the dust scintillated like powdered silver.
‘… and spit into it.’
Spit? ‘What? Spit? Really?’
‘Yes. Quite so. It is required.’
Gods look away! This was getting worse and worse. Hanu better damn well appreciate it! She spat, but as she did so a great gust of the powder blew up into her face and she coughed, nearly dropping the pot. She wiped her watering eyes. ‘I’m so sorry!’
Ripan laughed, and it was not a friendly laugh.
‘It is fine,’ Moon assured her. To Ripan, a curt, ‘Play!’
The youth took up his flute and blew a squalling note. He winked over the instrument.
‘Try not to exhale next time,’ Moon explained.
‘I’ll try,’ she answered tightly, rather annoyed that he hadn’t mentioned it before.
She crouched next to him, tucked her legs beneath her, and bent down over his withered flanks. She dabbed the tip of the instrument into the globe of liquid silver her spit had become, then studied the symbol the old man had drawn.
Taking a deep breath, she set to work.
Old Man Moon talked the entire time. Concentrating on her task, Saeng hardly heard half of what he said. Occasionally he would raise a hand, saying, ‘good enough’ or ‘extend that line’. But other than these simple instructions he seemed content to leave her to it. Each new glyph or arcane symbol he traced in the dirt for her. As the work progressed Saeng was disconcerted to see some of her handiwork join the orderly march of signs spinning across the old man’s flank and back. Ripan kept up a low tuneless accompaniment that seemed to wander drearily, and frankly was no help to her concentration.
It might have been her imagination, but it seemed as if the moon shone brighter for her as she worked.
After one particularly screeching note Old Man Moon caught her glaring in the youth’s direction. He smiled indulgently. ‘Never you mind Ripan, child. He and my other offspring, they have no sympathy for me. That is just how it is. Not as among you humans, I know. So long as I remain strong and whole they will remain in my shadow — so to speak. They are merely waiting. Waiting for my destruction or dissolution. Then all my power will devolve upon them. Then they will rule all that is the province of the sublunary. Is that not so, Ripan?’
The youth blew a long eerie note, and winked. ‘I can hardly wait.’
Saeng sat back from her work, appalled. ‘That is awful.’ She shook the long-handled needle at Ripan. ‘You should honour your father. Wish him long life, health, prosperity.’
Old Man Moon chuckled. ‘Yet is this not how it is among you living kind? When you strip away all the sentiment and affection — real or not — the old must make way for the young. The new generation replaces the prior. Is this not so?’
Saeng bit at her lip ‘Well. In the harshest possible light, yes.’
‘That light is the cold radiance of the moon, child. That is one aspect of the sublunary. I call to that most basic of drives. The unsaid half of procreation. A drive that supersedes even the urge to survival.’
Moon reached down to scratch his buttock and Saeng had to comment silently: I’m feeling no such urge right now, old man.
‘Did you know,’ Moon went on, oblivious, ‘that on one certain moon every year animals of the depths heave themselves up on to beaches on many lands to lay their eggs, to procreate, even though it means their death? This is what I speak of.’
Saeng spat into another roughly formed earthenware cup. ‘It’s different for people.’
He sighed. ‘So they tell themselves.’
She forced herself to examine the man’s flank. She’d been given a rag to wipe away the blood and excess dye from the tattooing and this she balled up once more to wipe the skin. Yet in the pale watery moonlight the stain looked more like melted silver than dark like blood. ‘How much more am I to do? The moon will set, surely.’
The old man chuckled again. ‘Do not worry. We will have as long as is necessary. You are almost done, in any case. Just the one side.’
Well, thank the ancestors for that mercy! ‘Very good. What’s next?’
‘Ah! This one is tricky.’ He scratched in the dirt. ‘A circle with a line through it and an undulating line beneath. The line beneath must be marked in the fifth cup’s ink, if you please.’
‘Fine.’ Saeng clamped that needle between her teeth and asked through it, ‘Why me? Why not Ripan, or anyone else?’