It is in my nature to attempt to put things in words, even when the things in
question are too strange and too wonderful to be easily described. That is why
I sit here now in the Moondance Tower with quill in hand, struggling with words
that will not come, trying to tell the tale of what I saw and did in the
Manifestation of the Moon.

I was there, but simply being there does not help, for the thought of that
place is like a dream. And so I write. I do not claim that my words are
accurate or my memory true. There are some things that I will not reveal, and
some things that I have changed, for the Priestesses of the Moon whom I met
there have forbidden me to speak of their sacred rituals.

Therefore this is a tale, and not a history. It is not true, nor is it entirely
without substance. I do but hope to delight my hearers, and to convey some sense
of the awe and wonder a young Moondancer felt as she gazed upon the beauty of
Mother Moon.

So listen, friend, and I will tell you of another world, another plane of
existence, where dwell the Priestesses and Ladies of the Moon...

)O(

Moonbeams are not unusual at night. All over the Ethereal Serenwilde they
danced, pale and shimmering. Poets call them shafts of moonlight, though
generally they tend to resemble puddles.

This one was not like a puddle. It lanced down from the sky to strike the
ground at my feet. It was like a solid thing, and everything else was hazy in
comparison. That in itself would have been strange enough, but the true miracle
was that this was -daytime-. A moonbeam in the morning? I gaped, and then,
almost compulsively, stepped into that sharp, clear light, lifting my face to
the skies.

The world changed. I staggered, and when my head stopped spinning, I was in a
different place completely. The first thing that I noticed was that it was
night. The second thing was that there was someone beside me. That was enough
to make me leap up and cry out, trembling. The stranger-- for I had never seen
her before-- turned and looked at me. Had I not been so shocked myself, I would
have noticed her surprise.

She floated several inches above the ground, pale and dream-like. She was
beautiful, more beautiful than I had imagined anything could be, with hair as
pale and silvery as the moon that reigned here. "Who are you?" she demanded of
me. I told her my name.

"This is a strange place," I said then. "Are you real?"

"Are you?" she replied. "I am Ysun, Priestess of the Moon, guardian of Her
essence." Then she glanced away. "Or what is left of it," she said bitterly.

I did not understand her sorrow, though it grieved me. "Lady," I said.
"Priestess, will you help me go home?"

"Home?" she repeated. "Where is your home, stranger?"

"Serenwilde," I replied. "The Moondance Tower."

At that a sudden tremble went through her, and she hastened forward until she
stood by me. "Serenwilde!" she cried. "The forest that lives by the tenets of
Moon. And the Moondancers, our brethren under Moon's light." She took a deep
breath. "Too long have we been sundered, trapped in this place. Woe is the day
when first Kailak worked her dark magic!"

"I do not understand," I said.

"No," Ysun replied. "It has been many centuries. I grieve, sister, that I
cannot aid you. I cannot open the path to your home, for I am powerless against
the New Moon. She and I, we are of the same substance. I cannot work against
her."

I gasped, my distress at being told that I was trapped here little greater than
my surprise that Ysun, who was so youthful, was many centuries old. "But is
there no way?" I pleaded. "No way at all for me to return?" Terror lanced
through me, terror that I would have to spend the rest of my life here, fair
though it was.

She hesitated. "You might stop Kailak," she said. "But then, she is dangerous,
and it would not be fair of me--"

"Let me attempt this," I begged, and the priestess nodded. She told me then
that there was a certain object that had been broken into pieces, and that each
piece was hidden, only to be revealed by means of a spell she taught to me. I
must seek them, and she would remake the hallowed artefact, a staff of the Moon
that was essential to a ritual that must be performed.

"Speak to the Grand Ladies," she said. "They will aid you. Blessed be, sister."
I bowed my head, and left.

The first I encountered was Lady Alda. She told me that there were eight
ladies, one for each phase of the Moon. "Seven of us you will find," she said.
"The eighth, our renegade sister and enemy-- she is hidden." She gave me a
cryptic clue where I might find a piece of the artefact, and I bade her
farewell, wondering where in the world this eighth sister-- I thought it might
be the same woman that Ysun spoke of-- was.

Seven Ladies I greeted, and seven clues I was given, with one spell to unlock
them. I made my way into the silent silver forest, and felt for the first time
in my element. The moonlight was around me, my task was before me, and I had a
spell to speak. I found the seven segments soon enough, before the moon had
even set. Kneeling on the cool forest floor, I tried to piece them together.

