Tapestry of Dark Souls

by Elaine Bergstrom

  His voice brought death, his hands fire—that much he remembered clearly. He felt the heat, heard the screams. These things he wisely wouldn’t share with his son. “Not yet,” he whispered.

  “Did you speak to me, Father?” Jonathan asked. He shook his head and laid a loving hand on the boy’s shoulder, willing him to return to sleep. The boy’s breaths grew regular, and the man went outside.

  Only a fool would think the stars could change in the years since he had seen them with his own eyes. Yet everything seemed clearer, newer—voraciously alive. Even the soft winter pine needles that brushed his bare legs as he descended the hillside felt impossibly sensual, like a loved one’s first chaste kiss.

  Once, he had fed his hunger in many ways. Dining at a noonday table with his master’s guests, he could hide his nature well. Even on his night walks, when he fed the immortal demands within him by draining the blood of mortals, the darkest side of his nature still slept. During the years of imprisonment on the cloth, though, his body had altered, and only the most terrible aspect of his nature remained.

  But he was alive, aware, free! His son had given him this gift. His son! He threw back his head, and a peal of brilliant laughter flowed over the frozen land.

  In the last few nights, he had hunted the goblins, feeling his power grow with each life he claimed. Now he was ready for richer fare. He moved silently toward Linde, where a feast waited for him.

  Men had dug fishing holes in the ice-covered river. Now they sat in small groups in wooden huts that sheltered them from the bitter wind, each waiting for a catch and a chance to go home. Their emotions, dull and hungry, didn’t interest him. Neither did the vague dreams of the sleeping townsfolk.

  Instead he found one who was awake, her sorrow magnificently deep and alive. The woman sat alone on a bed in a second-floor room of a house near the edge of town. Her thoughts were focused on a memory that she wouldn’t abandon, the memory of her son. How could he have died? How could he have died?

  The wind curled around the house, beating at the shutters like a demanding child. She unlatched them and looked out at the snow-covered landscape. Her eyes traced down the dark, tree-lined path leading to the river where they said Alden had been killed.

  How could the men have known those charred bones were Alden? Shouldn’t a mother be able to recognize the body of her son? Perhaps the beasties had left another body beside Josef’s, had taken her son away to serve as one more slave in their underground kingdom—starved and beaten, utterly alone.

  A shadow, darker than the night, moved on the edge of the charred clearing. “Alden,” she whispered, and, as the shadow moved closer to the river, her son’s face formed in her mind.

  Her husband was fishing with the others, he couldn’t stop her from seeking Alden now! She ran through the empty house, dragging a coverlet from the chair at the hearth, wrapping it around her. She ran barefoot out into the town, her footfalls soft on new fallen snow.

  Her dark hair whipped in the wind as she ran toward the place where the burned body had been found.

  When she was younger, the shadow thought, she must have been beautiful. But now her only beauty lay in her pain, in the tears frozen on her cheeks as she stopped in the clearing, looking for her son.

  The figure moved close behind her, close enough to feel the heat of her body, to clothe himself in her memories. Alden’s cloak brushed her shoulder. She turned, stifling a cry of delight as she looked up at his face. “Alden! They were never certain the body was yours!” She wanted to call to her husband fishing with the others, but a rush of emotion choked her. She stood, her hands reaching out to touch her son’s face, to brush back the wisps of hair, black as her own.

  He caught her wrists, his hands as frigid as the snow. “Alden is dead,” he whispered. “But you, you are so perfectly alive.”

  His touch drained the heat from her arms, her shoulders. “Wh-wha-what are you?” she stammered.

  “Something that once lived. Something that will live again,” Alden’s voice said.

  Fear shook the visions from her eyes. Though she still saw Alden’s face, she knew this was not, had never been, her son. “Who are you?” she whispered tightly.

  He wanted to use the name his son called him; he remembered no other. But as the question formed on her lips, he discovered a more correct response, buried with so many other memories. “Morgoth,” he replied and pulled her against him, wrapping his cloak around her. She trembled for a moment, then succumbed to his power, lying silent in his arms as his cold hands drew every pulse of life from her.

