Moon's Shadow Ch. 01

Beryl fidgeted nervously with the piece of chalk worn down to a nub held between his fingertips. His eyes raced across the smooth stone wall of the basement where He'd sketched down an elaborate mural of diagrams, formulas and various notes to figure out the Glyph he was trying to create. It all looked correct to him. The last time he'd found and corrected an error in his work had been yesterday morning, and now the growing fear of having Enforcement find him was starting to rival his fear of going through with the ritual as he'd currently formulated it.

People had long joked about how he must bear the Moon's Crest, that he was far too feminine, or too delicate, or too pretty for a boy. But two days ago, one of his friends had seen it etched into his skin in the middle of his chest. His friend's eyes had gone wide with disbelief and horror, and she'd run off. Beryl hadn't waited around or pleaded with his friend, hadn't held out hope that maybe the girl wouldn't have told someone about it. He was positive that Enforcement knew about it now, and that they were looking for him. Kaaz wasn't a particularly large island, there were only so many places to search. They'd stumble upon his basement hideout eventually.

In his panic, Beryl hadn't found the time or energy to hate or blame them. It was very explicitly stated in Imperial law that anybody found to bear the Crest must be turned over to the military. If soldiers from Zeal found out that he bore the Crest on their own, they would undoubtedly assume the community had hidden him. The punishment for that transgression would be swift and brutal. The logic of their decisions was laid out in his mind, and he clung to that idea to stop himself from spiralling into rage and despair. The fact that his pursuers were the community who'd taken care of him and provided for him without demanding anything of him in return was a weight that he felt keenly. The girl who'd ran, Beryl had known her since before his parents' accident, he'd played with her and dozens of other kids, went to classes with them, learned almost everything he knew alongside them.

Almost everything. Sorcery he'd learned on his own.

The Crest of the Moon had not just physically manifested on his flesh and altered his development as he'd progressed through puberty, but also attuned him to Sorcery in a way that was profane for someone born on Kaaz to be. In all honesty, if all it had done was make his body more feminine, he probably wouldn't have minded much. The Sorcery too seemed useful in a purely practical sense. His drive to learn and understand it more fully was a persistent, immutable pull on his desires that he'd never been able to deny, but one that had never brought him any pleasure or emotional satisfaction. His problem was purely political; the Crest had made him into a pariah.

He squeezed a bit, and the nub of chalk in his hand crumbled under the pressure. Beryl yelped as the bit of limestone broke apart and he cupped his palm to catch the pieces and stop them from falling into the dirt. He stared at the fragments, broken and useless, just like his life. He felt a surge of terror and despair start to wash over him. That was his last piece, he couldn't write down his thoughts without it, couldn't make any further adjustments to the Glyph with the precision that this Sorcery would require. The Glyph that covered the entire back wall of his hideout would be fixed now; he'd ruin it if he tried to change it without a good writing tool. Beryl looked up at his calculations dejectedly, convinced that he'd find some obvious error within moments. He was convinced that he'd find the flawed bit of math or geometry that would cause his Glyph to misfire and end his life. He'd been double-checking and hoping to find that hidden error for hours now.

His eyes flickered across his scrawlings, but he didn't find any fault with the calculations. It didn't look like he needed to fix anything. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and let the broken pieces of chalk fall from his palm into the dirt floor of the cellar.

Maybe this is a sign? I need to take a leap of faith at some point, don't I?

Beryl had never believed in stories or doctrine of fiendish consciousness living under the ocean, benevolent beings watching from the stars, or unknowable forces slumbering on the Moon. Still, when he was about to trust his life to this bit of Sorcery, he couldn't help but long for the comfort of believing that some Goddess somewhere would forgive him a math error or two.

He walked over to the far wall, and placed his palm upon the center of the Glyph. It was an elaborate chalk outline carved into the rock consisting of hours of hand-drawn and meticulously adjusted Sorcerous expressions and sigils. He couldn't help but laugh a little as his eyes wandered over the result of days and days of work. It was such a simple thing he was doing, and yet doing so in the way he required was incredibly complicated.

