Summary: On a hill stood a tree, bent and scarred, and from the tree hung a rope, and from the rope, a man.
A/N: If you can't tell from the summary, this story is very graphic and very dark. Please do not read if you're squeamish or are adverse to descriptions of death. These are your warnings, please heed them.
XxX
On a hill sat a tree, one half-dead, stretching like a giant crack against the blood-red sky. No villagers dared to tread near it, for all that it possessed no sentience, it loomed like a witched hunched over a cauldron, dark and sinister. No child dared to hang from its branches. No dog dared to dig at its roots.
Crows screeched in the tree, snapping their black beaks at each other and ruffling their feathers. They squabbled irritably, lifting into the air with a rustle of wings before settling back down. They cared not for the superstitions of the villagers, nor for whatever malevolent spirit that hung around it.
A bell tolled in the distance, from the stone tower of a castle.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
Too late, too late, too late.
The red bled from the sky, dripping off the clouds to sink below the earth. The inky dark blackness of night smothered daylight until it died with a gasp. But still, upon the hill, the tree loomed, a rotting scar silhouetted against the dying day.
Yuuri stood below the tree, hood hiding his face. His lips were pursed in fury, hands clenched around a staff. He cursed himself for not returning sooner. He knew the inhabitants of the castle beyond the tree did not tolerate magic. He knew they were bloodthirsty, greedy, always craving more to quench their sin-stained hands and lying, wicked tongues.
He knew they had no mercy.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
Too late, too late, too late.
A wind blew from the north. Yuuri could taste winter on his lips, and with it carried a sweet stench that clogged his nose. It was a rotten, horrid, cloying smell. He breathed it in, held his breath, made himself remember. He would not forget this night. He would not forget the unforgiveable sins of the castle's residents. The king and queen would reap their rewards, and the sun will shine on a castle painted crimson the next morning.
The tree creaked and sighed, bowing under the wind's insistent force. Its branches swayed, carrying the weight of the dead. Ashes danced on the air, still fresh, still smoldering. Yuuri took another breath, forced himself to remember every detail, every smell.
The smell of smoke, the smell of burning flesh, the smell of death.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
Too late, too late, too late.
There was the sound of a small cricket singing. Its chirp was nearly covered by the groaning of the tree, but still Yuuri heard it. It sang a funeral dirge for the dead, for the burning village just beyond the hill. Lives lost, fled from their mortal bodies and searching for sanctuary from the destruction. There, a woman's body crushing her baby, long dead from the fall that shattered its skull. And there, a man ran through with a sword, opening his stomach so his bloody guts provided a feast for vultures.
Yuuri's eyes were not sharp enough to find the cricket hidden within the ivy that crept up the tree, strangling it, leeching life from it like a parasite. Vines carved grooves, scars into the deadened wood, wringing it until there was no more life to give.
The cricket still sang, for the dead, for the king and queen twisting the life out of a dead land.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
Too late, too late, too late.
A horn called out, buzzing, cutting through the night. It came from the castle. A call for curfew. A call unheard by the ears of the villagers. Yuuri's head swarmed with the noise of blaring brass, for the callous king and queen who slaughtered their own subjects, afraid of the possibility of magic. They had undoubtedly caught the whispers of a sorcerer, a witch that passed through the village. They had undoubtedly caught the whispers of Yuuri.
Yuuri felt disgust, self-loathing, hatred rising in his throat, but he swallowed the bile and held the nausea. He would remember this feeling. He would remember what his presence had brought upon this innocent village.
The buzzing of the horn never stopped, and Yuuri realized, suddenly, that it was not the call of a trumpet but rather the buzzing of flies, swarming around charred bodies, around lifeless blue eyes to pluck at naked flesh. They laid like a blanket over the town, a cloud of disease around each body.
A cloud of death around the tree.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
Too late, too late, too late.
And there, flying through the night, a beetle. Yuuri watched it dispassionately as it landed on a head and plucked a silver hair for itself. The silver strand was bloodied, and at its root was bits of skin, bits of scalp, bits of white brain.
The beetle left the tree with its silver prize. Yuuri stared at the beaten head, at a man who had suffered torture before his death.
If only Yuuri had never wandered this way. If only he had never made friends in the village and met a man so wonderful Yuuri had promised himself only one more day, one more day. If only he had not been so selfish to inflict his presence upon the people. If only, if only.
They'd still all be alive today. He'd still be alive today, brilliant blue eyes and neat silver hair and gleaming armor of a knight with a heart too good for the desecrated land of this wretched kingdom.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
Too late, too late, too late.
Yuuri spied a spider crawling around the man's neck, around reddened skin scrubbed raw. It was weaving a web, a veil for the man like a handkerchief. Its small legs delicately picked at silk, spun it and attached it first to bloodied clothes, then to skin, then to the web.
The web was so fragile, so thin, so beautiful against the bloody skin. Yuuri's lover had been beautiful too. His laughter had been velvet against the air, his eyes warm and loving as they laid upon Yuuri. His hands had been roughened by calluses from a knight's training. His words had been sweet, like nectar, each time he snuck away from the castle and its demanding rules to meet Yuuri in the little peaceful village beyond stone walls. His heart had held honor, pride, loyalty, a kindness that could not be taught by the king and queen but was born from his very soul.
He had been so loving, so understanding, so willing to learn, to look beyond the stifling chains and rules of the king and queen and peer out into the wilderness, to truly understand magic, understand Yuuri. He'd been so willing to love something he'd been taught to never touch.
And Yuuri, through his selfishness, had led both him and the villagers to their deaths.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
Too late, too late, too late.
Yuuri turned his gaze to the castle, and through the anxiety, regret, ache of love lost, his anger flared to life. Magic, wild and free, rose around him, thrashing at the ground, the sky, incandescent in his rage, but never, never touching the tree.
And with each toll of the bell, the rope swung, and with it the body that hung from it. With each breeze, the hanged man swayed gently, oblivious to the beetle that plucked the silver hair out of his head, the flies that laid their eggs in his yielding, rotting flesh, the spider that wove a beautiful muslin across his neck. Yuuri burned the sight into his eyes.
With a deft flick, he burned the tree, burned the rope, burned the corpse. Yuuri stayed to watch his lover turn to ash and drift in the north wind, to watch the tree scarred with so many hangings its branches had been torn of its bark.
The fire roared at the fading sun.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
Too late, too late, too late.
He would burn the castle to the ground, crumble it into dust.
To avenge the lives lost. To avenge the woman with her child, the farmer, the innkeeper, the blacksmith. To avenge Yuuri's lost lover, that heart-shaped smile and loving heart.
To avenge Viktor.
XxX
A/N: Dark! Very very dark. Based on the poem Le Gibet by Aloysius Bertrand, second in the series of morbid, fantasy stories called Gaspard de la nuit. For those confused about the plot, Yuuri (a sorcerer) met Viktor in a small village beside a castle ruled by a king and queen very, very intolerant of magic. Think of the TV series Merlin. And once they caught whiff of a sorcerer who occasionally came to the village to meet with a lover (Viktor, a knight), they tortured Viktor for information, hung him, and burned the village to the ground.
There should be one more in the series, Scarbo, which is also pretty dark (like the rest in the series). For those of you interested, Gaspard de la nuit means Gaspard of the Night and is a whole book of prose poems by Bertrand. I've picked out the three that Maurice Ravel used as inspiration for his infamously hard piano pieces, also named Gaspard de la nuit. It's really hard to describe the premise in an author's note, so if you're interested, go Wikipedia it!
Thanks for reading! Comments, as always, are welcome.
Sincerely,
haplesshippo