AN: *bows* Many thanks to both of yi', Nix and Fang! A chapter for a review, y'know---enjoy.
Disclaimer: "So we get to put up another chapter. Well bucket o' joy and a sloppy fish."---AC
Disclaimer Num. 2: "*snif* But I LIKE it when I get to put up a chapter!!"---Avis
Disclaimer Num. 3: "…Lord, why was I dropped in a house with these morons? Why?"---Bass
La vie est vaine;
Un peu d'amour,
Un peu de haine…
Et puis---bon jour.
La vie est breve;
Un peu d'espoir,
Un peu de reve…
Et puis---bon soir.
Peu de chose et Presque trop, by Leon de Montenaeken.
{Life is vain;
A little love,
A little hate…
And then---Good day.
Life is short;
A little hoping,
A little dreaming…
And then---Good night.}
Chapter Three:
The Blue Curtain
The boy dead was Ernest, age ninety-two; only a teenager. He was a swordsman recently moved to the archery divisions for his slight build. Young, but relatively experienced, he would have put up a fight.
The body indicated he had. His hand still grasped a sword---what was left of one. The blade had been snapped off near the hilt, and he was left grasping a broken weapon. His grip was like a vise even in death; his knuckles were white. His bow was still hanging unused at his back.
There seemed to be no good reason for his demise. He'd lived long enough to have learned some sense; he would not have pointlessly attacked a beast that had the power to kill him so easily. Yet the body was relatively unharmed, apart from a superficial gash in his side and the killing blow to his chest. Whatever had taken his life did not do it for food. The killing was pointless.
The body was now lying in a partitioned section of the Infirmary, waiting for burial. Maren subconsciously lowered their voices as they went past the door in respect for the dead. Varia had broken down sobbing when he was brought in, and was now being soothed by Stella in another room.
Luna had known Ernest relatively well. He was young, but intelligent, a fast thinker and very obedient; liked among the younger generations. She'd had high hopes for his career. Now he was dead.
Moving through the youths' barracks with Reala on their way to the Infirmary, she found herself disturbed by the very pointlessness of the boy's death. A being that killed for food could be understood, a being that killed for protection of territory or feelings of a threat could be reasoned with or worked around. But a being that killed pointlessly, with no known reasons for aggravation, meant a difficult threat to assess and then take control of. The fact that an unexpected attack had happened twice within a very few days was another reason for worry.
Not the mention that it made the boy's death utterly pointless.
"By all rights they shouldn't even be here," she muttered. She had the disturbing suspicion that the creature who was responsible for Ernest's death was another golgoth. Stella had, with some degree of sickness, inspected the dead boy's body; the killing blow had crushed his heart, and he most likely died almost instantly. She was glad for that. The unsettling part was the fact that the wound itself resembled nothing closer than the Gao bite Emil had been under her care for only a few days ago. The wound was crusted with both dried blood and, alarmingly, a few pebbles. She confided her discovery to Luna alone, trusting the sparring instructor's judgment on what to do with the information; Luna resultantly found herself saddled with the responsibility of figuring out what to do. After some thought she wisely decided to go to Reala and lay the thing in his hands.
It had taken a bit of persuasion, but he'd consented to come and see the suspicious wound for himself. She hoped he would know what to do after that.
Upon entering the Infirmary, they were greeted by a solemn-looking Stella; Varia was nowhere to be seen, having abandoned her post at the Infirmary once the body was brought in. Luna had thought she could hear muffled sniffling coming from the Fire Hall as they passed.
The healer nodded once to Reala, giving Luna a small smile. Time was not wasted on pleasantries. "Where is he?"
"Behind th' curtain, milard." She nodded towards a blue curtain that had been erected around a corner of the room, normally used for a patient's privacy. Reala strode over and disappeared behind the cloth.
Luna looked back to the healer, her voice quiet. "How's Varia?"
"Eh, gettin' on," replied Stella non-committally. "She's still havin' trouble graspin' ahold of it, y'know. She thought we weren't goin' t' have any more problems with attacks, and now what with Lord NiGHTS, and then this…"
"Understandable," murmured Luna. "She has every right to be upset. What did you do with the rest of them?" She gestured to the empty beds about them, beds that had originally been occupied by casualties from the last attack.
"Sent 'em out." A wry smile touched the healer's face. "I told 'em they could come back when they thought they needed a change of dressing, but not b'fore. None of 'em were really bad, anyway…apart from Aster. And you, Miss Luna." The title of respect was stated sarcastically, a sly reprimand. "You weren't suppos't t' be out for another few days."
"I couldn't let my kids go out to battle alone," protested Luna.
"I know, I know. 'Tis better this way, anyhow. I didn't want any of 'em t' be here with---y'know." She nodded towards the stark blue curtain.
