The Marechal Chronicles: Volume V, The Tower of the Alchemist (10 page)

He stepped under the canopy of trees, and as he did it was as though their shadow pulled away the one that had fallen over him from his very birth under a dark moon.  The boar knew peace and came, at last, to kneel before the goddess.

Lys was there.  Each day, she would descend from her mountain castle and each day, the beasts who answered her call came to her and she would pass from one to the next.  At times with a simple caress, other times to answer the riddles of the sphinx, or sing a song to calm the craggy hearts of the yellow lions.

The boar saw her and fell to his knees, and when she touched him, he knew love for the first time in his sad life.  She crooned to him and bade him peace.  She scratched behind his ears, and the boar felt tears come to his red eyes as they fell like rain for the love he felt for the goddess.

And so it was for a very long time until the day came, at last, and as she always knew it would, that Lys perceived the first of men to discover her valley.

The snow-white dragons roared and said they would devour their frozen corpses.  The salamander's long tongue slipped between its jaws and it promised to immolate the men where they stood.  The sphinx proposed to confound them with riddles, and the lions said they would crush them in their rock hard paws.

The boar was the sole creature among all the menagerie who made no promises nor vowed any oaths, for over his heart stole a thing he had not felt since he had come into the keeping of the goddess.  Its touch was cold and hard, but he recognized it for what it was because he had known it so very well and for so very long.  And that thing he felt then was named Fear.

Lys stilled them all with a single word, then told them that she would go alone and tell the men that the valley was not meant for the likes of them, that their arrows would ever turn from their paths and that their spears would always fall short and that the hunt would never yield the least prize.

The beasts bowed to the wishes of their mistress and watched quietly as she left them.  And among them, there was only one who thought that what she did was dangerous, and that all her magic would not be enough to overcome the power of men.

The boar was not mistaken.

For among those men there was one whose eyes sparkled with honest mirth, his jaw was clean and strong, and his arms well-muscled.  He stood apart from the men of his hunting party upon sturdy thighs and showed no fear when the mysterious woman came out from the trees while his fellows cowered then ran away.

Her power was unmistakable. It rose up and rolled off her shoulders like mist upon the calm waters of an early morning lake.  The man felt it and saw it, but the beauty of the goddess trumped all else.

The lines of her face were that of perfection.  Her hair fell in long loose rings like darkness before the storm.  He saw danger in her eyes that sparkled of both ice and fire, and in their depths he saw that part of her which tipped the balance of her image from mere perfection over and into a thing of beauty absolute.

He saw the taint of sadness and the touch of resignation.  She was beautiful as the wellspring of her own tragic solitude, and the man knew love in the moment he first beheld her.

All thoughts of the hunt fled him, and what came to replace them were thoughts of holding the being before him in his arms and murmuring into her ears that he would never, ever leave her … that she would never be alone again.

And in that moment, Lys read all that passed behind the man's shining eyes and saw the smile that came to his lips as his bow fell to the ground.

He took a step toward her and the sword at his side came unbelted to fall down as the quiver of arrows upon his back slipped free to join it.

The man took no notice as his affairs drifted away like the faint smoke of a dying fire, and the goddess did not refuse him as he closed the distance between them.

The clouds darkened overhead, and Lys spoke in a voice of thunder and told the man that she could destroy him.

The man replied that he did not doubt her, yet her beauty left him without choice and he dared lift a hand to caress her cheek.

All fell to a perfect silence.  Not a thing made a sound, no creature drew breath.

Then the goddess reached up to the hand at her cheek and she held it in her own.

I could destroy you, she repeated.

I could love you, the man answered.

And that was all the answer she required as the notion of her unending solitude began to tatter like a banner flown too long in a war that had forgotten its reason for being.

The existence of the goddess filled with the color of that man's eyes, her spirit taking on his love for her like a clear carafe filling full of golden wine.

Hand in hand, the two regained the interior of the valley and the man knew no fear when he saw the array of strange creatures waiting within.  And Lys spoke to her beasts and told them that nothing would change and they would want for nothing as before.

But among them, there was one who knew her promises were false and that the man would change everything forever more.

And that one watched Lys and the man in the time that followed, and he could not see how love filled her eyes or how joy held the two lovers in peace and contentment.  That one saw where the other beasts were blind, and he knew that soon his goddess would linger more and more in the company of her man and the beasts of the vale would be forgotten.

That one was born under a dark moon, and the shadow cast upon his soul had shown itself in his color for he was as black as coal and his eyes blood red and his black heart knew jealousy worse than any hatred he had felt before his time in the valley of the goddess.

And the day came, as he knew it would, for him to seize his chance.  Lys and the man had stolen away from the beasts as they did more and more often.  They had walked to a quiet meadow and lay down upon its soft flowers.  Then the goddess told the man that she would rise into the sky above and make of herself a flower more beautiful than any the man had ever seen.  His answer was laughter as he told her that she had always been and would ever be the most beautiful flower he had ever seen.

Lys smiled at her man and the winds came to buoy her up far overhead, then her form dissolved into colors of rich gold and yellow while the sky was bright, cloudless, making an azure field upon which the flower was all the more beautiful.  She made of herself a flower composed of three petals depending from a center of three sepals and the man's heart swelled with more love than a human heart could contain, and only the goddess and the joy of her kept him intact when he should have been unable to bear anymore.

It was then that the shadow stole into the meadow.  It regarded the man gazing overhead and the thing knew hatred for him, for the goddess had never shown the beasts of the valley such proof of her affection.

