ON A BLACK MOON SEA ~A Halloween Anthology~

Chasing the Light

The air is cold and the water is still, in a sea that has forgotten the sun's kiss.

The sails hang limp on the masts. The deck was slick with ice and the masts girdled with frost. The wood groaned a deep, quiet, pitiful lullaby to a sleeping ocean. The sky is still and cloudless, littered with stars. From north to south, from east to west is an unblemished scape of water so still it could be mistaken for glass.

At the prow of the sailing ship that has never met the caress of a breeze since this, its maiden voyage, a man stands with one boot pressed against the rails. He gazes through a spyglass, watching after the shrinking moon.

"It's so small now," a gentle, soothing voice says from just behind the man with the spyglass. "When we set out it was so large I couldn't cover it with my thumb. Now..."

The man looked back, to see a woman standing beside him, holding her arm outstretched towards the horizon ahead. Her finger was pointed straight up, and she had closed one eye, to compare the size of her finger to the shape of the moon on the horizon. "Now it is hardly bigger than the stars it's chasing," the man with the spyglass replied. "But take a look, love. Look at the shape, rather than it's dwindling size. What do you see?"

"It's a crescent. Little more than a sliver."

"The light means the sun is still out there. And the shape, the thin crescent with the light side facing the horizon, means the sun isn't much further away. A few more days of rowing, and we should see it."

The woman wraps her arms around her companion, and hugs him close. "How long have we been chasing the sun? You swear it's still there, and I suppose the moonlight is proof enough. But the sun has not risen in what must be five days. One of the crew whispers of Fimbulwinter, the winter before Ragnarok."

"Ragnarok?" The man asks, with a laugh. But his mirth, like a match, only shouts for a moment before it clings to him and tries to hide from the cold. "Ragnarok. As sane a possibility as any."

"Have you become a believer?" The woman asked. "We must be doomed."

The smile on her face lights up like a lit candle, but fades as if that same flame were snatched away by the wind. She shivers, and wraps her thick cloak tightly around herself. "What do you think has happened?"

The man nods, and folds up his spyglass. "The world's spin is what brings us to face the sun every day, and hide from it at night. If we haven't seen it, I would assume something has happened to the star we drift around. But the moon has been torn from our world's grasp, it wouldn't get smaller otherwise. So I believe something has happened that has pulled us from the grasp of our star."

"Was it the day of earthquakes?"

"They might share the same culprit. I'll know more when we see the sun in a couple more days," the man says. He turned, and kissed her on the forehead. "Get some sleep, love. It's a hard day's rowing."

"Take your own advice, darling," she rebuts, but moves back to her blankets further down the deck. "Being our navigator doesn't exempt you from a turn at the oar."

*****

The drumbeat shakes in the air, and his muscles act out of reflex to pull his oar. He lets out a slow, harsh breath as the wooden handle reluctantly draws close to his chest. Rhythmically, he pushes the handle down and away, until it's as far away as his arms will allow. Only then does he suck in a deep breath.

He chanced a quick glance behind him, to look at the horizon beyond the prow. There was definitely a faint glow, a halo of faint white light just above the water. The sight made his heart leap, and helped him forget the aches of both his arms and legs.