There was a brief befuddled silence. Kieyah held their theatrical pose.
“Um,” Shei timidly raised their hand. “What’s so important about sundown?”
Kieyah stopped posing. They scowled at all of us, incredulous.
“You mean, you don’t know?” They ran a hand through their hair.
“...No?”
“So you’re telling me that you- you fools came to Lih’tanyi, the Sun Side of Yiannjine, without knowing about the Curse of the Moonfall?!” Both hands were now in Kieyah’s hair as they paced back and forth.
“...Yes?” Shei looked a little bewildered.
“I did not,” Hallya murmured. “I just forgot.”
“Well,” my eyebrow twitched as I struggled to conceal my irritation at being called a fool. “To be fair, we didn’t exactly plan on stopping in Yiannjine.”
Kieyah stopped pacing. They did not take their hands out of their hair.
“Well, it seems I’m going to have to explain, but please, for the love of the Divine, follow me. And quickly.”
We did, in fact, trail obediently after Kieyah, like a group of mismatched-looking ducklings. Xaolune was a few paces in front of Kieyah the entire time, and she was dancing. There was a lot of jumping, and prancing, and twirling. I could have sworn that every time she hit the ground, I heard the faintest chiming of bells.
The exorcist lead us on a winding route through the city, occasionally glancing up at the sky and mumbling things under their breath, then increasing our pace. As the world got darker, Kieyah became more frantic. It got to the point where the sun was nearly beneath the horizon, and we were all sprinting.
We were running down an alleyway when Kieyah abruptly skidded to a stop. I nearly bumped into them. It became obvious why they stopped: there was another alley, between two buildings. It only went part of the way down until it hit a wall, and right before the wall… there was a ramp, leading down?
“What… is this?” I paused.
“EXPLAIN IN A MINUTE, LET’S GO,” Kieyah bellowed, bolting into the tunnel.
I made eye contact with Shei, and we both shrugged. I then sprinted after Kieyah.
There was a door down the stairs. Kieyah, out of breath, was holding it open.
“Hurry, hurry,” they gesticulated for us to move faster.
They reached out and grabbed Abi, pulling them in. We all piled into the hallway. They then slammed the door shut.
“So,” I panted, pushing my hair out of my face. “Explanations. Now. Please.”
“Which part should I start with?”
“The curse you mentioned,” Nadrire cut in.
“Well… after the Opening of the Rift, something happened to the moon,” Kieyah explained. “Its light became poison. Any person who feels its rays begins to wither away. If you’re out the whole night, you will turn to stone.”
Shei and I looked at each other, brows wrinkling in mirrored concern.
“I’m serious!” Kieyah insisted.
“No, we believe you,” Shei replied. “We just don’t get why you all are so dramatic about it. Back in Gaerrana, we just call our curse ‘the fog’ in varying shades of discontent.”
Kieyah’s mouth twisted oddly, and it looked like they were going to say something.
“I suppose that answers my other question, then,” I looked down the tunnel. “These tunnels are meant as shelter from the light, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Kieyah began to walk down the hall. “Every building here is required to have a basement, and there are leagues of tunnels down here, connecting them all like a second set of streets. It’s quite ingenious, in my opinion.”
“It is,” I said softly.
The hall was lit by lamps swinging from the ceiling, and set in the walls. After we had walked little ways, the tunnel widened, and all of a sudden, it almost looked like a little street. Storefronts, carved out of the walls, lined the sides, and many of them were still open. The street beneath my feet was tiled in stone. Stone pillars were placed periodically along the centerline of the street, and as we passed, I noticed that there were runes carved along the length of the pillar. Some of them were in languages I didn’t recognize, but there were some runes in Old Charnarian - best known as the Phikan language of magic. Although I was not a trained mage, I recognized some of the runes: strength, stability, support, earth, stone…
“Kieyah,” Nadrire said after a moment. “Have they found a way to stop it?”
“Stop what?”
“The moonlight.”
“Oh, no,” they waved a hand. “Not yet, anyway. They’ve tried so many things, but nothing has worked. Society has adapted, as you can tell. Bedrooms are interior rooms, or are underground. It only seems to work on creatures with sentient magic though, so most animals aren’t affected.”
The group feel silent for a moment. After we had walked a little ways, it gradually grew more crowded. Plenty of people were still out and about, walking and window shopping and going to eat. We passed a theater, where was clearly a performance soon. There was a long line to buy tickets at the door. I saw screens mounted on the wall behind them advertising other performances, all featuring masked people.
I sidled up next to Nadrire and murmured in Engaerran. “You knew of this, didn’t you?”
“To a degree,” she admitted. “I knew I had planned for us to be across the Grey Divide after sundown for a reason, but I had forgotten about it until Kieyah explained it. I do not travel to Yiannjine very often.”
“I can’t even remember the last time I was here,” I muttered. “It wasn’t in Nyhanya… I’m certain I don’t remember anything about the moon, either.”
“You must have been across the Divide, then. Do you remember the flowers?”
