9 Tales Told in the Dark 23

by 9 Tales Told in the Dark

  He returned to the honeycomb-colored pit, the sphere still between his fingers. He watched as its light, like a swinging lantern, moved across the chasm capturing the images of what was within. It now seemed almost like glass and the images it captured like ghosts. The ghost light even caught his image and for a moment, it seemed like a mirror, a raw red one. When the ghost glass had grabbed all it would, he threw it into the air, where with sparrow’s speed it rushed away on the wind. Unlike the sword and soldiers, he did watch where it went, far away from his vision. He stood for a moment longer watching where it had swept away to, even though he full well knew where it was heading.

  He turned back to the fire and the woman beyond it. She still hadn’t woken. But she would in time, just long enough for him to read through her book. Before he claimed it from beside her, he placed the stallion’s skin over her as a near bloodless blanket. The winter was a warrior not easily subdued and the skin would act as another shield against it. Now with the book in hand he sat, well within reach of the fire, welcoming both its wrath and its light as he silently read through the book. It was a strange sight to see Bave with the book and the woman wrapped in the makeshift blanket, it almost looked like a father reading to his ravaged daughter. By the time Bave had read the book in its entirety, the embers of his eyes glowed almost as brightly as the fire’s, the book had filled his head with a hundred different thoughts.

  As he placed the book back by her side, it seemed to summon her out of unconsciousness. Before her eyes opened, she groaned as pain pecked away at her forehead like a crow to a corpse. Her eyes opened slowly, flickering almost as if mocking the fire’s flames. Her eyes became deadly still when she saw the leaves lapped around her wrists and they became even stiller when she realized she wasn’t alone. She stared and Bave stared back, neither blinked and neither spoke for what felt like forever.

  “What are you?” she finally asked in a sweet yet strong voice. Bave bared his teeth and quickly placed his hand or rather the place between his finger and thumb into his mouth as if to stop his teeth from tearing through each other.

  “You should know,” he finally said when his teeth were no longer trembling with anger. “Your whole kingdom should know what I am,” he added, in a venom like voice.

  The woman waited until the effects of hearing him speak had subsided, his was no human hymn. It was mighty and majestic; the sound of leaves singing on a windy day. “What I truly am should be written about in that book of yours,” he added. The woman glanced to the book, her treasured trophy of her youth, where tales of magic and myth had entertained her whole life. “It seems your father is trying to forget me,” Bave said, no longer looking at the woman, but into the distance where darkness was dominant.

  “How do you know my father?” the woman asked and the tone of her voice broke him out of his trance. She was young but wise, wise enough to know that sassiness wouldn’t save her.

  “Is there a single person in this whole land that doesn’t know the king?” Bave asked.

  “Plenty if we are talking about personally,” she replied, her tone shifting slightly as she glanced at the horse blanket that covered her. A long lurking breath left her lips as she stared into the fire for a second or two before she asked, “So who sent you?” Her tone wasn’t nonchalant but tired, weary of something other than the winter winds. “Was it house Hurk?” she added when Bave had yet to speak. “They always have a wealth of whispers of the magic they could mount when steel and fire failed them, it has been failing them a lot lately.”

  Bave searched rather than stared at her eyes, it wasn’t fear he saw but rather acceptance, not once had the princess tried to wriggle free of the leaves and not because her strength was sapped. “House Hurk is filled with hotheads and hypocrites, I wouldn’t serve them for any treasure in the world,” Bave replied with familiarity that couldn’t be faked.

  “Who then?” the princess asked, he looked back at her, but was no longer searching, it was obvious enough he had taken her hostage, the fire and blanket would keep her blood flowing, meaning she was far more valuable to him breathing. “Who then?” she repeated with intensity rather than impatience.

  “No one sent me,” Bave answered, his head feeling heavy. “I don’t get involved with the folly of men.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” the princess, in the way a sailor thrown overboard clutches onto the edge of his boat, was clinging onto what she did know, that this creature had taken the king’s only daughter as a hostage.

