Ohaiyo! I am most disgruntled that there is no section here for Tanith
Lee...perhaps if more people wrote fanfic for her, there would be.
This is something that came to me at work, and thus will only be posted in
bits and pieces. It's going to be a good deal darker than my usual
stuff(Not as dark as Ms. Lee's Books of Paradys, but certainly as dark as a
lot of the Lords of Darknes series)and certainly more explicit, though I
shall make the attempt to keep it tasteful. Really, the use of metaphor in
her stories is what fascinates me the most; future chapters will see pale
versions of that style.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything about the Flat Earth: Not Azhrarn or Azhriaz, not the Vazdru or Eshva or Drin, not Chuz, not Uhlume, not Fate, not Simmu, not anything else. Lirisen only is my creation, and she is little next to Azhriaz(though that, too, is a point that I am striving to make). If a reader takes momentary diversion from this, that is well; however, I make no money from it.
Black Wind
Once, in the days when the Earth was still flat, a daughter of Azhrarn, the Lord of Wickedness, took offense at her father's existence and did the single thing he would find unpardonable; she escaped from his hold with another Lord of Darkness; Chuz, Lord Madness, who was thought to have murdered her mother, Azhrarn's beloved and only true lifemate.
In fury, Azhrarn ordered the Eshva and Vazdru, the highest ranks of demonkind, to find his daughter and bring her to him for punishment. No one in history had mocked Azhrarn and escaped unharmed, but for Chuz; and Chuz he wanted also.
The Daughter of Azhrarn the Beautiful, though...who was she to be so easily found by those lesser than she? For she herself was a Lord of Darkness, though she knew it not. In the desire to show Azhrarn that they were looking, they were making the attempt, the Vazdru and the Eshva traveled through the land and took of girls of beauty, those with blue eyes and dark hair, and men of strangeness, those of golden eyes or half-marred faces. Surely they knew that they would recognize Sovaz(for then she was called thus)the moment they saw her, for a daughter of Azhrarn, a female principle of Lord Wickedness, would not have the seeming of any peasant or even royal mortal girl. They took wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, as a way of saying Lord, we look, but find not...still, we look!
This, then, is the story of one of those; a dark-haired, bright eyed girl of almost seventeen, named Lirisen, or "light through a candleshade."
Lirisen was the daughter of a landowner who had been a farmer in his younger days. She had seven half-sisters, all of them dark of skin and pale of hair, for their mother was her father's first wife. Her mother was taken in his age, a pretty young thing from the north; small, rather than of man-height, pale rather than tanned, ebon of hair and sapphire of eye rather than fair haired and dark eyed.
Lirisen was beautiful, but did not truly notice--what is one more jewel in a necklace of similar jewels? She was the eighth such beautiful daughter, and loved her sisters too dearly to realize that she was prettier than they.
When the terrible day of her kidnapping came, it was almost too fast to be noticed. One instant, she was plucking flowers to take home and braid in her hair and the hair of her sisters; blue flowers for her, rosy-petalled blossoms for them...the next moment, there was a rushing of scented air, and she lost consciousness. Chosen like a dark flower from a field of flowers, she was borne up into the air in the talons of a giant black eagle; one of the Vazdru lords in another form.
"This one is almost similar to our Lord and his misbegotten child. Think you that he shall notice?" The voice was dark. Lirisen thought that she had never heard before a voice with color; this one rang in her ears in a shade of midnight blue.
"I think he will note it, and pass by again. Our best is not good enough for our Lord."
This voice was the topaz of summer wine.
Lirisen opened her eyes.
What she saw stopped her heart, and made her want to faint again, but froze her so that she could not. Two Vazdru lords, beautiful beyond anything she had ever seen, dark haired and pale skinned and sharp eyed, studied her.
They were handsome(what a weak word for such powerful appearances! For a word of the first earth, which was wise and foolish enough to have terms that described them accurately!)and noble in gesture, long fingers pointing at the sky and at her. Their faces were similar as brothers' faces would be; aquiline, sensuous, and cruel. Like marble, or the Moon, but that the Moon reflects the light of the sun, and sunlight is anathema to them, these noble lords.
