Moonblade, Ch. 1

Escape From Hiberia
Ch. 1

Playing in the shade of a requiem

"I don't think that's going to work," Akari commented as she furrowed her brow. She sat where she spent most of her lunchbreaks, beneath the large oak a hundred meters behind the school. Unlike most of her lunchbreaks, however, she was surrounded by the majority of her classmates.

As last years, they had gathered together under the oak's shade to discuss their farewell prank. Akari had little interest in the topic, but felt even less interest in leaving her favorite spot. Though often alone, when she leaned against the elderly trunk she felt a far away echo of an embrace, like a friend was nearby. The notion sounded somewhat insane, therefore she never expressed it aloud. Then again, no one had ever cared to ask her about her insistence on sitting here, and Akari knew herself that enjoying the company of trees was the least of what made her unusual.

The head schemer, dark-haired and burly, was Shaun. He, along with the rest of the group, had turned their heads toward Akari when she voiced her concern, though they had by now grown accustomed to the spectacle of her appearance: Akari, so much unlike the sixteen and seventeen year olds around her, had midnight blue hair, slightly pointed ears, and an ever so faint iridescent complexion. Shaun responded to Akari’s criticism with, “What do you mean, ‘it’s not going to work?’” 

Akari raised an eyebrow. “Well, it would work, I guess, but it’d end up burning down half the village. It’s summer. Everything is dry. And the wind is blowing just right. You put it together.”

Shaun considered her words and then nodded. “Okay, so maybe that’s a bad idea. Anybody got anything else?” 

A gangly, redheaded girl raised her hand and then said, “Why don’t we utilize Akari? She can pretend to fall asleep, offering a distraction.”

“She doesn’t have to pretend, all we have to do is wait,” somebody murmured.

Several students chuckled and Shaun looked as though he were already exploring the prospects. Akari quickly and firmly objected. “Leave me out of this. I’m on the receiving end of enough of your jokes, I don’t want to actually be a part of one as well.”

“Not just a part, Akari,” replied a sharp-tongued daughter of a baker, “you are a joke.”

There was more chuckling and Akari rolled her eyes, waiting for the end of the break though she wasn’t done eating. Actually, she was waiting anxiously for the end of the school day. It was not that she was eager to get away from the tiresome, but mostly benign, harassment by her classmates. Today was her birthday, and her uncle had promised to be home from one of his cartographic expeditions. 

Her uncle Andrew was her favorite person by far, if no other reason than he was almost as different from the other villagers mentally as she was physically. Since she was an early age he had told her fantastic tales of other places and creatures she had never seen, always with the utmost detail. As a child, Akari was convinced that the battles he described he had witnessed himself. As she grew older and learned to read, however, she learned that Hiberia had not been to war for centuries. She then concluded that the elves he described were only a creation to make her feel better about her appearance; he had gone as far as to say her mother was an elf. Where other children might have become disillusioned with their guardians, Akari instead loved Andrew all the more, appreciating his eccentricity and the small escapes his stories offered her from bleak rural life. Though admittedly, as of late, Akari felt herself yearning for something true as much as she fantasized in Andrew's untruths.

Today he had promised to reveal the source of his inspiration, and even some stories involving Emperor Verstoss. The prospect had heightened Akari’s curiosity, because all of Andrew’s stories thus far, with the exception of her parents, had never involved people Akari knew to exist.

The bell rang, marking the end of lunch. Akari stood and proceeded to the school, along with most of those who had huddled with Shaun. Three or four remained somewhat behind, whispering to one another. Akari wasn’t paying much attention, so she only caught snippets of their conversation.

“...nah, that seems too easy.”

“But it’s worth a try, and I don’t see how we could get in trouble.”

“...it sounds dumb. I don’t think it’ll work, even with her.”

“We’ll take bets, then. I’m betting some copper that she’s out in five minutes.”

Akari merged with the rest of the crowd cramming through a single doorway into the classroom, not hearing the rest of the conversation she didn’t care greatly about. Everyone took their seats without too much bustle and Akari’s heart sank at how warm the rustic room had become. She rolled up her sleeves. The teacher, Mr. Nova, wasted little time.

“Continuing on with recent history, when was the Boundary built?” Mr. Nova asked as he flipped through Contemporary Hiberia, the only state approved book of Hiberia's present century.

The student who previously was willing to bet copper raised his hand, surprising Akari. She had seen the freckled boy raise his hand very seldom. Mr. Nova called on him.