  “That was the deal that I didn’t get involved with the affairs of the kingdom,” Bave replied his head so heavy now it hung down like a noose was around his neck.

  “So what do you want with me?” the princess asked, believing the deal was broken, her eviscerated guards was all the evidence she needed.

  “I wish to speak to your father…” his words trailed off like dust in the wind as if he was contemplating what he had just said.

  “There are other ways of getting that wish,” the princess said. “He has a large hall, warm and well structured where he speaks to so many.”

  It wasn’t a smile that spread across Bave’s lips, more of a curl, like a hook was hurting it. “A hall where a hundred of his guards keep watch, a hall surrounded by the walls of his castle. You’ve never seen one of my kind before, not even in that book of yours, do you really have to wonder why?” He asked, not expecting an answer and so felt no disillusion as her eyes dropped from his.

  “So,” the princess began, “you want to do more than just speak with him,” she added, her speech like spittle.

  “Yes,” Bave replied flatly and yet somehow ferociously.

  “What did he ever do to you?” she asked darkly staring at the flames.

  Bave took a breath, so deep and dreaded that old mist moved from his mouth as if molded by something once buried in his belly.

  “He broke his word,” Bave answered staring into the distant darkness once more. His head raising, not in triumph but trepidation.

  “I don’t believe you,” the princess said, her words piercing Bave. He looked back to see she was now staring at him. “My father’s word is worth more than the whole world to him, treaties have been treasured all because my father said he would uphold them.”

  “That might have been true once,” Bave finally said, finding fury in his prisoner’s eyes. “It is why I believed him back then.”

  “What word did he break to you?” asked the princess, half an accusation half an enquiry.

  “He told me that neither soldier nor servant would ever claim this place, that as long as I stayed away your kind would stay away.” Bave gritted his teeth, it sounded like steel sharpening against stone.

  “We weren’t staying here or claiming anything,” the princess spat, wielding her words in the hope they would wound him. “All we were doing was passing through to get to House Ulsoon, in a few hours the sound of our horse’s hooves would have been nothing more than a memory!” Anger aimed her gaze right at him and her eyes became something similar to the ghost glass, Bave could see where the anger was forged, not from being captured, but from the killing of her personal guard. Bave looked away staring back into that distant darkness.

  “That’s the biggest difference between your kind and mine, you murder your memories, I am mauled by mine.” It was then that the memories began to torture his thoughts, biting down on his brain like a snake and as if expelling the poison from a wound he explained, “When your father took the throne after his father had fallen,” Bave began bitterly. “He began looking at lands that were never his to claim and before long he did more than look…” Bave paused, his eyes narrowing as the look in them became ever so distant. “Expansion was the word he used for it, the same word his soldiers used for it…but to call what he did expansion would be the same as calling an amputation a parchment cut. He knew what he was doing, just like his soldiers knew what he was doing, perhaps that is why he called it expansion, because the first syllable was the t
ruth, the second and third a lie, but I guess that’s what made the lie easier. In truth what he did was…” Bave paused again as if the poison inside had solidified and he needed a new strategy to exhume it.

  “Extinction…” the word wretched from his mouth like a wad of spit. His eyes shifted, becoming smaller as he stared back at the princess. Not once did she blink. “I am sure he spoke about this expansion with make believe battles, defeating dozens of dangerous tribes. But those tribes weren’t dangerous, all they were doing was living on land, the same land their ancestors lived on, the same land their descendants will never get to see, because they were butchered before they were born. Against your father’s ferocity none of them had a chance and when there is no chance of finding victory through fighting there is only fleeing and flee they did…into my lands….”

  He didn’t so much hesitate as the word halted in his mouth, his tongue finding the taste of them that terrible, he didn’t know whether to spit them out or swallow them. He looked away from the princess, his eyes no less piercing as they returned to the distant darkness.

  “But it wasn’t before long that my kinship and I filled them with fear, the same fear that had ensured their ancestors never set foot in our land.” He willingly hesitated, listening to her hardening breathing, she was no fragile flower, but she wasn’t a forsaken fool either. She had seen what he could do against men with her own two eyes. She was feeling the same fear those who had seen Bave before had felt.