Luna nodded as well, glancing towards the subject of their whispered conversation just in time to see the cloth pushed aside as Reala left the enclosed space, looking to the side in thought. He raised his head and met her gaze, and she saw from the weary look in his eyes that he finally grasped the seriousness of the situation. She would have felt a small twinge of triumph if she hadn't known what lay behind the blue curtain.
She looked at him expectantly. "What do you want me to do?"
He sighed. "Nothing as of now. I need to speak to Lord Wizeman about this."
"Of course."
He passed her silently. Stella shook her head knowingly. "I tell yi, Luna, we're in for a pretty large headache."
"Isn't that the truth. Already were, anyway, so it's not like this will do anything more than make things tougher."
"An' the problem is, we don't know what t' expect."
Luna looked back to the blue curtain, and said nothing.
Reala strode purposefully down the hall, ignoring the hustle and clamor around him of maren hanging out and comparing rumors. Many of them looked to him as he passed, hoping for answers; he gave them none. He had more important things to attend to.
The young maren's death was disquieting. One golgoth had been a problem that could be worked around and then forgotten; they were supposedly extinct, but it was believable that it had managed to hide from the hunting parties that had scoured the dream world until only a few decades back. But two was simply something that could not be ignored. If there were truly some of the dreambeasts still left, then the scouting practices and training missions run every day could quickly turn into casualties, and then it would be some time before the Hunters could be brought together again…
Distracted with this new problem as he was, it was no surprise that he never even noticed Jackle until they nearly collided. He jerked his head up and glared at the demi-maren. "Watch where you're going, Jackle."
"Sorry, Reala." Jackle bobbed a sort of half-bow, and continued bouncing happily down the hall. Reala paused to stare after him. That demi-maren…
The doors were heavy with wrought iron worked into their stone faces, but thankfully a small wooden plate had been imbedded in one of them for the sake of maren knuckles. It was this plate that Reala rapped on with focused quickness, knowing he needed to speak to his master quickly. Wizeman's voice, when it rang out in answer, was low in a thoughtful tone. "Enter."
Reala gave the doors a push, following them as they opened inward, and moving quietly to the foot of his master's throne. He bowed smoothly, then straightened. "Lord Wizeman."
A pair of stone hands drifted down to meet him, one on either side, their eyes questioning. "Why have you come before me, Reala?"
"There has been an unexpected occurrence," replied Reala quietly.
The hands turned slightly to look at each other, almost as if they were conferring. Wizeman's voice was not edged with interest as a nightmaren's would be, but Reala knew the ruler's curiosity had been piqued. "And what is this unexpected occurrence?"
"Another maren was attacked in the woods."
Two more hands floated down to gaze at him. "Explain. What happened?"
"We do not know much, my lord. One of the younger sword fighters, recently moved to the archers. He was, apparently, out alone after the mission was called off…" His voice faltered slightly, and Wizeman noted a brief flash of conflicting emotions in the general's eyes. He hadn't had much time to process the night's events. "One of the other archers noticed he was missing, and the archery instructor, Tessa, sent out a small search party. They found the missing boy's body in the northern parts of Mystic Forest, near Frozen Bell and the mountains. He was…killed in an odd way. The body seemed to be mostly untouched, but a large bite-mark was centered around his heart. I inspected it closely, and I believe he was killed by a golgoth."
The four hands edged a bit closer. "Why?"
"The pattern of the teeth and their placement on the jaw was very close to that I remember of the golgoth; also, I found several pebbles embedded in the wound."
Here he held a hand up towards his leader, spread flat; the pairs of hands drew close to see what he was proffering. Several small, crumbling pebbles lay in his palm.
"These are much like the stone of the golem," said Wizeman, after a moment of silently studying the small stones. Reala nodded.
"Yes, but the bite was far too narrow and long to be a golem. I honestly think a golgoth was the boy's killer."
"I see." The hands pulled away, floating at a small distance apart in thought. For a moment Wizeman was silent, and Reala waited patiently.
Finally one of the hands waved leisurely. "Well handled, Reala. Your observations are astute. From this point on no nightmaren is allowed outside the walls without a partner. Inform me as soon as anything else concerning this topic is revealed."
"Of course, my lord." Reala bowed.
"You may leave."
"Thank you, my lord."
As he left, Wizeman's hand drifted up to his face, providing a resting place for his chin; a thoughtful posture that he didn't need, but fell into absentmindedly. A vague unsettlement in the air, and another appearance of a golgoth; this did not bode well at all.
Ernest's burial was a quiet affair. He was laid to rest on the fringes of Spring Valley, and many friends gathered to see it done. Several teachers who had him in their classes also attended; the rest of the younger population stayed away, unsure of what they should do at such a time. Death was not something many of them had ever had to face before. The older maren, those who had been around back when fighting was still a common occurrence, kept to themselves.