Kieyah turned down a narrow street, and then led us into an elevator. It was oddly large for an elevator, and it wasn’t a box like a normal elevator. Made of metal bars twisted into elegant patterns, it almost looked like an elaborate birdcage of some sort.
“What flowers?”
“You know, the towers?” Nadrire held her hands above her head and made them bloom open. “They have… things on the top, and they open up, like flowers, to block the sun from the cities. In fact, the people call there call them the Flowers because of that.”
Kieyah had removed a small notebook and a pencil, and began to draw something.
“Yes! I remember those! They have them because of the sun, right? It burns things, does it not?”
“Our sun can burn things, too, Velia,” she poked my shoulder, which was, as a matter of fact, rather pink.
“Oh, stop,” I scowled and shied away from her finger. “Our sun doesn’t reduce things to ash.”
Kieyah was frowning at us. They looked like they were about to ask a question, but Shei touched their arm.
“Um… where are we going, exactly?”
“To the tsukigami. Like I told you.”
“I thought it was underneath the city…as in, in the tunnels.”
The elevator stopped. The door slid open. Kieyah led us out into the hallway. It was somewhat narrow, barely wide enough for us to fit two people side by side. It was somewhat dark, the only light emanating from a handful of terribly rusted lanterns, spaced few and far between. My nose caught the faint scent of something foul, and I felt my face crinkle.
“It is. Sort of, at least.”
Kieyah walked a bit further, then took a sharp left turn down another passage. The smell grew stronger.
“It’s not directly below the city.”
Another turn. The only noise was Kieyah’s voice, and the soft chimes coming from Xaolune as she bounced ahead. The silence down here was suffocating, yet almost strangely sacred, in a twisted sort of way. I was hit with an overwhelming sense of being an invader. We were disturbing the perfect, rotten stillness in this place, and I would’ve shushed Kieyah, would’ve stopped Xaolune, if they were not doing something we needed. There were eyes on us, I was sure of it, but I could not see anywhere to hide in these narrow, bricked tunnels.
Another turn, and another. “It’s… under the Divide.”
Hallya stopped. “You’re joking.”
Another. This is a maze.
“I wish I was.”
“No one lives here except mad devils. How are there tunnels here?”
“The monsters do. Many of these are from before the Rift; from Samingya. You know, the city that fell into the Divide when it opened?”
Hallya frowned. “What? How?”
“The tunnels were built beneath the city in response to a siege. Some of them survived the forming of the Divide, and some have been tunneled out by the monsters - the Alsuzhar. Sollainyi was built on Samingya’s remains.”
“Wow,” I said, quietly. “Forgive me if I’m a little incredulous, but aren’t the Alsuzhar supposed to be wild, destructive beasts?”
“They are. They also like having territory to control, and tunneling is a natural instinct for them. The few scientists brave enough - or stupid enough, we aren’t really sure - believe that they do it to avoid what the light that does get down here. They aren’t smart enough to operate an elevator, though - and there are additional safeguards to keep them out of the cities.”
I felt my lip curl. “Intriguing.”
“Speaking of monsters, this is as far as we can take you,” they gently rubbed Xaolune’s head.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Unfortunately, we and the tsukigami have a bit of history.”
“Kieyah’s too clever for them,” Xaolune spoke up. Her voice seemed to ring out in the silence. “They trick the tsukigami out of things every time.”
“Yes, and they are terrified of you,” Kieyah smiled softly at the child. “You’ll need these, by the way.”
They removed the notebook from their pocket, opened it, and handed it to me.
“Here-” They pointed to the page. “-is a depiction of Xaolune’s friend.”
On the page was a relatively nice looking rendering of a small creature. It showed a small boy wearing a kimono inside a hexagonal box.
“He is a kaichigo, which is a type of tsukigami. Keep in mind the tsukigami may have attempted to convert him to their cause. He may not want to come back with you initially. If he does, remind him of his friend. Also, he loves games.”
They turned the page. “Here is a map to the front doors of the tsukigami hoard. It’s not far from here, but there are Alsuzhar around here, so there’s a possibility that you could get chased off the path.”
My eyebrow began to twitch.
Nadrire was looking over my shoulder. “Small scale map enchantment. Like a scrying mirror. Clever.”
“Thank you. I try,” Kieyah beamed with pride for a moment, then became serious again. “We are right here. Xaolune and I will be waiting here when you are done.”
“Hold on,” I stepped forward. “Forgive me for being distrusting, but how will we know you’ll be here, waiting?”
Kieyah raised an eyebrow. “Because… I said I would, and I keep my word?”
“How about…” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a wallet, Kieyah’s wallet, and flipped it open to hold it in front of their face. “...if we don’t find you here when we’re done, I take this to the UPB headquarters and report you for illegal necromancy and mediumship?”
“What?!” A couple different expressions flashed across Kieyah’s face: shock, disbelief, rage, and fear. “Fine.”
A very small smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth. “So, we’re supposed to start heading this direction?”
“Yes, and this particular spot on the map will be marked.”
I tucked the wallet into my pocket. “Thank you.”
Kieyah looked me in the eye. “Good luck.”
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