  “They fled back to their own lands, now conquered by your father,” Bave continued, having heard her hardened breath for long enough. “They had fled their lands with screams and they returned with stories of my kind, of creatures they feared more than your father’s forces. That is when your father began to look at my lands and before long he did more than look…”

  When he looked back at her now, the embers of his eyes were like pointers piercing her vision with venom that made her shudder. “The scouts were easy to scare away, forging fear in them was fruitful, and for a time it seemed that your father’s soldiers would stay away…. Then one day, more than a scouting party came, a whole army bearing the king’s colour charged upon my land, cutting down the trees and setting fire to the fields. I gathered with my brethren and we faced that army, it was the bloodiest battle I had ever been a part of. There was so much butchery that the fires of the fields were extinguished by the sheer amount of blood spilt. When darkness fell and the sun slithered behind the horizon what was left of the human army went with it.”

  Her eyes became ghost glass again, anger rising as she wondered just how many human soldiers were slain that day.

  “I didn’t think I would see them again, what army would wonder into our lands after that? An army led by your father.” His head hung lower as he said this, the wrath of the poison weakening him further. His eyes rose but his head remained lowered. “This second army was not only larger it was wiser and amongst the rank and file, I saw faces I recognized. The very men and women who once feared entering my lands were now a part of your father’s forces. They forgot the fear they felt of my kind, but didn’t forget anything else. They remembered what we held sacred and used it to ravage the lands of my people. They didn’t just destroy, they desecrated everything we held dear, trees were burned, rings were ripped from the ground. The helpless were hacked up like ham. We did what we could to cull your father’s forces but there were far too many for us to defeat in a pitch battle. We attacked his camps as his soldiers slept, impaling, and crucifying, hoping that the hundreds we killed in such gruesome ways would make the others remember the fear they once had. But they had forgotten their fear, they kept destroying, kept desecrating….”

  His head hung the lowest she had ever seen it, a motion of mourning if there ever was one. “My own people, were either dead or full of dread, I grieved the idea of genocide and did something desperate…the only thing I could do to save my people. I sent a message to your father hoping to speak terms of peace. He agreed to meet with me only if I went alone and into the heart of his camp. My kind warned me that it was a trap and chances were it was. But by then, there was nothing more I could do. Your father would never forfeit the lands he took from me.

  I remember walking, thousands of human warriors watching me, like snakes watching a rat as I was brought before your father. Their hate filled voices sounded like hisses, but just by raising his hand, your father brought such sounds to silence. I asked him for amnesty for both my people and I, I would forfeit my lands and go wherever he willed on the condition that it be a place where humans didn’t tread. I couldn’t save my lands, but I thought I could save my people, I thought this would be enough for the king, but your father thought differently. He told me that his people wouldn’t trust my words, that they would fear that I would return to my lands, regrouped and replenished, that his people couldn’t live on my lands with just my word to protect them. They needed an image, an image that would forever burn brightly whenever they thought about my kind. That is when he told me what such an image was….”

  His eyes now had become so distant that it didn’t seem likely he was aware of the sudden stoppage of his speech. The princess peered into them, but said nothing, scared of the sights summoned inside her head.

  “He told me if I wanted to save my people from slaughter I had to bow before him…and eat my own wings. I was to cannibalize myself.” He now looked to the princess, his eyes as clear as the ghost glass, showing her, scaring her with his own memory. “My wings were worth more to me than any king’s crown and he knew it, just like those who now served him knew it. Just like I knew if I didn’t do it, my people would never be safe. So I did it,” Bave hissed, the spittle sharpening his teeth like swords upon stones. “I ripped my wings off, I chewed upon them like a craven upon a corpse, I licked up every last drop of blood, swallowed all sinew, mauled on every morsel of meat…. I wanted that image to be as potent as possible, all to protect my kind. Who would fear a freak willing to do that to themselves all because your father demanded it? No one, the king was satisfied with my sickening act and dismissed me with a wave of his hand.”

