The Black Cauldron and all its characters belong to Lloyd Alexander and Disney, me-sah only own me OC and da story, mon! XD
Chapter 3
Hot, fiery blades, searing, scorching, and stabbing deep into every inch of him.
Viciously.
Relentless.
He did not know if the constant sound of agonized screaming was coming from the other evil souls trapped in the Cauldron, or from his own throat.
If it was he could no longer feel it. The pure, excruciating agony rolling through him blocked out any and everything else.
Except the tortured wails that seemed to re-vibrate inside his own head.
He couldn't concentrate, at all. Couldn't think. Couldn't remember his own name. There was nothing but endless torture here.
He must have inhaled, because his very insides suddenly filled with scorching flames, raking their fiery fingers deep inside his body more painfully than the claws of a dragon itself, making him scream like a beast.
There was so much torment. . .so much agony. . .so much noise. . .
He weakly brought his hands up to his head to try and block it out, but the gesture was fruitless and brought a fresh wave of flaming blades raking over every inch of his body, which may have earned a fresh scream from him, but he could not hear himself.
He reached out desperately in the darkness before him, the black void, clawing up fistfuls of burning ashes in his palms, reaching, searching, frantically, for something he had forgotten. Something he didn't even remember, something he knew he needed more than anything else.
But whatever it was, he knew he would never get it, for he was in the Cauldron, trapped in this torturing Hell, for all eternity. His soul was chained here for ceaseless agony, forever.
His voice. . .or he fancied it was. . .rasped out harshly, grating over his scorched vocal chords, gradually turning into a scream of agony.
"Please. . .No more. . .please. . .stop. . .I beg you. . .it hurts. . .It hurts!"
He could not hear himself. No one answered.
He couldn't think, at all. Nothing but scorched out screaming and soul-shattering waves of lava washed over him, inside and out, bringing more endless, excruciating agony. It was all he knew.
The noise increased suddenly, violently building to an ear-bursting pitch, sounding like the screeching of thick metal being ripped viciously in half. He shrank as far as he could, but there was no escape.
Sometimes, things happen in everyone's consciousness without being noticed for a while that they have occurred. Something you don't notice right away, and when you finally do notice, you feel disoriented and maybe a little scared, or relieved, depending on the situation.
For instance, when your so sick you've been in the bathroom for the past four hours constantly throwing up with a bad stomach virus, that when the pain finally subsides and you find the strength to weakly stand up, you realize the phone is ringing. Somehow you know its been for a while, and you try to travel as far back into your painful memories of the previous drama as you can, trying to deduce just how long its been jangling off the hook.
A similar experience had just happened to the Horned King.
It may have been only a moment, or it may have been hours, (Time had no meaning here) but somewhere, in the dark, agonized corridors of his mind, it could have been his first conscious thought, although in reality he was far too tired and weak to think at all.
Somewhere, deep inside his ravaged, pain-scarred mind, he slowly became aware. Of something. . .different. Something foreign.
Utterly, completely exhausted, he reached his trembling consciousness toward it, weakly trying to touch what was new. . .before his thoughts comprehended what had changed.
It was the silence. Complete, total, unmarred. . .Silence.
The roaring, snarling flames, the agonized screaming of the eternally damned, the wicked, insane laughter of the one who tortured them all. . .gone.
There was nothing to hear.
And the pain. The burning, scorching agony, the blades of pure lava slicing through him without end. . .was gone. He couldn't feel anything.
Trembling with exhaustion, he slowly forced his eyes open to. . .light?
Pure, white, and endless. No flames, no darkness, nothing. Except soft, white light.
'What. . .happened. . .to me? Where. . .am I?' He asked silently, so exhausted he could barely think. Whether the question was to himself or someone else, he did not know.
"Rise, Horned King,"
a voice suddenly commanded him, breaking the lull. It sounded unbelievably loud in this foreign calm. It did not hold the cruelty or insane savagery of the noise from earlier, but it spoke with unquestionable authority and the dangerous promise of severe consequences if not obeyed immediately.
Trembling, from exhaustion and fresh terror too, nearly falling more than once, the Horned King struggled slowly to his feet, not daring to try and raise his eyes to see who was addressing him.
The voice continued.
"Due to circumstances beyond our range of control, you, Horned King, have been released from the hold and clutches of the Black Cauldron."
The Horned King realized it was not one voice, but rather, it sounded like many speaking at once to him, each saying the exact same thing, in the exact same tone, thereby giving the illusion of one, undivided voice.
'I have. . .been freed? From the Cauldron?' He slowly comprehended, but his realization was interrupted by the voice. . .voices?. . .speaking.
"We, the Fates, hereby decree that you shall be sent back to the land of Prydain."
The Horned King's eyes widened.
'I'm. . .being sent back? To. . .Prydain?' He thought, barely able to comprehend what was going on as another wave of weakness washed over him.
'That's. . .not possible. It can't be. Is it? I'm dead, my body is destroyed, gone. Only my soul remains. What is this they speak of?'
The Fates continued, breaking his train of thought.
"You will remain in Prydain for a period of eighteen moons. Your assignment in to get someone to love you, in spite of your heinous crimes and all the senseless evil you have ever done, before your time is up. However, you will not be entirely unaided, as it would be preposterous to assume you could do it alone. If you cannot complete your task in the time we have. . .graciously. . .given you,"
(Here, the Horned King heard the unwillingness in the voice to admit they had been forced beyond their control to do something they clearly did not want to do, and he felt a faint drop of smugness twitch inside him, but the feeling quickly passed as they continued)
"Arwawn is free to imprison you back into the Black Cauldron forever as he wishes."
At the sound of his dreaded master's name, the Horned King felt a spear of pure ice impale his very soul.
"No, Please No!" He cried in complete panic as he fell to his knees, begging for mercy, "Don't let. . ."
"SILENCE!" The Fates roared at him, cutting him off sharply.
The Horned King cowered and put his hands to his face in terror, but forced himself not to speak again and infuriate them further.
The Fates continued in their authoritative tone.
"However, we have given you servants to aid you in the task we have assigned you, Horned King. But know this, (Here the voice became even more authoritative) You will have to Earn your freedom yourself, just as you alone earned your own demise."
The white, empty place the Horned King had found himself in began to spin around him as the voices continued. Slowly at first, then picking up gradual speed, spinning all around him in layers of varying white. A cloudstorm. He himself remained stationary, in the 'eye' of the swirling mass, as it were.
"Remember, Horned King," the voice warned, "If you cannot earn a human's love in the time allotted, your soul will be doomed to the Black Cauldron. For ALL Eternity."
The spinning mass around the Horned King seemed to gather all of itself together several feet in front of him, before surging at him in a tidal wave of white. He threw up his arms to protect his face as the whiteness threw him mightily off his feet and backward into pitch darkness. The last thing he heard was the Fates, speaking in that multi-voiced tone,
"Use your chance. . .Wisely."