In a remarkably soporific tone, he answered, “Nearly sixteen years ago, when Emperor Verstoss took over from Emperor Yandar.”

“And why was it built?” Mr. Nova continued.

A girl this time raised her hand. She spoke in a warm, gentle voice. “The Boundary is a protective barrier between Hiberia and hostile outsiders. Our noble Emperor had it built when unrest was rampaging on every side of the empire. Through his swift action, this unrest did not enter Hiberia. The Boundary is impenetrable, and its rapid construction has been a great credit to the Emperor’s name.”

Akari leaned her chin on her fist, wondering why this girl felt it necessary to give such a lengthy answer. No matter, the high temperature of the room felt more pressing. Akari needed to do concentrate on being lively. She began pinching herself.

“And why does the state not advise Hiberians to leave?” asked Mr. Nova as he finally found the page he was looking for.

The first boy had raised his hand again. He maintained the same tone as before. “The unrest is still raging on, and any Hiberian who leaves will automatically be noticed as a foreigner. As a foreigner, all competing sides may mark the visiting Hiberian as a threat, and he or she may be dealt with brutally. Therefore, it is for our own safety to not leave the security the Emperor has built for us. When the neighboring countries have righted themselves, the Boundary will open.”

Nearly all of Akari’s upper weight was now on her fist, and though someone had since opened some of the windows, the room had not gotten any cooler. I’m done for, she thought to herself. I can’t sit straight. I can’t...concentrate...Uncle’s got a surprise for me...what’s for dinner?...Hotter...than  blazes...why can’t they talk like normal...human...beings...cats and mice don’t talk...

*Thunk*

Akari’s head slipped from her hand and landed on her desk. The boy who had been giving his long winded answer didn’t bother to restrain himself.

“Haha, told ya!”

Several students grumbled at having to give up their money, while a couple others seemed disgusted on Akari's behalf once they had put together what was going on.

Mr. Nova waved his hand. “Just continue class.”

An hour went by and Akari did not wake up. Long ago the whole village had become accustomed to her tendency to both unexpectedly and expectedly fall quickly into a deep sleep. When she was out, there was simply no waking her, and since she didn’t snore or cause a distraction, the class would usually continue on as if nothing had happened.

Akari fortunately woke up just minutes before class was supposed to end. She could tell from the numb feeling in her face that she had been out for a while, but she didn't feel like it was time wasted. The emperor and his exploits had little to do with her. Even if he did, Akari had already learned the subject quite thoroughly from previous years. 


The bell finally rang and Akari exited out into the fresh air, stepping onto Amikay’s one road, which was definable by a strip not covered in grass. All around the center that was the small town were fields of grain as far as the eye could see. No hills, no forests, just rogue trees and navel high waves of topaz. A dusting of dirt existed on the townscape the way other cities always seemed covered in dew.

 “Hey there,” Akari turned to find Uncle Andrew smiling down at her. He had been waiting with his arms crossed, leaning against a coach filled to the brim with sacks of seed.

Andrew scratched his thin goatee and his pale blue eyes glinted with mischief. “I suppose you’ll want sixteen presents to match the years?” he joked.

“For once I'd like to fall asleep to something other than descriptions of the Boundary,” Akari replied cheerfully. “So, you know, you could tell me a story about the Emperor. Is he a hermit in that tower? Does he get fat off candy? Does he paint landscape all day?"

At that the mischief left Andrew’s eyes, replaced by a mixture of seriousness and nervousness, but his voice continued as if playing along with Akari. "We can only imagine what he does in that tower of his."

Akari saw the change in Andrew but did not understand it. They started to walk toward their house, Akari taking excited steps and Andrew in an uncharacteristic shuffle. The weather was warm with a slight breeze, but the sky was as gray as it ever was, allowing only a feeble white sun to shine through.

“When we get in, just wait in the front room. I need to get something from upstairs,” Andrew said as they approached their front door. The two story house was fairly nice, about what one would expect for a tradesman of Andrew's caliber. However, it also showed the telltale signs that a bachelor resided there. Some time ago Andrew had hired a woman named Katrina to nanny for Akari for when he went away on business, and she had kept the place spotless, but she died when Akari was 12. After that, neither Akari nor Andrew felt much like seeing the place pristine again. 

They entered and Akari sat herself down in a patched, once-handsome couch as Andrew took off his cloak and threw it over the back of an armchair. The room was very messy, littered with stray parchment, books, and ink spots.

