The Dark Wind and Onward Towards Morning
Author's note: There's a lot of blood in this story. It is rated M. If this bothers you please turn back now.
I drew strongly from Navajo and Shinto mythology for this fic. I have tried to do this in a way that communicates the respect I have for these traditions rather than appropriating them. I believe these traditions should more frequently be portrayed in works of fiction so that others can come to appreciate them.
The serpent stood before her, doing its best to intimidate, hood flared proudly, tongue flickering out, tasting her scent on the air, the hint of long white fangs flickering in the starlight. Candil watched the snake intently, a grin on her lips, the flashing white of her own teeth bared, as she spat on the blade of her knife and carefully pulled it across the side of her head.
Her hair lay like a river of silver across the cool sands of the desert, longer than she was tall, and she was very tall. On the rare occasions when she did encounter others they marveled at it, called it the color of stardust, but she tried to keep away from others so that she would not spread her contagion and she never let them touch her, because that's how ghosts spread their wickedness.
She gathered the length of her hair behind her, binding it with a thick strip of leather, the sides of her scalp shaved so that the hair down the center of her head stood up. It was an old Sindarin tradition to remove as much of the hair on the scalp as possible, to lessen the incentive for the enemy to scalp, most particularly if one had the highly coveted silver hair.
The snake undulated and hissed at her and she bared her teeth, hissing back, spitting, while she continued her ritual, dividing the length of her hair into three braids, binding each of them up, wrapping them in her ornaments of carved wood and bone, in her black crow feathers. She had carved many such ornaments for her sons.
They said it was the second child who was always fussy and yet her Galathil had been the quiet one, so calm and gentle. He had almost been too sweet and she had feared in his infancy that he would not survive long in the wild, that he had not been made for this earth. He was not as robust as the other Sindarin children, certainly not as robust as her Celeborn, and yet he had survived after all, thanks, perhaps, to his brother's careful attention.
They said it was the first child who was the calm one and yet her Celeborn had come into this world in blood. The women of Sindarin princes were prohibited from screaming during childbirth. Screaming invited the dark spirits in, signaled to them that there was weakness through which they could pass into the body. And so she had grit her teeth and grunted softly as her firstborn tore his way out of her body. Her babe had been covered in her own blood when they handed him to her for the first time and she had smiled and proclaimed that this child would be a warrior, a ruler of nations. She had prided herself in the pain in her body, in the tearing, in the bed of her own blood, for she was strong and she was the mother of a prince.
She had carried Celeborn with her on their journey westward, strapped to her back. There was no hunter amongst the Sindar more feared than she, no tracker as skilled. She had only been beaten in a hunt once and that had been by Galadhon when he had contested to win the right to lie with her and become her husband. Her husband was a strong hunter, but not as strong as she, and she doubted he would ever have beaten her even that once had the prize not been one he had coveted more than life itself.
She had carried their babe on her back as she hunted. Some had criticized her and called it foolhardy and treacherous, but she was the mother of a Sindarin prince and she believed that the skills she used in the hunt would pass to her son through their bond, so long as she carried him with her. She believed that Celeborn would grow to be as great a hunter as she, greater perhaps. He would conquer nations.
Galathil she dared not take with her when she hunted. Galathil's birth had been easy and yet a shout had escaped her. She had been overconfident perhaps, assured that after Celeborn's birth any other would be easy, but the first pricks of pain had come upon her when she was unawares and she had not been ready. The spirits must have heard her scream and entered the child through her body. Ever since she had seen the shadow of death upon Galathil and blamed herself for it. She was the reason he was not as strong as his brother.
That was the first time the dark spirits had entered her. They had held an enemy way sing and the holy people had cleansed her and her son of the darkness, had banished the dark wind to the four corners of the earth, and yet the shadow of death had not left her son. After the dark wind had entered his brother, Celeborn had fussed and cried during the sleeping time. She had carved him creatures of bone and wood, fierce wolves and great bears. She had carved them in the likeness of the beasts she had hunted and slain and as she hung them over his cradle she had chanted to him the songs the people sang of her greatest kills, of the demon animals she had hunted, of the seven bewitched wolves she had slain.
