“Haz! Oh Haz!”

  “Wakey wakey Haz!”

  “Stinky stupid Sword. Hazahnahkaahhhh. Hazahnahkeeeee!”

  Hwayoung’s eyes snapped open to someone who was calling for her sword. Hazahnahkah heard it too, but he had no idea whether this was from a dream or voice. They had no chance to discuss this strange phenomena, Lamina had broken her shackles and slithered away just as easily as her mother had.

  Yurreth seemed hardly surprised, and ordered only the most experienced of her servants, as well as Knife’s dreamers to follow after her. “It seems the child of Etthehm has found our way.”

  Like most, Zalaster also seemed to have no idea where Yurreth led them. “To where, if I may ask?”

  “The Final Rapscallion,” Galfarys said.

  “There are people in here?” Dalagun shot a betrayed glance towards Yurreth. “You said Black Garden was empty.”

  “Oh, did I? Well, I guess most of it is.” Yurreth looked up at the pitch black sky. “Empty hearts with empty men, performing empty deeds.”

  The perfectly painted canvas of the earth had distracted Hazahnahkah from how odd the sky was. Everything was gone: the canopies, mountains, islands, oceans, cities, and winged or finned beasts. Empty. Hazahnahkah had never seen such a scary and beautiful emptiness above him before, and he recognized that Clest was not where it should be, nor was there a moon or sun for it to block. Only a vivid celestial body hung in the air with a halo so bright Hwayoung’s eyes stung to look at it.

  “I’ve never seen Serpent’s Ramble so empty.”

  “Because we aren’t in Serpent’s Ramble,” Yurreth said. “We are where The Serpent is.” She snapped through twigs and sliced through branches, paving the way through what would have been tumultuously thorny thickets.

  Hazahnahkah did not understand what she meant. They were clearly still in Serpent’s Ramble. He recognized many cherry blossoms, mineral deposits, and hillside formations. Were they all a bit symmetrically made with no variance between them? Sure. Was this statistically improbable? Of course. But nature was a mother difficult to predict in her precision, and when she struck her mark she was always perfect.

  Except for the mountainous pile of manure they quickly stumbled upon. It was as colorful as a child’s desert, topped with sprinkle bits and leaf confetti. It smelled like a shovel to the face—something Hazahnahkah had never experienced, but had certainly witnessed enough to feel. Everything suddenly reeked.

  Lamina and her mother then proceeded to dive straight into it. They came out looking confused… and filthy. “Where’s Pawpaw?” she asked.

  “What,” Yurreth blurted. “Are you telling me you’ve been having us trail Etthehm’s droppings this entire time? Where did he go?”

  Lamina shook her head. Her snake went to sleep.

  Yurreth sucked on her teeth. Her servant whispered to her. “What now?”

  “Who are our two fastest and most enduring sprinters?”

  “That would be Binep and Lauren.”

  “Have them travel back and warn Freyja at White Garden we won’t be returning, not until we have Zalahak’s head.”

  “Are you serious? We’re going to leave without Etthehm?”

  “This was a courtesy visit, nothing more—”

  A cacophony of steeltoed boots, thudding knuckles, and a loud BANG resounded from the other side of the dung pile. Dalagun and another Yurreth servant dragged out a ragged fellow, who still clung to his worn shovel. His eyes widened when he saw Yurrerth, but he did not let go. Instead he tried to swing again. Another servant of Yurreth tripped after them, rubbing his head. “Apologies my Rapscallion, he was slippery.”

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  “Because he’s covered in shit,” Dalagun snickered.

  “His name is Urendel,” Yurreth said. “What was he doing?”

  Urendel dropped his shovel and spat. “I’m shoveling shit, what does it look like?”

  “Well it looked like you were trying to run off and tell Zalahak about our arrival.”

  “I’m sure he already knows, wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Yurreth smiled as if she couldn’t stand him. “Oh, but you would.”

  Urendel’s lip raised at the soldiers crowding him, binding him down in barbed wire. “Like I said—wouldn’t dream of it, even in Ahnah. What would be the point? So you can kill me in my sleep? Wake up and smell the roses, Yurreth. The Assemblage wants nothing to do with you. You are a wound upon the world. Not because you’re intimidating or anything, you’re just too gods damned ugly to look at.”