Once the last words were said, and several flowers and other trinkets were placed at the base of the stone marker that Amaranth had chiseled, the group went back to Nightmare. No one wandered off to think alone. Somewhere nearby, NiGHTS was imprisoned in the Ideya Palace.
His plight was nearly forgotten in the shadow of Ernest's death, but not entirely. The fallen leader's name was whispered among the younger maren every so often, and one or two glanced around at the surrounding vegetation stealthily, hoping to perhaps catch a glance of the nightmaren who had become a traitor overnight. They did not see him.
Night. Darkness crept softly over Nightmare Castle, soothing the weary minds and restless bodies of the nightmaren living there; a time to sleep, a time to forget. A time to regain strength in readiness for a new day, a time to take a breath and allow worries to be placed in a musty corner of the mind until tomorrow.
For some, a time to think.
Jackle leaned over his balcony, arms folded, wearing only his cloak and shoes; his hat and gloves had been discarded without a thought, and they lay on the floor in a crumpled heap. The faint light of the rising moon spiked across them in thin dusty streaks, flashes of red and yellow standing out among the dim, shadowed cloth.
The demi-maren was watching the moon rise, its path too slow for the eye to follow and yet visible in after-effect. His crow friend was perched next to him, as still as stone, black eyes gleaming with unsettling intelligence. The silence between them was the comfortable well-worn quiet of good friends.
Jackle inhaled, running a hand through the short, now-invisible locks that tumbled messily about his forehead. "Shards, I just want to go jump off a cliff."
AC cawed, which Jackle was willing to take as encouragement to go on. "It's just…so confusing. Everything. It'd be soooooo much easier just to go leap off a cliff and hit he ground so hard that'cha never woke up. Like really really hard. Wham." He flicked at a crumbling stone corner to illustrate his point, sending a tiny pebble falling to oblivion and the grass a long way below.
AC, had he had any visible eyebrows, would have raised one. As it was he merely cocked his head to the side, his version of giving someone an incredulous look. Jackle shrugged and slumped lower on the railing. "I mean NiGHTS is stuck in Spring Valley, and why the heck would Wizeman put him there? Why didn't he just…you know…whop his head off? Why didn't he just talk to him if he wanted to keep him? Why's he just stuck him in the middle of some grass?"
His fingers rubbed slowly at the damaged corner, studiously chafing away small nuggets of rock that fell away into the gathering darkness below. "And Reala's uptight like everything, I mean nothing. Like a lot. And the others are all confused. But they have NO idea what confusion's like." Jackle spread his arms wide, beginning to spin in circles, head tipped to the sky. "Confusion's like when you're all covered by dark and there's no way out and no-one's there and there are these little nice voices in your head but a big voice keeps driving them out! Stupid big voice. But the little voices are nice, and they keep things company there, so it doesn't feel so empty and close and dark anymore. Voices are fun, but they're hard to understand. And I know a secret nobody knows. Nobody at all. I like shadows, you know that?"
AC bobbed his head once.
"Yeah, I like them too. Maren say they're scary and dark and evil, but they're not! You hafta have light to have darkness, you know. It's a nice balance. Dark I don't like. Do you?"
AC shook his head.
"Yeah, I thought so. I mean black's pretty and all, but dark is spooky when you can't get out of it---then it all gets in your clothes and ears and eyes and noses and mouths and minds and it takes for-EVER to get out again…and all these little streaks get stuck in your mind, you know? All streaky and stuff. And then you have to go stare at the sun to blaze 'em out again. What were we talking about again?"
AC pulled his head back slightly, doing his best shrug possible. Jackle paused and thought about it for a moment, leaning on the balcony railing again. He brushed absently at a strand of indiscernible hair that had fallen in his eyes.
"Oh yeah, I remember. Jumping off a cliff. 'Cause everything's so confusing." He leaned forward, a pleased smile coming to his face at the remembrance. "That was it. M'kay, so everything's really confusing. And I don't know what these people are thinking. Say, that's a nice breeze coming through…isn't it?"
The crow beside him turned his head, head-feathers flicking up in the motion as the wind brushed through them, making a brief headdress of ebony. He bobbed once, and Jackle leaned further into the gust, eyes closing in enjoyment. "Mmmm…that's a fresh one. Wind's always so nice after a storm, huh? All clean and fresh. I like it before a storm, too. Did I mention today was confusing?"
AC nodded. Jackle smiled and relaxed, his stomach pressed against the balcony railing, head hanging down and invisible hair ruffling in the wind. He was nearly horizontal. "Just wanted to make sure! Whoo, here's the blood…" His eyes closed as the blood began traveling to his head, making things feel thick and warm. A buzzing sensation slowly settled on his brain. The wind cooled his skin, and he sighed in happiness. He was floating in a tingling state of silence, warmth and coolness running around in circles on his skin, held in a thick embrace of air. Nirvana.