Beryl exhaled slowly, and quietly murmured a few words to incite the Sorcery. Power flowed through his chest, down his arm, and into the lines of the Glyph. The Glyph itself was just chalk and stone, its true power was an expression of his intent, a way to shape the energy that came from him. Light slowly suffused through the chalk lines like glowing liquid flowing through lines in the dirt dug with a stick. The light, his Sorcery, reached the ends of the Glyph and there was a brief moment where Beryl became aware of every single detail of his surroundings. Every scuff in the wall, every plant root sticking out of the ceiling, every piece of his broken chalk lying in the dirt.

The next moment, he was weightless, falling, and his opened his mouth to scream in terror. He hit the ground before he could get it out, and received a mouthful of grass instead. He pushed himself up off the ground, spitting out grass and bits of dirt and trying to get a grasp of where he was. It was too dark to make out much detail of his surroundings, but the fact that he'd successfully teleported not over the ocean, and also not so far above land that he broke his spine, meant that he'd avoided his worst case scenario. Whether or not he'd actually successfully teleported to Zeal was another issue entirely. If he had just gotten himself to another section of Kaaz, or even if he'd teleported to another one of Zeal's colonies, his fate would ultimately not be much better than if he'd fallen thousands of kilometers into the Endless Ocean.

His eyes adjusted to the gloom quickly enough. The pitiful flickering light of the candle he'd been using in his basement wasn't much brighter than the spattering of stars that were out tonight. Laid out ahead of him was a series of slowly declining grassy hills that went on for perhaps two or three kilometers before they ended in a sheer drop to the Endless Ocean far far below. It was the same kind of terrain that could be found on many of the floating islands that humanity lived upon, he could be on Zeal just as easily as he could be on Kaaz. Beryl glanced to the left and right to try and judge the curvature of the outer end of the island which he could theoretically use to extrapolate the size of the landmass. He gave up after a few moments, it was too dark and while Beryl had been good at most academic subjects, geometry and geography had never been strong points of his. With a shake of his head, he turned around, resolving himself to climbing up the slope he found himself on so that he could get a better vantage point.

A massive expanse of intricate stone buildings, laboratories, complexes, and palaces spread out ahead of him not more than a few hundred meters away. The buildings were constructed with elaborate curving and twisting architecture, bending into shapes that tested the limits of both gravity and the creativity of the Sorcerers that formed them. Lights softly glittered everywhere, like dozens of constellations had descended out of the sky to adorn the outlines of the city. Even as far away as Beryl was, he could see flickers of motion along walkways, bridges, and in backlit windows as people moved about even at this late hour. Behind him was terrain that could be found of any of the twenty Floating Islands, but ahead of him was something that existed in only one place in the world.

The Grand City of Zeal, heart of the Empire.

***

Zeal didn't have a tailor that Beryl could visit in the same way that he would have back home, and not just because the people here would kill him if they knew where he was from. Zeal had a verticality to it that he found disorienting. Structures were narrow and tall, formed and reinforced with Sorcery. Walkways wound around and through huge building complexes. At one point, he'd seen a pair of teenagers leap off one of the highest bridges, laughing and wrestling with one another as they plummeted slowly through the air as though they were actually sinking to the bottom of a lake. Several adults had eyed the roughhousing with dour looks on their faces, but nobody had stopped them.

Beryl moved gingerly along the pathways of Zeal, his presence masked by invisibility Sorcery. The evocation wasn't perfect, it only worked so long as Beryl stayed in direct line of sight with the New Moon, which he (obviously) couldn't see very well. He'd stolen some food easily enough straight off the table of a cafe without anybody noticing, but a set of clothes was proving to be another challenge entirely. Most places that dispensed goods and services seemed to be located inside the huge multi-level complexes that made up most of Zeal and not small individual buildings like they would have been back on Kaaz.

Beryl was confident enough that he could pass as one of the citizens of Zeal. Even if his mannerisms were a bit off, the fact that he could control Sorcery would dispel most people's doubts about whether or not he belonged here. People did not immigrate to the Island of Zeal. People did not sneak onto the Island of Zeal unless apparently they successfully teleported. It was that very iron-clad security that gave Beryl a chance to blend in with people born here. Still, all those factors combined wouldn't do him much good if he was seen dressed like a farm boy from Kaaz.