  “Where is Etthehm?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Yurreth sliced open her palm with her nail. A line of red began to form.

  “I said I don’t know!” Urendel squirmed. “Some White Tiger and a boy fled up into the Waker Station. Somehow it let them inside. Etthehm decided to completely ignore them and when I called him out he left. He just left man! The Serpent of the Ramble!”

  “Well, he was the First Rapscallion. It would be unnatural if he didn’t betray his cause,” Yurreth muttered, smearing the bloody hand on her white sleeve.

  “You think that’s what he did? Oh man! Zalahak’s gonna kill me!”

  Yurreth turned away from the man, and did not address any of the questions arising from the strange exchange between her and the stranger. “The runic therapy rivers of Serpent’s Spillage are upon us, and we’ll need to have Hazahnahkah repaired before we proceed after Nazaki and his knife. Can I trust you’ll fight for us, Sword?”

  “It depends on what you’re fighting for.”

  Yurreth pointed to a bright but very low star.

  “That.”

  Hazahnahkah had no idea what that was supposed to be. Only Yurreth’s dearest servants seemed to know, and they, of course, followed her unquestioningly. She kept those at her side, then ordered the rest to stay behind with Urendel and Lamina. Surprisingly, Yurreth took Zalaster, Ysan, Galfarys Dalagun, Lazul, and the rest of the carriages with her. Hazahnahkah was unsure of what use a man within a coma would have served her. It was entirely possible she was doing this to motivate Hazahnahkah’s fealty. Good leaders were only good because they led others through times of question, after all. Maybe that was why Knife slandered her.

  Whatever Yurreth was fighting for, she was at least willing to hurt herself for it—and her, only her—had proven herself against Knife.

  That to Hazahnahkah, was enough.

  They followed Knife’s warpath of gorges, valleys, and razor scars along the desert sand and into endless night. Her blade met the planet like a scissor to a book cover, with all the words, intricacies, and functionality bleeding from beneath. Geometrical shapes and patterns were revealed just under the surface of the dirt, similar to those that formed the architecture of the monolith they had used to arrive here. But not all was carved by Knife, for they passed landmarks that would have required far beyond her care and diligence, and soon the reality before them became more obvious: Trenches that followed cardinal directions and perfect ratios, mountain ranges amplified electromagnetic signals,, crop circles that were obvious signs of something else—illustrative work from someone in the sky. Ysan was the first human to pick up on the architectural marvel of it all, and Hazahnahkah felt that familiar warmth of the first wielder he could ever remember again. Like fresh sunlight peeking through the door of that lightless closet he once shared with Vrast.

  The woman he once knew was still there. Ysan just grew to hide her.

  “It’s like a mural,” she said. “Someone made this.”

  “Serpent’s Ramble is a small part of something larger.” Yurreth pointed to empty space—a splash of flowering stars nestled far beyond the distant dark.

  So this was why it was called Black Garden.

  If Ysan was right, and this was all really true—that their physical world had literally been handcrafted by someone, then why had they left? If this was the same person who had made Hazahnahkah, then why not solve all the wars and famines of this place? Why would they lock the truth behind an impossible key with an impossible gate? It was as if they actively wanted to abandon Serpent’s Ramble. The thought made Hazahnahkah clench Hwayoung’s teeth. His attention waned upon the last of Knife’s gouges upon the planet’s surface. It was almost as if she was attacking this place, and for a rare moment, Hazahnahkah did not blame her. If the maker of Serpent’s Ramble had abandoned their world, their maker did not deserve to witness it.

  Even if Knife’s actions were just, her destruction ended where the ocean began… for even Hazahnahkah’s sister could not cut water.

  ?─??????─?

  Life isn’t some kind of grand destiny.

  It’s just a collection of decisions shaped by the moments that happen around us.

  Of Moon and Magic follows a silver-haired girl. Her mana was weak, but that never dulled her hunger for magic.

  We follow her steps. We weigh her choices. We sit with her loneliness. In a world where magic is everything, war is constant, and morality is little more than a neglected guideline.

  Will she become just another cog in the machine?

  Or will she be the one to end it all?

  Only one way to find out.

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  ?─??????─?