  He dropped the body slowly, cherishing the life coursing through him, cherishing the woman who had returned to him the power of his name. For when he remembered it, he remembered the rest as well.

  “Morgoth,” he whispered and raised his head to the starry sky. Memory brought power. He felt it, hot as the life that coursed through him now, dark as the despair of understanding! He had taken a human life—a mere whetting of the appetite. The cloth must have altered him, condemning him to hunt like this forever—seeking life, taking life, never sated.

  The scent of the fishermen had drawn the beasties from their subterranean lairs. Morgoth heard them moving in the bushes on the edge of the river, sniffing toward the corpse at his feet, and the huddled shacks.

  He would have preferred to leave the townsfolk alive; he had always welcomed the adoration of the weak. Such mercy was no longer possible. Still, the townsfolk were his cattle, for his hunger alone; he wouldn’t share them with these loathesome creatures.

  Confident of his memory, Morgoth raised his hands to each side and bowed his head. His body thinned, floating insubstantial as mist, his mind seeking the goblins’ simple ones. In moments, he trapped the goblins in his mental net and sent a bolt of fear through them. They scattered. Some made for distant caves in the hills. Others, shrieking with fear, raced in terror across the frozen ice of the river. Men rushed from their fishing shacks, their cudgels and knives ready.

  A score of beasties were killed. The men, frustrated from a long night of waiting, set skinning knives eagerly to the task. They carved the flesh into long strips to mix with the livestock grain. But the men’s exuberance was short-lived. When a pair of fishermen followed the goblin tracks back to the riverbank, they discovered Alden’s mother, lying on her back with her cloak untied, her flesh blue from the cold. She lay on the spot her son had been found. A second set of footprints led to the site, then vanished.

  By midday, whispers of sorcery drifted like snow through the winter-bound town.

  “The cloth will not wake now that I am gone,” Morgoth told his son as they sat together in the milky cave later that night.

  Jon hadn’t returned to the town. He sat on a blanket on the stone floor, roasting a fish over a small, open fire. He frowned. “It did before you were trapped.”

  “No, it didn’t. I’m the one that empowers the souls.” Morgoth looked sharply at his son. “I’m the pale man that destroyed the Guardians’ shrine,” he added; the boy had already told him of the scroll he had read. Jonathan pulled the fish from the fire and began stripping the flesh from the narrow carcass, eating it slowly as he listened, saying nothing. “Does this make a difference to you?” Morgoth asked.

  “No … that is …” Jon shook his head. Though he didn’t look at the man beside him, he said more firmly, “Why did you wish to destroy the shrine?”

  Morgoth stood and began to pace, his long, silver robe brushing the stone floor as he walked, its folds shimmering in the soft colored lights of the cavern. “It’s time for you to know my part of the story. Like the monk, Hektor, I was sold by my parents. I like to think they sold me unwillingly, especially since my master was cold and powerful. When I didn’t learn as swiftly as he wished, he showed me pain. In the end, he taught me too well, and grew to fear me. What else could explain the impossible task he set for me?

  “The people of our land came to worship me as they never did my master. He knew I w
as a rival and decided to make use of me before the end. I was sent to destroy the cloth, for it threatened to draw in my master, imprisoning him. If I failed to destroy the cloth, I would be destroyed in its place.”

  “Why did you go alone?” Jon asked.

  “He commanded me to—facing the cloth was the final test of my power. I thought the task would be simple. A burning spell—you know how simple those are with powers such as ours. But my fireballs returned back on me, charring my flesh. So I rushed up to the cloth, an unfamiliar fear filling me. The screams of my enemies rang triumphant in my ears as I ripped the cloth from its place of honor. As that cursed thing covered me, I tried to pull it away, but found I couldn’t. My skin, my flesh, my bones, my power dissolved.” He paused and rested a hand on his son’s shoulder, as if the touch of living human flesh could remind him of the years before the cloth claimed him. Jon looked up at him with sympathy.

