Short Story: Moonlighters

Genre: Fantasy
Words: 1,214

Father Lante had always been quiet. He was the aging man in the corner, holding some kind of book, reading by some kind of candlelight, thinking some kind of thoughts. His face was not memorable, nor his thinning, musty hair. He would not harm a fly, so they said, truely a man of the God. Yet, still, a boring man, no goals, no lovers.

"He has empty eyes," Jarrow had told Bowen.

"I'd have empty eyes too, if I had to sit by some poor sod's grave all night," his other friend, Kass, pointed out.

"I reckon he doesn't," Jarrow smirked, "he must sneak off to some lass, I know I would."

That had been one of the last talks Bowen had shared with his friends before the Anointment came. Each Apprentice was given a Master and a new order. Jarrow, to his disgust, was whisked away to the library to forever rule over mothballs and parchment, Kass, to the font, to learn to bless, and Bowen, to everyone's suprise, was given to Father Lante to watch over the souls of the dead.

That first night was cold. The grave was some farmer who had died of the Red Wind, a common ailment amoungst out-of-towners. The Funeral had been a day before, and it was custom for Watchers to remain at the graveside for three days and three nights to safely guide the soul across the Plains and ward off any demons. That's why they called them 'Moonlighters' - because they would usually sit for hours in the cold of the night, nothing to occupy their thoughts.

"What.." Bowen asked, after the harsh silence became too much, "what do we do?"

"We guard," the old Priest did not even look up from his book. "You may wish to sit, boy, we are not going anywhere."

Bowen was a weedy thing, fair haired and pale skinned, as if sickly. He rounded the grave, keeping a safe distance. "I knew it wasn't true, what they said-"

"What did they say?"

Pausing, he realized the mistake he had made and opened his mouth to retrace his words, but the Priest only smiled. "Words spoken cannot be reclaimed, what did they say?"

With a nervous swallow, the boy admitted, "that you sneak away to some girl... But they didn't mean it, everyone is always saying things about Moonlighters."

"About us, then."

"Wha?"

"Well, you are one of us now."

The boy nodded, though did not speak. He had not thought of that... Spending every night out here, alone, for the rest of his days, until he became empty like Father Lante. He had never even held a girl's hand, or used a real blade.

"The Plains are full of demons, you know?" The Priest closed his book. Beside him, there was a pole, etched into the dark soil - but then, even the grass looked dark as ink that night. From the top, hung a burning lamp, sweeping the sweet smell of lavender into the air. It was the only thing keeping Bowen's fear at bay.

"I know," he whispered, "we learned in Study. The Plains are desolate, but for the blades of a thousand dead warriors strewn across the ground. But every person who has ever lived and died-"

"Must find their way across them, to Paradise," he finished for the boy, watching him shake. "The cold you are feeling is what he must feel," he gestured to the tombstone. "Tensen Driond, he must be afraid. You form a link with them, the dead." Father Lante sighed, "By the time you are my age, boy, you will be freezing." Holding out a thin, weathered hand to the boy he nodded. Bowen reached out, touching his fingers and rapidly withdrawing, feeling the cold snatching back at his own.

"But every man deserves peace, and we shall give it to them in death as a Priest must give it to them in life,"

"So we shall help them find their way?"

"Aye."

There did not seem to be much in the way of help, that night. Bowen began to suspect it was a metaphoric thing, as Kass had once told him so many things in the Church were. It was some old tradition, not necessary any longer.

Father Lante was not close when it happened, he had stolen away to the large oak shading half of the graveyard beneath it. Bowen was sat on a stump, half asleep, when the grave soil moved.

At first, it was a lurching, as if a thousand insects had come to life underneath the dirt. Bowen's head snapped round, widening eyes watching the movement. Soon, though, he saw the ground beginning to eat itself and fall downwards.

Beetles were crawling free, large, swollen, obscene beetles, or so he thought at first. When he realized they were fingers he screamed.

His own screams were overshadowed by that of the head that burst free from the earth. It looked like no man's head, certainly not the head of Farmer Driond. It's eyes were black, perhaps empty, the hair having rotten to it's scalp, now clumps of puss and black blood, darker than ink-grass. For skin, the beast wore leather, blackened and burnt. It's screaming was the worst, high and piercing, enough to make Bowen clap his hands to his ears to try and block out the pain.

"Father!" He cried, as the ghoul claws at the earth, wrenching it's half-body from the dirt. It's empty eyes set on the boy, as it slammed it's hands into the earth at his feet, twisting and winding like a broken doll.

Bowen thought he felt it touch him. The pain had been so cold that it burned his blood, and then it was over.

Father Lante stood on the other side, the pole bearing the lamp had been seized from the soil and rammed through the chest of the dead man. His high-pitched scream cut off instantly, though his movement did not. He flailed, fingers brushing Bowen's leg where he had once gripped. When Lante ripped the pole from his ribs, Bowen heard the snap of brittle bone and the squelch of liquids, like someone treading mud.

"The lay brothers," the Priest spoke, dropping the pole, "how do they speak of Moonlighters?" He did not look at the boy, nor look away from the half-opened grave, yet his eyes were full of apathy. Snapping the back of his hand across his face to wipe away blood and dirt, he spat, as casual as a man who had just lost his fresh catch at the lake.

Bowen had to steady himself and his thoughts, stuttering as he answered, "that we a-are useless, unfit for any other job, that we... come out here to drink and are lazy." All of these things he had heard while delivering a drink or sitting at study. None of them paid him any attention.

"But we are not," the Priest said, "Moonlighters must do the work of the God, as well as the work of men. We protect them..." the curve of his boot snuck under the chin of the dead thing, "from themselves."

With a sickening crack, it's head was kicked back. A dislocation, a break, and then it shattered off the tombstone.