  He swallowed hard as if by not doing so a volcanic eruption of vomit would vacant his mouth. The princess didn’t watch his swallow, she watched his shoulders for they shielded her from the scars his back bore. “As I staggered back to my brethren, blood bruising every inch of my body, they carried me to a new land, one where, on the king’s word we would not be disturbed by any human. A wasteland of winds and winter, where the sun rarely shone, where the streams did not sing and where leaves shattered instead of fell softly onto a welcoming earth. Where the snow would fall so thick that the rings could never grow high enough to be seen….”

  The light left his eyes then, like the last spark of a fire on a cold winter night.

  “What are you?” the princess asked, an eternity eroding all other thought. Bave looked to her and as he did so, a wind whistled into the chasm, sounding far more frightening than freshening. The pages of the book turned quickly, like the strings of an instrument being violated by a violent violinist. The sound the pages made murdered the wind’s whistle and when the killing was complete the air was silent, the pages still. The princess peered downwards, the descent drastic. But when she saw what the pages had turned to, she looked back at Bave with a broken bewilderment.

  “You’re a fairy?” she had to ask, for the question would haunt her for the rest of her days if it went without answering. Her bewilderment was deserved, the dark frightening image of Bave, with his ember eyes, toothpick like teeth and towering height wasn’t what she knew fairies to be. Because the only fairies she had ever seen were in books, books written by those who wanted to forget their fear, to forget that fairies weren’t several inches tall and didn’t sparkle with stardust.

  “I am Bave,” Bave answered. “King of the Fairies, I ate my own wings to save my people from human steel only to see them suffer starvation and sickness in these very lands.” He stared for seve
ral seconds and the princess didn’t make a sound, becoming like stone, shielding herself against his stare.

  “Some left,” Bave began as he stared back to the distant darkness again. “Some fled, fearing these forsaken frozen fields. Most died, I did my best to keep the cold from killing them, but there was only so much I could do. Those who stayed and survived were strengthened in the solace that at least no humans came to our new home. Such strength was swallowed when men came to this wasteland and started to slice down the trees.”

  “You’re not the only one who suffers the cold, my kind has been killed by it countless times,” the princess responded. The strength of her speech made Bave look back at her. “There are other parts of the kingdom that have been crushed by the cold, places where trees do not grow, where fires need to be forged. That’s all my people would come here for.”

  Bave didn’t smile or snarl, but the way his lips moved made the princess go quiet.

  “That’s how the slaughtering always starts,” Bave said, taking an old breath where, for the second time that night, mist left his mouth. “When your kind first came to my land, long before your father was born, it was always in small groups, three or four, just looking to feed themselves on the fruit of the trees, they would eat an orange or two and then leave. But before long, they came in groups of three or four dozen and harvested entire hollows. Then when your father took the throne, they came with steel. Your kind never just comes and leaves, once they enter a place they always return. It won’t be long before they come with more than just wood-axes. I wish I had realized how worthless your father’s words were before I ate my wings.”

  There was something about his eyes now, that scared her, truly terrified her and she had to ask. “What are you going to do with my father?” her speech was slow, weighed down by dread.

  As Bave answered he didn’t look to her or to the distant darkness, instead he looked at his hands. “The first night we came here I was actually grateful for the cold, because my blood froze before it could fall out of me, the cold saved my life. Even in this wasteland, with all the deaths, there were a few of us that stayed united, believing we could survive, even thrive. I believed that once, as did they. The days got better and brighter if only slightly, but we remained banded together. Even my wings grew back eventually and we all took it as a sign of our strength.” The princess noticed a spark light and then leave his eyes before he continued. “But that was before something bitter bit into my wings with teeth more terrible than any bared before me. The fangs of frost found my wings, turning them black and before long, the frost made them fall out of my back. With their descent came the destruction of my kind’s determination, their wills withered up just like my new pair of wings. My people hadn’t forgotten the horrors they faced when their king lost his wings the first time. They didn’t want to be anywhere near me after I lost them for the second time. I still hear their wails on the wind, like ghost groans terrified that the frost’s fangs will find them as well….”