Exhausted after sneaking about the city and maintaining a taxing Sorcery for several hours, Beryl sat down on in some out of the way corner of a walkway several stories up and sighed. He only had a few hours more until the Moon slipped below the horizon and his Sorcery would fail. Tomorrow night he might be able to refresh the Evocation, but the Moon wasn't about to wait around in the same celestial position just for him. He sat for a bit, listening to passing snippets of conversation, wondering what life was like in this city. He only got a few bits and pieces at a time, gossip about the Empress' new consort, talk about some new construction happening on the north side of the city, rumours about some laboratory in the east going on lockdown.

It was almost an hour later, when his attention snapped towards something. A woman was walking down his pathway, several bags of clothing slung over her forearm. Beryl rose up to his feet and began to follow her closely, watching his prizes and waiting for his opportunity. She moved lazily down her walkway, reading a book with her other hand. She went down to ground level and made for an entryway into one of the large compounds. Beryl's heart raced. Did he dare try to snatch a bag from her before she got inside and he lost his ability to pursue her? Was it safer to look for another target or to just go for it.

"Tavara, dear, I haven't seen you in ages!" a mature woman's voice came from the side, making Beryl jump a little before he realized it wasn't directed at him. His target stopped, looking up from her book at a matronly woman with gray hair who was sitting in a wheeled chair that seemed to move on its own at a languid pace towards the two of them. 'Tavara' stopped to chat with the elderly woman, and Beryl crept closer, standing as near as he dared lest one of the two women noticed the sound of a third person's anxious breathing right next to them. He waited several minutes, grumbling silently at the way the woman continued to hold onto her bags and didn't set them down.

"Mm, I've really got to be going." Tavara murmured politely at the older woman, looking over her shoulder at the building she had been heading towards.

"Not without a hug, dear." Tavara glanced back at the smiling older woman with a look of slight exasperation but didn't hesitate long enough to be rude. She set her bags down and leaned in to give her a hug.

Beryl stepped in swiftly, snatching one of the bags while the two were occupied and clutching it to his chest. His Sorcery enveloped the bag as he held it close, rendering it as invisible as him. He stepped back as Tavara finished the hug and gathered her bags back up. She looked down at them for a brief moment with a frown on her face, and then looked up and around her, gazing right through Beryl's cloaked form. Seeing nothing she shrugged and waved goodbye to to her associate. Beryl had already turned around and fled, clutching his new clothing to his chest, feeling the soft form of bundled fabric beneath his fingers. He moved as quickly as he dared towards an abandoned little alcove he'd spotted earlier so that he could get changed.

It was a dress. Of course it was a dress. In the heat of the moment, Beryl hadn't even considered that possibility but as he held the distinctly feminine garment in his hands, he wondered with genuine fascination what he'd been expecting.

Beryl raised a hand to touch his soft features and heaved a heavy sigh as he started to get changed. He knew very well that at this point the effect of the Moon's Crest had made him plenty feminine enough to pass as a girl. He'd only stayed alive this long by leveraging every single one of the several mixed blessings he'd been given, it made no sense to stop here.

A few moments later, he walked out into plain view of any pedestrian still moving about the walkways of Zeal at this hour. He carried his stolen bag, stuffed with his old ragged brown pants and shirt, and did his absolute best to not look awkward as he walked around in the pale blue dress adorned with a few lines of... something that sparkled. It was actually somewhat modest, compared to most of the clothing he'd seen women walking around the city in.

Beryl fidgeted as he glanced around the city, trying to keep a subtle eye out for people who might be noticing that he wasn't presenting the way they expected him to. Nobody looked at him twice. Nobody noticed him at all, it was as though he was just as invisible now as he had been ten minutes ago.

First step: get rid of these old clothes.