  “I even thought death would find me. Something far more terrible happened. Instead of oblivion, my soul was caught in an unbreakable web of faith and power. I lay numb, stretched across it. As the next day passed, I sensed the dull, trapped minds of the creatures that shared my prison. I thought back to my early knowledge and sought a means to break the spell.

  “I found it. On the second night, the moon shone, round as the sun. I drew on its power and freed the prisoners from the cloth. In the terrible destruction that followed, the Guardians tried to destroy the cloth, but discovered that spells cast against it turn back on their caster. Despite my efforts, and those of the other desperate souls, we couldn’t break the Guardians’ spell on the temple walls.

  “So I began drawing people to me, people filled with hate and desire. As the cloth gathered more prisoners, my powers grew. No Guardian guessed my strength.”

  “Until you pulled my mother into Markovia?”

  Morgoth nodded. “And planted my seed in her. Now I sense your power, power so great that, like my master, I tremble to think of what you will become.”

  “And you’ll teach me … Father?”

  “As quickly as you can learn.” Morgoth moved to the center of the cavern, to a higher spot surrounded by the pool of water. “Perhaps it’s time to tempt you,” he said, closed his eyes, and raised his arms.

  As Jon watched and listened, his father began a complex incantation, seemingly a call for wisdom. A crystalline sphere as large as Hektor’s head began to form above his father. As the incantation continued, the sphere solidified and pressed down on his father’s hands. The inside of it filled with glowing white smoke. More words, a slight shake of Morgoth’s head, and the smoke gradually assumed the shape of a closed book. Its gold cover was decorated with intricate, overlapping circles and runes. As Jon intently listened to the words of the spell, he saw the pattern grow more ornate with each moment. Finally, his father lowered the sphere to his chest and whispered a final word. The sphere vanished and the book opened to a central page.

  Morgoth read the words aloud, the same words he had used to conjure the book. In only moments, he had memorized the spell once more. He walked to Jon and laid the heavy tome in his hands.

  “Look at it,” Morgoth said.

  Jon did. The pages contained small, precise handwriting. Fire spells. Freezing spells. Spells to summon monsters, to make creatures do the caster’s bidding. “The first spell you will learn will be one to improve your concentration,” Morgoth said. “Your training must begin with subtlety. Even so, you will learn faster than even I learned, I think,” Morgoth said and laughed again, louder. Jon’s head automatically turned toward the passage to Ivar’s cavern.

  “And I promise you, Jonathan; I will love you as a son, in the way I was never loved.”

  “I promise to love you as a father. To learn … never betray you. Will you, in return, bless me?”

  “How so?”

  “I am betrothed. Soon I will be formally married to the daughter of my teacher.”

  “Ivar’s daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “He has true power. Of course I bless the wedding. Why be surprised? Life is precious to me. Children are precious, too, especially those who inherit my gifts.”

  Jon smiled. He took his father’s hand. The intense cold of it startled him, but the feeling vanished as quickly as it had come, replaced by a rush of love and warmth that pushed Jon to unaccustomed honesty. “Ivar’s scrolls and spell books are in a cavern joined to ours.” He pointed to the passage. “The path between them is short. I’m afraid if he hears you, he’ll come to harm you. Please, seal the passage—for his sake.”

  Beneath the child’s respect, Morgoth sensed fear. He looked at the narrow crack, gestured and spoke a word Jon didn’t understand. “It is done. We may pass. Others may not, unless you or I will it.”

  “Thank you, Father.” Jon hesitated, clearly pained to go on. Even so, he added, “And I can’t spend nights here any longer. My visit to the fortress was to have been short. If I’m gone too long, there’ll be questions.”

  “Those will come anyway. The Guardians possess little skill, but they aren’t fools. They’ll sense what you’ve done and will send word to their allies. Their messenger will come in daylight, when you alone can stop him. That will be the first test of your loyalty.”

  “Is there anything you need, Father?”

  “No. Come at midnight tomorrow. We’ll begin your education then.”