One piece was missing.

I took a deep breath, ran back to the raised platform where Ysun stood. She
started as I rushed up the steps.

"Do you have them?" she cried, bright-eyed.

"Yes-- no-- I have seven, Ysun, there's a piece missing--" I saw her face fall,
and she sighed.

"Kailak has it," she said softly. "I might have expected that."

"I will find it," I said earnestly. "I promise you, Priestess."

She smiled sadly. "You are over-innocent, young sister. And Kailak-- Kailak is
bitter, and treacherous. She hides herself in shadows, and will not even show
her face." She raised her head then, and cried out, "Kailak! Show yourself,
coward and traitor!"

Silence.

"You see," said Ysun. "Try if you can, but be not over-grieved if you fail. It
is a cold existence here, but we do honour the old ways, and you will not
starve or freeze. That much at least I can promise."

"I will find it," I repeated stubbornly. The thought of never going home
terrified me. I was willing to dare almost anything, if only I could return;
and bitterly now I cursed my own recklessness in stepping into the moonlight.

I rushed back down, into the forest, blundering around wildly, not caring that
I had begun to cry involuntarily. I would find the woman, I promised myself, if
I had to overturn every stone. I did not know where I was going, or indeed if I
was going anywhere at all and not just in circles. Then I bumped into
something. Something warm. I screamed.

"Well, now, what have we here?" A dry voice, cool and ironic. I stepped back,
and found a woman smiling at me. She was not clothed, but a darkness surrounded
her like a cloak. I felt my breath catch, and heard her laugh, beautiful and
cruel.

"Lady Kailak," I said. "Please--"

She turned suddenly, staring at me. "You know my name. How is it that you know
me? Speak!"

"Ysun," I stammered. "Ysun told me--"

"Ysun! So you serve -her-, then." Her eyes were full of hate. "She is not long
for this world, girl. I suppose you know that? I will rule. I will rule, and
vengeance will be sweet."

I was already weak with fear, but somehow I managed to keep speaking. "Lady," I
said, "I need to know your clue. Ysun needs what you have. For the
Manifestation's sake, Kailak--"

"Ysun," she said. "Always Ysun, Ysun, Ysun! The sacred phases! Is the new moon
not also sacred? Yet when the darkness came, they blamed me, because I am the
dark moon! You must have served night, they said. Well, so be it. One day Ysun
will rue the words she spoke. She will scream for death before I'm done!" In
her infuriated passion she struck a nearby tree. Something pale and glimmering
clattered to the ground.

I dove for it, and felt my fingers close around the cool smooth segment a split
second before darkness surrounded me, blinding and trapping. From somewhere afar
I heard Kailak cry, "You will regret taking that, girl!" I struggled, screaming,
for what seemed like an eternity before, abruptly, the darkness faded. I picked
myself up, shaking, and looked at Kailak. She was crumpled on the ground, and
seemed different now, somehow diminished. As I glanced at her, she raised her
head slightly.

"Go then," she said hoarsely. "Leave me, and know that you have ruined me." I
hesitated, for some part of me wished to help her, this woman who must once
have been so kind and brave. But fear overcame pity, and I turned and ran, back
to the Altar, back to Ysun.

The Priestess took the last segment from me, and began her ritual, but then
something went wrong. Her voice went hoarse and strained, even as Kailak's had
been, and I saw the sudden fear in her eyes as, trembling, she clutched the
staff to her.

"It does not work?" I cried, unable to accept that all I had done was in vain.
Ysun shook her head.

"Not yet. Kailak!" she exclaimed, then scowled. "Is there no end to her
villainy?"

"But the darkness surrounds her no longer," I said. "Surely that is enough?"

Ysun thought for a moment, and then she spoke, firm and resolute. "The Avatars
can help," she said. "Seek them, the Avatars of the Maiden, Mother and Crone."
She smiled. "You who serve the Moon should know them. It is you who must
perform this part of the sacred Ritual. May Her light shine on you."

It is this Mystery that I am sworn never to speak of, and indeed I remember
little of it. I remember flashes and scenes: words carved on trees that etched
themselves into my mind, my lips moving as I repeated them to the Keeper of the
Cauldron; holding the Moon Sceptre in my hand, feeling the cool weight of it as
I dipped it into purifying water; the strong heady smell of lavender and the
pale glimmer of its cleansing power.