AC stretched, wings extending up above his shoulders, then standing on either foot, one at a time, to distend that wing out to its full length. Jackle, drunk with his humming position of near-unconsciousness, did not take notice.
With a deep intake of breath, he flipped himself back upright, feet hitting the floor with a quiet thud; and immediately stumbled back into the wall, sliding down its surface to rest in a little heap on the floor, hands limp between his knees. His head lolled to one side as he grinned lopsidedly at his friend. "Uhnnn…'scuse me if I pass out," he mumbled.
In reply, AC jumped from his perch on the railing and hopped over, bouncing in the curious gait of a crow to the demi-maren's side, where he flapped up to Jackle's knee. Jackle smiled as the crow shuffled a bit and then squatted and fluffed out, making himself comfortable as if he were going to sleep. "Thanks, AC."
His slightly unfocused eyes wandered up to the night sky, where the moon was now riding high. "Look, AC. Mistress Moon's gotten far on her walk, hasn't she?"
The crow allowed the heavenly light a brief look, and nodded sleepily. Huddled in a corner on his balcony, mind humming with tingling warmth, Jackle fell asleep.
In Spring Valley, the moon's light was largely un-hindered, trees being few; its light shone brightly across the dream. A slight wind remained from yesterday's storm, but it was only a breeze.
In his prison, NiGHTS was sitting on the cold stone platform, knees drawn to his chest and arms locked about them, not so much as protection from the cold but to try and keep his heart from falling apart. A whole day of sitting in silence, doing nothing. A whole day of being alone, of thinking, of pondering what had happened. A whole day of thought. It had taken forever to pass.
A whole day.
That was what really frightened him, he'd decided. He'd run over everything that had happened until his thoughts were like a song being sung over and over again, always the same, never changing, and he knew how the song ended. Over and over and over. Nothing ever changed.
Things were hard to accept, but he'd realized that he had a long time to accept them. And so, perhaps because his mind knew that there were easier things to grasp a hold of, perhaps because it figured he'd had enough mental pain, or perhaps just because it was being stubborn, it had sealed the memories and feelings and thoughts under a glass plate, where NiGHTS could see them, remember them, think over them, move around them---but couldn't feel them. He found himself able to ponder everything, even his brother's pain and fury, without much hurt. His mind had sealed away that serpent's bite for another time and place.
NiGHTS wasn't really sure of it all; all he knew was that he could accept what had happened, and he could continue on with life. That was where the next problem started.
What life was there to live?
He'd been here one day. One day. In that one day, he had run over every single thought he could come up with, pondering things, running over reactions and expressions and conversations and trying to look at what had just happened from all angles. He was fairly calm.
He was also extremely, horribly bored.
That was what scared him. This had been one day. What would he be like on the twentieth? The hundredth? Thousandth? He feared losing it; becoming a raving maniac, singing at the top of his lungs, beating himself pointlessly against the stubborn walls that stung slightly every time he touched them. Screaming at every maren and creature who passed by; hurting himself for fun. He was afraid of going insane.
'Although perhaps it wouldn't be that bad after all,' he thought, picking absently at the cloth surrounding that cursed shard that refused to be pulled away from his chest. 'I mean, Jackle's lost it, hasn't he? He was acting a bit vacant when---' His mind paused, allowing him to eye the memory through the glass case, scanning lines and pictures until he came to the part of the story he was looking for. 'When Reala and I were bringing in those two dreamers. He acted a bit light-headed, but fine otherwise. I wonder…was he really insane? I never really thought about it before. He seemed pretty much the same. It that what insane is? Will I be like that, when I've been in here too long? And how long is too long, I wonder? Years? Decades? Centuries?'
'Or perhaps I won't go insane. Perhaps I'll just sit here and wait forever, and when the end finally comes, if it ever does, I'll still be sitting here. Staring at that same blasted tree.'
The tree did not seem to return his ill will, as it had grown in a particularly odd shape, with the result that an opening of leaves allowed the moon's light to beam down on the Ideya Palace. NiGHTS began tracing a finger along the edge of his shadow, watching as his skin was suffused with light and then darkened by shade as he moved it back and forth. 'I don't think I can even starve to death. I haven't felt hungry yet…I wonder if Wizeman the Witless has something to do with that.'
"Ha," he said out loud. "See, I called you Wizeman the Witless. And you didn't do anything, did you? You don't even know I did it. And if you did, what could you do about it? Wizeman the Moron! The Cheat! The Evil Overlord Wannabe who can't even control his own creations! Wizeman the MONSTER!"
He sucked in a breath, quieting. 'Dear Ideya, I'm already talking to myself.'
NiGHTS was silent as the moon for the rest of the night. It was late, and he was tired; despite his fear, he fell asleep.
He dreamed of playing children and a girl who sang.