  Jonathan went through the outside passage, descended the hill and walked toward town. In a stand of trees near Maeve’s cottage, he paused to brush the dirt off his pants and stare at the morning sky, at quick-moving clouds fleeing the rising sun. There, hidden by the trees, he let silent sobs of betrayal flow from him. He thought of the words that Leith had written, the uneven scrawl of her hand.

  Her account had made it seem certain that he was Vhar’s child, conceived well before her night of terror in the shrine. Now he knew that wasn’t true, that he was Morgoth’s child. Would his mother have taken so much time to put down her story only to lie to him at the end? He knew she wouldn’t. Someone had changed her words, magically erased and reformed them in his mother’s hand. He’d learned the very spell from Ivar.

  He wouldn’t try to understand the Guardians’ deceit; wouldn’t forgive it, wouldn’t feel guilt for its result. It mattered little if his father was Vhar or some creature far older. He, Jon, was still himself—adept, powerful, brilliant.… He was his father’s son.

  When Jon entered the inn through the back door, he smelled bread baking in the oven, saw rolls ready to follow. Though he could pass unseen through the empty kitchen, there were men in the dining hall. Too many questions would be asked if he were seen returning alone at such an early hour, so he slipped into the secret passage behind the hall. It was unusual for the inn to have visitors so early in the day, and he eavesdropped on the men’s conversation.

  “Alden’s mother? Odd that her body’d be found lying where Alden’d died,” one of the men was saying.

  Jon didn’t recognize the voice, but the second was Andor’s, and he was fearful. “The men were fishing close to the bank. If she had called out, they would have heard.”

  “I found her,” the first man replied. “Both sets of footprints were fresh, but her body was frozen.”

  “More than the beasties are responsible for this, I tell you,” the voice of Mishya added.

  “Sondra, we need more tea,” Andor called. Jon heard her footsteps move close to the wall and through the kitchen door. She must have seen the water from his feet on the floor, must have smelled the fresh outside air, for as soon as she had served them, the hidden door to the passage opened. She slipped silently into his arms.

  Her warmth comforted him, but the trembling of her body and her words did not. “Three deaths in town this winter. I’m so glad you’re safe!” she whispered.

  “Nothing can happen to me, and I’ll allow no harm to come to you. I promise,” he replied.

  He felt her nod and relax, secure in the prote
ction of his power. He wanted to take her below, to hold her, to confess what he had done, but she pulled away. “I must go or I’ll be missed,” she said and left him.

  It was pointless to eavesdrop on the men’s talk any longer. He had heard enough. Jon descended the stairway to Ivar’s cavern to wait for a more opportune time to reappear in town.

  The sleep he had taken at his father’s side hadn’t refreshed him. His dreams had been filled with loneliness and despair. As he lay between the furs in front of Ivar’s cold hearth, he thought of the words his mother had written in her legacy. It had used Vhar’s avarice to make him a thief. And me? The cloth had used petty resentments from years of marriage to Vhar to turn me into a murderer!

  And what of himself? Since he first set eyes on the cloth, he had felt lust growing in him—lust for power, for adoration. He had seen his own dream of being united with his father twisted in a way he’d never suspected. Now that his deed was done and his pledge to serve Morgoth made, he could only hope his father would keep his promise, wouldn’t use his deadly touch to destroy those Jon loved. He was young, confident. He didn’t realize the soul Morgoth needed to destroy most was his. Jon had no gods to pray to anymore. And so, with only sparks of hope for comfort, he slept.

  He woke suddenly, knowing he was not alone.

  “Who’s there?” he whispered into the dark, certain that Ivar knew his secret, that the Guardians had come, that his father sensed his doubt and came to kill him.

  “I am,” Sondra said and crawled beneath the furs, “your betrothed.”

  “My wife,” he replied.

  As he held her, the presence he had sensed remained. Perhaps it was merely the weight of his conscience. Perhaps his father was here, watching them, savoring their passion.

  “I won’t betray you,” he said, so soft that even Sondra, in his arms, didn’t hear. The presence withdrew. Alone with his lover, Jon slept in her arms.