Akari eyed the walls as she waited. Every inch was covered in maps rejected by an accidental blotch or tear in the parchment. Mapmaking was difficult to be good at, but Andrew was the best cartographer around. It was just his style to wallpaper his house in mistakes.

Akari continued to wait and knew exactly the reason. Andrew was not exactly the most organized in the world, it would probably be several more minutes before he found what he was looking for. At this thought she passed the time by thinking about what he had to say about Emperor Verstoss. Did her parents perhaps know the Emperor? Andrew had told her that both of her parents were dead, that her father, Peter, had contracted an illness and inadvertently gave it to her mother, Arie. Akari was timely sent to Andrew before she could catch the disease. According to Andrew Peter was a direct man who could indirectly gather all sorts of information. Her mother was supposedly some sort of foreigner, what Andrew called an elf. He said talking to her wasn't very fun, because she never acted surprise and rarely rose to his bait.

“They were two of the bravest, cleverest, and loving people I knew,” Andrew would say happily as he thought about them. “Your mother actually had more of a temper than your dad, unless I'm interpreting that expression on her face the wrong way...You can’t usually tell with those women. And that was after I finally learned how to goad her. The trick was to talk to her but not look at her. It drove her nuts.

"But Peter was a pretty laid back guy, never lost his head, though plenty of times I thought something was wrong with it.” Although his disposition was sunny enough at the start, when he stopped a visible cloud seemed to envelope him.

As Akari was about to let her thoughts run away with her imagination, Andrew finally came down carrying a wooden box. “Right, well, you should take a look at this.” He handed it to his niece before sitting down in the armchair. She spent several seconds looking at it. In a style completely unfamiliar to her was a leafy tree carved onto its lid. Carved as though behind the tree was an orb that she assumed was the moon. Then, she opened it to find a pendant with the same symbol on it.

“A necklace?” Akari asked in awe. It was beautiful, for the coloring on the tree shifted as though the moon and leaves were moving. “This looks like it’s worth more than our whole house!”

“It is, but it’s yours and yours alone. That’s the symbol for your mother’s elfin house: the seal of Reuel.”

“There’s a follow up to this, right? You’re going to explain to me that the elves are just a people from a far away land, not creatures from just the other side of the Boundary. A people with special skills, not magic. Because you can’t give this to me and think I’ll be satisfied with anything less than the truth.”

“There is a race of elves, Akari, but Verstoss banned them from Hiberia. Even our very own Emperor Verstoss is an elf. You don’t have to think of them as a different species from the Hiberians, but do think of them as a different people.”

Akari frowned at this and said, “Uncle, you’re insane.”

“I know it seems that way, I certainly feel like it sometimes,” he replied, lifting his hands above his head. The lines on his face reflected many memories coming to surface once again.

“Please explain yourself then. First question: did my mom leave this to me?” asked Akari.

“Well…you see…about that…” Andrew had this very uneasy look and shifted accordingly. “Your mom isn’t dead, Akari, she-”

“What?!” Akari exclaimed and stood, the box forgotten and on the ground.

“Your mom, Arie, isn’t dead.”

“She’s not dead?! Anything else I need to know about? Do I have an evil twin? Does my father have secret treasure buried in the Kabuki Forest?” Akari spouted derisively and started to pace around the messy front room. “Why were you keeping this from me? Are you sure you didn't knock your head while you were away?” Akari sat back down looking intently at her uncle.

“It was simply easier. If you knew she was alive then you would have wanted to see her, and then I would have to explain why you couldn’t.”

“Explain now,” Akari demanded with some frustration. She had never known her uncle to have lied so fantastically to her before. Akari did not know what to believe.

"In the beginning, before humans moved into this area we call Hiberia, there were sentient beings that resided here," Andrew started shakily, as if reciting something. Because it was so unlike the master storyteller that Akari was used to, she felt all the more inclined to listen.

"There was in particular an ancient civilization, whom the Hiberians called the elves. Around nineteen years ago, this civilization officially rifted into two separate factions: what we called the 'light' and the 'dark' elves. The dark elves became known for their use of the Regna, something that temporarily made them stronger while gradually corrupting their bodies. There was shortly after a war, and each side pulled into it allies from near and far. Even the human empire of Hiberia, consisting of its heartland, the Adrift to the east and Sopor to the south, experienced a civil divide, as each region pledged to help one side or the other. The Adrift to the East had taken their chance to rebel against the Emperor and reclaim their sovereignty, but that was the only clean break. Within the heartland of Hiberia and Sopor, each district chose to support or defy the emperor. The dark elves won, and as reward they gave away most of the land that made up the Hiberian empire, only keeping a small portion for themselves.