Beryl looked around and spotted a disposal bin a few dozen meters away and walked towards it, grateful that many of the residents of Zeal seemed content to go about barefoot. He noticed why almost immediately, the stone wasn't hard and rough against his feet now that he was walking around without his ratty old shoes, and the streets were impeccably clean. Such comforts were no doubt in ample supply when Zeal controlled all Sorcery and kept several colonies pinned firmly down under its thumb.

He ditched his old clothes in the bin when nobody was looking and started walking in a random direction at a leisurely pace. He had very little idea what else to do at this point beyond trying to find a place to sleep. He'd been walking, climbing, and evoking for hours, not counting the time he'd spent working on the teleportation Glyph earlier that day. He wondered where people slept in the city. It seemed reasonable that there might be some sort of communal space where he could lay down and have a nap, but there might be rules and etiquette associated with such a space. It could be that the only way he'd avoid sleeping on the street were if he somehow managed to buy an apartment by stealing or earning money using his Sorcery. Invisibility was certainly one of his more useful tricks when the phase of the Moon allowed for it, but it was far from his only one.

It didn't take long for a hard, crushing exhaustion to sneak up upon him. The day's events had drained everything from him, and the prospect of hunting around for a bed to lay on was seeming more and more like a ludicrous waste of time. He circled back to the little abandoned alcove he'd changed in, and curled up in it, resting his head on his arms. It wasn't especially comfortable but he'd slept in dirt and grass before. Sleep took him within moments.

***

"Hey. Hey, Kid." A voice came that sounded both distant and extremely close. Some part of Beryl knew it was addressing him, but part of his subconscious rationed that it might be talking to someone else, and that was enough for him to try to drift back off into a deeper sleep.

"Hey! Are you hurt?" A query came again but this time it was accompanied by a gentle nudge. With a groan, Beryl rolled over, shielding his eyes from the sun as he cracked them open.

"Wuh?" he murmured, not seeing who was talking to him and only barely remembering where he was. A moment later, something blocked out the intense glare of the sun and the features of a man's face just a foot or two away from his came into focus.

"Are you alright? What are you doing sleeping out here on the street?" he asked.

The gravity of the situation suddenly hit Beryl and he scooted back a bit so that he could sit up and give the man a proper look. He was dressed in the uniform of the Zeal military and another person dressed identically stood just behind him watching the two of them with a concerned look on her face as well. Beryl had seen soldiers dressed like this before, keeping the aerodocks under lockdown, glaring at locals or sometimes conferring with the Enforcement on Kaaz about fugitives. These two wore identical uniforms, but somehow they looked nothing like the brutish thugs who'd often terrorized the citizens of Kaaz. These two weren't glaring at him, and they weren't wielding shocksticks like they were itching to use them. In fact, the two looked completely unarmed.

"I'm just fine. I, umm, just didn't have a place to stay last night," he spoke truthfully, glossing over the details.

The two soldiers shared a confused look for a moment before the one kneeling in front of her made eye contact again. "You... didn't have a place to stay? Why didn't you just ask for a spare dormitory?"

"I don't know my way around the city," Beryl mumbled, blushing and looking away. He was both acting and not acting at the same time. The embarrassment was genuine, it was just that the emotion he was feeling more keenly right now was a fear of being caught.

"Oh, damn," the female soldier muttered, sucking a breath in through her teeth as though she'd realized something. Beryl looked at her anxiously, hoping she'd reached some conclusion using the bits of information he'd offered to the two of them that didn't involve throwing him off the edge of the island. "Did you duck out of the lockdown at East Lab?"

"N-No..." Beryl mumbled, looking away timidly. He had absolutely no idea what any of what she'd just said actually implied, but it seemed like the best route for him to take was to allow these two to come to a conclusion on their own. As far as he could tell, they didn't seem like they were out to build some narrative about him being a delinquent or criminal.

"Well," the male officer said with a sigh, rising up to his feet and extending his hand towards Beryl. "We can't send you back to East Lab until the lockdown is lifted and we can't have you sleeping on the streets." When Beryl didn't immediately take his hand, he smiled patiently at him, the kind of gentle smile that people from back home had given him before they'd started to wonder about his appearance. "Come on kid, let's go get you registered so they can assign you a place to stay and an academy. How old are you anyway? Sixteen?"