Like a thundercloud that had no place in that bright morning, darkness pounded across the meadow upon cloven hooves and bright tusks lifted high, their yellowed ends dripping with the crimson of a man's life.

And the boar turned and brought his hoof down upon the man's chest, and the heart within, already overburdened for love of a goddess, burst asunder.

The boar stood still, the steam of its breath puffing from its snout, and high overhead, the flower had frozen, all color draining out of it as the goddess discovered what one of her beasts had done.

She did not blame the boar.  She had known his nature the day he had answered her call, as with all the other beasts of the valley.  She had not judged him for what he was and he had loved her for it, but she understood then that had not changed him, for his heart was as black as his pelt and his adoration for her too easily twisted.

In that moment, Lys wished but one thing, and she threw all her power down and the man's heart knit back together, his entrails slipped back inside his belly, and the long gashes down both sides of his body closed as if no boar's tusks had ever opened them wide and steaming in that quiet morning meadow.

Then Lys screamed against all creation and she begged all the powers that be to bring her love back to her, but it was too late, and even the love of a goddess could not bring back the soul already fled into the inviolate realm of Death.

She looked down from the sky and a sorrow like none she had ever known seized her in its grip. Lys wept tears that hung suspended around her like jewels upon an azure field, and she emptied herself out with those tears until there was nothing left inside … until she had become more insubstantial than the air itself.  Like a cork upon water, the emptied goddess was buoyed up and up, and her tears followed her for her sorrow was unrelenting and without limit.

Ever upward she went as she emptied herself of her own power in chagrin and loss and became as colorless as the finest blown glass.

In this way, Lys took her place among the stars of the night sky, and the beasts of the valley lost their mistress forever more.

They fled in the directions of the four winds and regained their homelands.  In time, men would seek them out and most would disappear from all knowledge, but the least of them had remained behind, for his black heart had learned what it was to feel remorse and regret come too late.

He alone kept silent vigil and gazed at his mistress among the countless stars each night, and he alone saw the last tear she ever shed fall from the sky in a burning streak of light.  He alone saw the last of the goddess spend itself in a final sign of grief and her power was no more, expended and extinguished among the heavens as she passed beyond all knowledge, even that of herself.

The boar watched and was witness as the only one he had ever adored sought out and found oblivion.

In the long years since, the yellow lions of thunder have fallen to grains of sand, the fiery salamanders have gone deep underground, and the worms of heaven ride high upon the winds above the clouds and have sworn to never descend again.  The sphinx ran out of riddles and boredom set them in stone while the Golden Gazelles dried their tears and became gazelles like any other.

Only one of the beasts of the vale persisted, for his heart is black and it pleases him to destroy young love wherever he finds it as he wanders endlessly, searching, and in remembrance of Lys and the only affection he has ever known in all his long life.

He persists because he knew the blessing of a goddess and is hunted forevermore by the shadow that followed the goddess for so long and led her to call to the rare beasts of the world. 

And that shadow is named Loneliness.

Goosebumps rippled down the smith’s son’s arms and he shook himself.  Then, he startled as he looked up from the book’s pages.

“And where have you been?” Bellamere asked the little man sitting in the grass opposite him.

Harki's cheeks grew an odd rosy red, then with a start Bellamere understood what he was seeing … the little fellow was burning with embarrassment.

“Ermmm … I was stuck … somewhere,” came his mumbled reply.

“Stuck?  What do you mean stuck?  In a hole or something?”

Never had Bellamere seen Harki in such a state of discomfiture.  It was unnerving.

“Yes, yes, that's what it was … a hole.  A hole behind doors and doors way down underneath.”

“Well you could have called out for help, Harki,” Bellamere said, “I know we don't always get along as well as we might, but still, I would have come if you needed me.”

Harki's face had started twisting into the characteristic sneer that always preceded some sarcastic remark, but Bellamere did not care.  After Etienne and the alchemist, or perhaps even before them, there was no one closer to him.

Whatever hot air had been building behind the little man's lips fled with a sigh, then he bowed deeply at the waist.

“I thank you, smith's son and listener of tales.  You humble me and thus a boon is merited.

“For this, I confide to you that I have seen it written in the subtle light of darkness that you shall be a smith, but unlike a smith who works ore into metal, you shall be one who forges words and the plume shall ever be your hammer.”

Bellamere did not know what to say.  Harki had never shown him respect of any real sort before that very moment.  And he had certainly never done him the honor of forecasting his future, nor did Bellamere have any idea he was even capable.

“Harki … thank you.  I hope you're right.  But why in the world didn't you call for me?  I would have come.”

The little man's face turned grey, and his eyes took on the appearance of seeing something faraway before he spoke.

“I did not dare.”

Bellamere followed the direction of Harki's suddenly distant stare, then his own eyes narrowed as a sudden realization hit him.

“Wait a minute.  Did you go exploring in the tower?  Is that why you disappear every time I go there?”

Harki clamped his jaws shut, then scuffed the ground with a bare foot.

“Or, more specifically, did you go snooping around in the alchemist’s cellars … looking for treasure?”

But the strange creature refused to say anything more on the subject, and it took some time for Bellamere to think of a way to draw him back into conversation because, as the Alchemist suggested, he needed to find Harki's essential truth.

“Anyway, never mind all that,” he said, “I wonder why you never bothered mentioning that the Yellow Lions were made of living stone and the Golden Gazelles shed tears that led to gold.”