The moon shone high like the face of a full clock, giving a lustre below. In between the grates of the hewn window, its light danced like diamonds in the chamber air.
"Oh come to me my wee darling
See here, I'll wrap you in silver and gold
Keep you safe from the harm of the foe."
Words weaved through the air in its magical melody, echoing in the black chamber. No host to the voice. It was simply in the air, soft as a butterfly's wings.
In the cold air, the stooped animal, hunched over. Still as a corpse. It did not matter if he was dead or alive. All that mattered was the pain. It brushed over his sharp black lashes, sifting through.
His eyes fluttered open like feathers. The pain saw its chance and rushed at him, stabbing at his eyes. Blinding blackness filled his brain and that voice—! "Where are you now, O' King? Are you really dead? Oh, I think not," it crooned silkily, "Let me wake you up a bit."
"Nonononono!" The monster staggered like a drunk man, but he was far from it. Piercing black stabbed into him like a thousand needles. Blinding pain tearing his body, bones, and organs apart-piece by piece.
Hundreds of years ago, the black pain would leave him comatose, senseless for weeks, until he learnt to break down its walls. Now the blackness was very careful when to strike, hitting his arteries so that their victim remained alive as long as possible during their torture. He had just experienced his first cut.
His hands came up to his temples, squeezing as if to stop everything. "Where are you? Please. Come to me. PLEASE!"
"In the valley and pastures you may roam,
Down with the lion and the lamb."
He looked around wildly. Something, as a sliver of a voice entered through the splintering of his skull.
"Don't stop! Please!"
A gentle stroking of a harp. Plucked strings. A weaving song that flowed through the black pain. A light in the darkness.
"You are my angel, my beauty and my soul
Who can say such ugly words to whom is beautiful
Because you are mine."
Sweet, like a bellbird.
"I can't see you!" he cried out. He groped in the blackness, desperately like a man on the brink of a cliff.
"A Curse upon you! you and your House forever!"
"Where are you?" he called.
The voice would laugh during its song, like the twinkle of golden bells he heard in the human towns.
It whispered over his ears like a mother's croon.
The voices clashed together. Cracks within the earth. Shudders in the foundations. A fierce fire erupted. A wind ripping apart his soul.
"You will never—!"
"Oh my love."
"You will be—"
"My life—"
"You will NEVER end this!"
He shoved his hands over his ears. "Shut up, shut up, shut UP!" he screamed, tears rolling down his cheeks. "Enteniya! Make it stop!" Nails dug into the flesh of his head, his talons tearing into his roots.
"You will forever be—"
"PLEASE STOP THE VOICES!" he wept, curling into a tight ball beside the cavernous rock. A stream trickled from a great crack running in a seam from the roof of the den, dropping pear-shaped droplets onto his temples and down his rocking body.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Gentle strumming of a harp.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
A melody of a song. The harp. Sweet notes of the piper's flute. A voice that shattered his heart.
"Come to your Mother my wee one
Come to my arms where you'll be safe from sorrow and fear
Come my lovely child
My darling, I am here..."
"Please..." he begged," remove this pain"
A hand brushed against his temple. Soothing. Gentle. Her voice trailed away and her touch brought forth the deep warmth flowing into his bones. He moaned, his bones unlocking and his claws falling to his knees.
She enveloped him like a warm cocoon, her lilting voice like a harp swirling around him.
"Please..." he whispered, "sing for me."
"For you never walk alone
In life and in death
"I am here."
Its warmth spread through him and the blinding pain melted away like butter.
His shoulders slumped as her fingers rested on his brow, draining the last of the dregs away from him. It seeped into the cracks of his broken flesh to his blood, cooling it. He was not rageous. Not snappish. He was at peace. His heaving sobs dissolved and he sighed, and her fingertips brushed over his eyelids. "Sleep," she whispered.
Then, as soon as she had been summoned, her body folded and she melted back into the black mist around her. And with her, the pain and the blackness melted away to nothing, revealing golden ewers against the rock. Soft firelight flickered from them, and the shapeless shadows formed into scrolled columns. Emerald green twinkled in the moonlight, with vines sprouting from the ground, twisting around the columns like ropes. A lattice of thick iron loomed above the sleeping monster.
It was a prison itself. Of bodies entrapped in the roots and vines that coiled around them, into their throats, eyes, nose, and mouth. Eyes wide in frozen horror. Hands reaching out to grab something. Mouths set in screams. They foretold any stranger who dared enter this god-forsaken place to escape with your life. Those who had not heeded. Never returned alive. The vines would take their souls. Leaving them as a warning to the monster asleep peacefully on the stones.
And he was not its first prisoner.
YOU ARE READING
The Starlight And The Storm Of Fire
FantasyHe was a monster to the people all over the world who saw him. By the seventh century, there was no more skin left. It was better for her to be dead rather than ever being born. Her family needed food and her father had few other options. She was th...