But Celeborn had not quieted and so she had taken him into the forest where the talking trees lived and under the galaxies that wheeled ahead in savage glory they had taught the trees to speak together. But as he grew older the crying at night did not stop and she grew afraid, for this was the way that the dark wind would enter him and then he would bear the mark of death even as his brother did. And so this time she had taken him into the forest to hunt and she had showed him how to kill squirrels and badgers, rabbits and deer. By the age of ten he had killed his first bear and she knew he would be every bit the hunter she had imagined. It was then that she told him of the dark wind and the evil spirits that listen for the sounds of suffering on the air, how they journey to the bodies of the afflicted and enter, marking the victim for death. After that Celeborn had never cried again.
The snake flared its hood again and she stood, wrapping her head covering about her face so that only her eyes showed. There were terrible storms sometimes here in the deserts of the far east and she had learned to be prepared. Not many could have survived in these conditions but she had learned how to find water in the deserts, how to shelter herself from the haboobs, how to withstand the poison of the desert serpents.
She was quicker than lightening and her hand shot out, neatly capturing the snake just below the base of its skull, fingers tight about it as the creature struggled futilely in her grasp, polished vermiculate tail twining about her forearm, squeezing tightly to no avail.
"Yáʼátʼééh abíní! Yáʼátʼééh!" She laughed. "You thought I would be your breakfast but I shall break my fast with you!"
But before she killed the serpent she proffered her forearm and allowed him to sink his fangs into her. It had been a while since she had allowed one of them to bite her and if she was not careful to maintain her built up resistance to their poison then one day she might find herself in danger.
The four winds are blowing,
A war party came a riding,
They came riding on wolves.
Their teeth they were sharp,
Sharp as knives in the dark.
Our arrows they were sharper,
Our blades they were sharper,
We have obliterated every trace of them!
She sang as she began to feel the familiar sensation of the snake's venom pulsing through her body, the tingling in her fingertips. It was a war song that she had sung to their boys when they were still in their cradles. Remember, remember, she implored them in her mind. Remember, remember. She prayed they would not forget her entirely, that some memory of her would live in their minds.
Many would condemn her for abandoning them and yet she had her reasons. She would not subject them to the ghost sickness and yet, this time, she had not wanted the Enemy Way sung. She had not wanted the ghost sickness removed.
She had not known Galadhon when he had taken her to wife but she knew who he was, she had seen him. She knew his heart was good and his mind was sharp. She knew that he was brave in battle and that his axe had slain many enemies. She knew that he was handsome and that he could father strong children. Her mother had come to her tent and said, "rejoice my daughter, for today you are fortunate among women. The Prince asks to share your bed. What shall I tell him?"
She had not been surprised. She knew she had caught his eye. She had seen the way he looked at her when their people went hunting and she had seen him watching her over the fires when their people sang the stories of her kills and partook of the flesh of the stags, and bears, and mountain lions that she had killed. She knew he had gifted her father five fine horses, a gift that usually preceded a marriage proposal.
The first time she had caught him looking at her she had watched him carefully, the way she might watch a deer that she was stalking, memorizing his features and trying to decipher what they could tell her about him, how she might thereby predict his actions. He had hair like hers, of silver long and bright. When it was unbound it tumbled to his feet, but he wore it up as a warrior, in braids and wrapped with bone and feathers, the sides of his head shaved as she kept hers. His eyes were black and keen, wisdom in their depths and stars on their perimeter. His nose was straight and proud, his lips full and dark, his shoulders and chest were broad and strong. His parents had been taken by Bauglir's creatures long ago and now he served at the King's side, Elu's prince. He was a man much coveted by all of the women and yet she knew he had eyes only for her.
"Tell him that only the man who kills the man eater before I do shall have the right to lie with me," she had told her mother.
The man-eater was inhabited by the dark wind, filled with dark spirits by Bauglir himself. The great bear had eaten many of their people. There was suspicion that he had eaten Elmo too and Elmo's woman. Galadhon wanted the man eater dead just as much as she did, maybe more.
He had accepted her challenge. Afterwards there were many who had laughed and teased her and said that she could never be beaten in the hunt, that she had let the prince win because she had wanted him to take her as wife, but Candil knew that she had never relented, that Galadhon had beaten her fairly, that she had proved the weaker that day. She could never have been happy with a man who had lost the challenge. She could never have been satisfied with a man whom she had let win.
Galadhon had thrown the head of the man-eater at her feet and claimed her. Then they had stood before the fire and said the words of Ilúvatar before their people. And at the end she had brought him into her tent and lain with him, the blood of the beast still upon them, a fortuitous sign of a husband and wife united in the blood of their enemies. The first time was private, shared between man and wife. The second time he took her out into the forest and they lay together beneath the stars so that the ancestors could witness their union and thereby grant their blessing.