"Why have you taken me?" Lirisen asked in a tremulous voice. In her hand still was one cerulean bloom, and in the presence of the lords it raised its petals and turned to them, as to the sun. Unnoticing, Lirisen's shuddering hands snapped it to pieces.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything about the Flat Earth: Not Azhrarn or Azhriaz, not the Vazdru or Eshva or Drin, not Chuz, not Uhlume, not Fate, not Simmu, not anything else. Lirisen only is my creation, and she is little next to Azhriaz(though that, too, is a point that I am striving to make). If a reader takes momentary diversion from this, that is well; however, I make no money from it.
Black Wind
Once, in the days when the Earth was still flat, a daughter of Azhrarn, the Lord of Wickedness, took offense at her father's existence and did the single thing he would find unpardonable; she escaped from his hold with another Lord of Darkness; Chuz, Lord Madness, who was thought to have murdered her mother, Azhrarn's beloved and only true lifemate.
In fury, Azhrarn ordered the Eshva and Vazdru, the highest ranks of demonkind, to find his daughter and bring her to him for punishment. No one in history had mocked Azhrarn and escaped unharmed, but for Chuz; and Chuz he wanted also.
The Daughter of Azhrarn the Beautiful, though...who was she to be so easily found by those lesser than she? For she herself was a Lord of Darkness, though she knew it not. In the desire to show Azhrarn that they were looking, they were making the attempt, the Vazdru and the Eshva traveled through the land and took of girls of beauty, those with blue eyes and dark hair, and men of strangeness, those of golden eyes or half-marred faces. Surely they knew that they would recognize Sovaz(for then she was called thus)the moment they saw her, for a daughter of Azhrarn, a female principle of Lord Wickedness, would not have the seeming of any peasant or even royal mortal girl. They took wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, as a way of saying Lord, we look, but find not...still, we look!
This, then, is the story of one of those; a dark-haired, bright eyed girl of almost seventeen, named Lirisen, or "light through a candleshade."
Lirisen was the daughter of a landowner who had been a farmer in his younger days. She had seven half-sisters, all of them dark of skin and pale of hair, for their mother was her father's first wife. Her mother was taken in his age, a pretty young thing from the north; small, rather than of man-height, pale rather than tanned, ebon of hair and sapphire of eye rather than fair haired and dark eyed.
Lirisen was beautiful, but did not truly notice--what is one more jewel in a necklace of similar jewels? She was the eighth such beautiful daughter, and loved her sisters too dearly to realize that she was prettier than they.
When the terrible day of her kidnapping came, it was almost too fast to be noticed. One instant, she was plucking flowers to take home and braid in her hair and the hair of her sisters; blue flowers for her, rosy-petalled blossoms for them...the next moment, there was a rushing of scented air, and she lost consciousness. Chosen like a dark flower from a field of flowers, she was borne up into the air in the talons of a giant black eagle; one of the Vazdru lords in another form.
"This one is almost similar to our Lord and his misbegotten child. Think you that he shall notice?" The voice was dark. Lirisen thought that she had never heard before a voice with color; this one rang in her ears in a shade of midnight blue.
"I think he will note it, and pass by again. Our best is not good enough for our Lord."
This voice was the topaz of summer wine.
Lirisen opened her eyes.
What she saw stopped her heart, and made her want to faint again, but froze her so that she could not. Two Vazdru lords, beautiful beyond anything she had ever seen, dark haired and pale skinned and sharp eyed, studied her.
They were handsome(what a weak word for such powerful appearances! For a word of the first earth, which was wise and foolish enough to have terms that described them accurately!)and noble in gesture, long fingers pointing at the sky and at her. Their faces were similar as brothers' faces would be; aquiline, sensuous, and cruel. Like marble, or the Moon, but that the Moon reflects the light of the sun, and sunlight is anathema to them, these noble lords.
"Why have you taken me?" Lirisen asked in a tremulous voice. In her hand still was one cerulean bloom, and in the presence of the lords it raised its petals and turned to them, as to the sun. Unnoticing, Lirisen's shuddering hands snapped it to pieces.