Moon, I thought, aid me now. I called up memories to give me strength: memories
of the Moondance Tower, pale and coldly beautiful from afar, but full of
laughter and warmth inside; of my friends in the forest, of laughter and jokes
and gatherings, of pulling pranks on Ridien, of nights spent on the tower-top
with Adushoc, gazing at the stars. I found, the thoughts coming slow and
distant, that I had fallen into the usual almost trance-like state that comes
upon a Moondancer performing a ritual to the Mother Moon.

Pixies, darting around with their bell-like laughter. The fleet deer sacred to
the God of the Hunt. Miakoda's patient instruction, and the smell of paper and
dust in the Library. Let me not lose all this, I prayed silently, and there
came to me an image unbidden of Moon Lake, its clear waters shimmering in
sublime beauty, and the Mother Moonhart towering far above the forest canopy as
I flew upon the wind.

I laid the Sceptre on the altar. A white veil of moonlight shimmered and danced
into view, kissing the tops of the trees. I was past awe now, and I only watched
as my last task was laid before me-- a puzzle. I knelt, and felt the clear touch
of the Moon in my mind, guiding my hands and my thought. And at last the final
piece clicked into place, and it was done. Like one waking from a long dream, I
looked up and saw that both Ysun and Kyraj of the Silver Basin, the Avatar of
Selene, were watching and waiting, one on either side of where I knelt.

Kyraj stepped forward with a joyous smile and raised her arms. I felt the
silent call she sent, pure and clear, through the woods. The other Avatars,
Gian of the Maiden and Hyshan of the Crone, shimmered into view. Instinctively
I knew what they would do; the three of them each laid a hand upon the altar,
and a light shone around them; and then Gian raised the sceptre, and there was
a great flash from the Moon Dish.

Ysun raised her hands in a gesture of joy and blessing, before placing them
upon the silver altar. Then she settled into that stillness which I had just
emerged from, and her lips began to move silently, before escalating into a
chant I myself had seen scripted in old tomes in the Library, but which none
had used for many years.

"Lady, yours is the light
Of the First Quarter, pure and bright.
Where the green things grow,
Where the sea-tides flow--
There is your element, your might.
Lady, smile on us tonight."

A piercing, radiant light shone down upon me at the same moment as I heard Ysun
cry, "Praise the First Quarter; our strength is yours!" The light grew greater,
and exploded into a nova. When once more I opened my eyes, the landscape was
dim again, but a shimmering brightness lingered upon tree and leaf, and I knew
that the forest was once more consecrated to the spirit of the Moon. My task
was done.

I spoke once more to Ysun ere I left. I asked her whether she and her brethren
would join us in Serenwilde. "Nay," she said. "This is our home and this is our
temple." She smiled. "It is enough to know that we are not separated from the
world, and that Moon's worship flourishes still. And Kailak may take time to
recover."

"What will you do her?" I asked, the pity rising in me once more. I could not
shake off the thought of her, and I feared that she might come to harm. No more
than she deserved, surely, yet...

"Do? Nothing," said Ysun. "She has only fulfilled her nature. It is to the
Silver Lady that we sing, but She has a darker side, and is terrible in Her
wrath. That too is an aspect of Moon. Moon can only shine in the Night, as
Night is only complete with the Moon. One day the balance will return, and
they, who once were dearer than sisters, will embrace again-- so I hope." There
was a slightly wistful look on her face. "And perhaps Kailak, my own sister,
will learn some wisdom."

"So may it be," I whispered. She smiled.

"Fare well, sister-in-moonlight. Blessed be."

And the bright moonbeam lanced down once more, to take me home...

)O(

I sit now in the Moondance Tower, still in wonder that I took part in such a
mighty rite, and yet did it as in a dream. I know that, were I to attempt it
now, I would not succeed-- such knowledge and power would take a lifetime of
learning. But who knows what gifts Moon may grant, when it aids Her purpose?

I set down my quill, and look out of the window. The night is silent, save for
the occasional cry of an owl and the everlasting voice of the waterfall. I can
see the Mother Moonhart from here, with stars between her branches. I wonder if
the path to that far plane is still open. No matter, I think. It is enough to
have been there, to have seen the beauty of it. Enough to remember.

As if on cue, a soft moonbeam slants through the window. I stretch my hands out
to it, cupping the pale light in my palms, and I smile.