She bore him Celeborn not long after and he was proud of her for bearing the child, for bravery in childbed. Everyone knew the birth had been painful. Everyone knew of the blood. And she was honored highly for it. The Sindar said that the most painful births were reserved for the most formidable of women, that such women were blessed. Galadhon had made songs of her strength and sang them before their people and the people had rejoiced in her children.
Elu had blessed the children and it was a relief to have Elu back after his wandering. Foolishly they had believed that nothing bad could happen, not with Elu and Melian there. But then the great wolves had come and they had been inhabited by the dark wind. Bauglir had filled them with the souls of the dead. They had come tearing through the Sindarin encampment and Melian had banished them, but not before one of them had tried to eat her sons. She had fought them off and the wolves had gone howling into the wild. The warriors had pursued them, intent on slaying them all, and Galadhon had sworn that they would die by his hand, had sworn that any who dared touch her or their sons would meet their end on his blade.
Galadhon was fury in battle, he was terror and death. In battle none could withstand him and his enemies trembled at the fury in his dark eyes. Galadhon had never been injured in battle but this time he had been killed. The soldiers had returned to the camp weeping and singing lamentations and Candil had gone out into the forest. It was not a thing that was done, the touching of a dead body. In death the spirit fled and the darkness remained, all that had been evil in a person wheeling about the corpse. And to touch a corpse was to enter that gyre, to invite the dark spirits within, to welcome the corpse sickness. To touch a corpse was forbidden.
She had found his body, cold and still in death, the fire of his spirit gone, lying in a bed of blood. The Sindar said that blood gives and blood takes. She had brought life forth in a bed of blood and her husband had surrendered his life in the same. The Sindar said that weeping is dangerous. In the same way as shouts of pain attract the dark wind, so do tears. They signal weakness through which the dark spirits can enter the body and pollute it.
But she had already touched the corpse. She had kissed his cold lips and thrice whispered, 'I love you. I love you. I love you.' The corpse sickness was upon her and her husband's spirit had entered her body. Whatever darkness had existed in him rattled shrieking in her bones and sank into the marrow. What more harm could her bitter tears do? She would have torn her own heart open if she could and cried out and welcomed the spirits within her so that she could carry as much of him in her heart as she could manage.
The corpse sickness could be removed. She could return to the encampment and they would sing the Healing Way over her. They would extricate the dark remnants of her husband's soul from her bones and bleed the memory of him from her pores. They would cleanse her if she asked for it. After she was cleansed she could hold her sons again. After she was cleansed she could hunt again. After she was cleansed they would sing songs of her daring and the strength of her sons.
But she did not want to be cleansed. She wanted to carry him in her body forever. She wanted to carry him into eternity with her. She wanted to carry him into the stars. And so she had set fire to his body and burned it until his bones turned to ash while the spirits whispered to her to cast her body upon the pyre and she nearly did. She could not return to her sons now, not now that she carried the corpse sickness. She would not pollute them. She would not mar their lives with her darkness. She would not endanger them.
Her footsteps carried her into the Far East, lithe as a deer, strong as a lion, into the unknown and unknowable, into deserts where the indigo sky spun illimitlessly above, pinpricks of fractal savage light strewn in the primeval firmament by some unseen and titanic hand. Onwards she ran in search of her husband's star, the centuries slipping by as quickly as the desert sands, ever watching for some new blossoming of light, praying to the savage gods that Galadhon had not refused the summons as his life fled his body.
The snake seemed to have drained itself of venom and she removed it from her wrist, raising her forearm to her lips to suck at the blood mixed with venom until it congealed in her mouth and the flow stopped. And then she slew the serpent with a flick of the razor sharp edge of her knife, the sinewy torsed body twitching and flailing even after death, and she drank the blood of her kill; the blood of her kills would make her strong.
The head she discarded and the body she tied to her belt, wiping the blood from her lips. It would provide her sustenance later. Her back bristled with weapons as she shouldered her pack and turned her eyes to the stars. And then in the distance she thought she was the nascent glimmer of a new star, a strange flickering across the horizon like a coal in a copper brazier, light pulsing once, twice, thrice along the edge of the world, and onwards she ran toward morning, singing a war song as she went.
We circle round, we circle round,
The boundaries of the earth.
Wearing our long wing feathers as we fly,
Wearing our long wing feathers as we fly.
I am in my power,
I am, I am.