“Verstoss did what he had threatened to do and built his tower which produces a magical smoke. The magic in it makes elves fall asleep if they ever come under it,” at this he gave Akari a look that plainly said, Doesn’t that sound familiar? “I've concluded that the dark elves must live atop the tower, above the smoke. Somehow they must govern everything from up there. At the same time, the smoke has altered the memory of all the humans who have been trapped under it. I remember, because your father had somehow got his hands on an elixir that made me immune."

Akari was dumbfounded, not knowing where to first cross examine her uncle. She settled for, "Where's my mother now?"

"The surviving light elves lie directly northwest of Verstoss's tower, just beyond the Boundary."

Akari ran both hands through her hair. "Why tell me now?"

Andrew slid over to sit next to Akari on the couch. "Before the Boundary was fully constructed, a letter from your mother miraculously made it into my possession. She...begged me to bring you back when you had turned sixteen. She seemed convinced that somehow you would make it safely to her, but I was never so sure...I changed my mind after years of living like this!" he extended his hands, disgusted.

"You and I have been living a dead end lie. What do you say, how about you see the truth with your own eyes?" he asked, taking Akari's hand.

Akari was taken aback at the slightly maniacal aura of the man beside her. And yet, Andrew looked so young and lively, a more potent version of the man who had raised her. Akari looked down but did not let go of his hand. Her face grew soft. "You're a hopeless, reckless adventurer, aren't you?"

"Peter was, too" he replied.

Akari was quiet for a moment, cogitating. She was beyond trying to decide whether or not to believe Andrew; if she couldn’t trust him, she had nothing to trust. The matter now was whether or not to bypass the "impenetrable" Boundary. Since Andrew had mentioned her mom, however, she got a deep feeling that she could not continue as she had been. She wanted to see her mother, and felt that it was already quickly blooming into an obsessive desire. All of a sudden, the whole conversation had compounded upon itself, and it became painful to bear, like holding a knife by the blade. She slouched so that her head rested against Andrew. Andrew wrapped his arm around her, not saying anything.

"Tell me a story," Akari said after a while.

Andrew breathed deeply and Akari closed her eyes.  “There was a young woman from Topaz, the daughter of a glass-blower. A young man was awed by her, and over time he managed to woo her. Though war had erupted all around them, he asked for her hand in marriage and she accepted. They vowed to be wed as soon as peace was restored. Peace did come, though not the kind the lovers had wished for. They were forced apart, and the man was left to search for his bride-to-be. Years passed and the man finally found the woman, residing in Topaz with a glassblower. Everyone around, including the young woman, claimed the glass-blower to be her father, but the young man knew it not to be so, for her real father died during the war. The man had grown accustomed to the morphing of families that occurred at the dawn of this new ‘peace’, and it made tracking down old friends near impossible.

“To the man’s dismay, the woman had lost all memory of him, perhaps because she had only known him in the context of the war they both took part in. When the man discovered that she had been taken with him, however, he took heart and eventually convinced her to become a nanny for his niece, who was only a child at the time. The man could tell that the woman was conflicted between her affinity for him and the fact she had not known him for very long. Therefore, the man waited patiently for the woman to form new memories of her time with him, so that they might once again acknowledge their feelings for one another freely. Finally, the man felt the time was right, and he proposed to the woman the same as before. She accepted.

“All too soon the woman became ill, and as it became serious the man foolishly insisted on telling her a long story, the story of them before the new peace. The woman listened from her bed, but at the end she harshly told the man to leave her. She would not see him for many weeks. The man was overcome with anguish that not only his love was dying, but that she might die hating him. Finally, she had called for him, and with as much strength as she had left, she said to him, ‘I do.’ The man took comfort that their hearts were together once more. The woman died shortly thereafter.

The room had fallen dark as Andrew recounted his tale, and Andrew felt that there was little chance that Akari would still be awake. A pity, since he had not made either of them dinner yet. Akari ended up surprising him. "And thus, the Mond household was never properly cleaned again."

"Don't I know it," grumbled Andrew. "You must have fallen asleep during class."

Akari pushed herself up. "Of course. Now, I'm hungry. Where's my birthday dinner? And what about those sixteen presents?"

Andrew purposely took his sweet time standing up from the couch. He took so long that Akari wrenched him up and shoved him toward the kitchen. Behind Andrew’s chuckles, he contemplated that though the world that bound them was woven by deceit, the truth was no escape. There was no better time for birthday cake.