Saturday, December 22, 2007.
(Cross-posted from Mutual Endeavors.)
Your long winter is yet to come. His long winter came and went. This year there was no death, no flood of memories to drown in before the hour struck. Though it still came, as it did every year. This year it did not come for him, and it came early.
The first year his gift was silence. He only remembered how the buzz of noise had ceased. There were no whispering voices in the air. No jingling notes of chime song. No maddening mysteries of riddles and rhyme. There was nothing but a soothing lack of what others had once believed to be a mental illness. Only schizophrenics heard voices. Only crazy boys suffering hallucinations saw things that no one else could see. Then there was nothing but peace for three blessedly long months.
When the second winter came, he knew her. He had finally learned the truth from the lies and knew his mother as no child of his kind ever should. She took her leave and he tucked her in for a season of sleep. There were church bells that morning, as there had been a few short days before. She shared secrets with him. They shared respect and better understanding of one another.
Last year had been the worst. His third winter brought him pain and death. She gave him a casket made of ice and buried his spirit under bones. They traded places. He slept in place of her. He dreamed. He woke as something he had never meant to be, but it was what he had to be.
This winter took everything away from him. It built no memorial for him. Contrary to the season, it turned everything to dust and ash. There was a fire.
Salvador had grown accustomed to fires breaking out in this city. A great many of them he had watched from distant places. He knew who had set them. He knew she had stopped, and it had been some time since anything important had been set ablaze. Seeing the horizon light up a color he could not see that night seemed strange. It was only strange because of the perfect timing and the mournful music in the air.
Outside, no more than a block away, the great bells of the Catholic church began to strike midnight.... A centralized sound broke through the howl of wolves. A single chiming note like copper rings on a staff being jangled together just once.... A haze of pulsing red shadowed the landscape of church ruins.
At the stroke of midnight, his world turned inside out.
The streets below were not empty. Rhydin was a city that never slept. There were always people at every hour. There were taverns and businesses that never closed. There was always someone walking by, as there was this night, to hear a body fall into a metal bin full of refuse tucked away in a passed by alley.
Winter came early, as a tidal wave of electric red that washed over him and pushed him from his ledge. Salvador fell overboard and sank into a sea that lapped the shore in reverse. The not yet full moon glowed as a brilliant white eye and burned his vision away. Like the flames that licked and devoured the club Ambrosia. Like the shadow that pooled up from the ashes to swallow a man whole.
The sky was not black that night, but red. A haze of constant swimming red that drowned and smothered him, pushed him against plastic bags and vegetable peels. He clawed at metal walls that screeched protest against his desperate climb. There was a pulse throbbing against his eyes and a haunting melody of copper chime ringing in his ears. Old words and conversations that growled like demonic incantations. The night became a flood of video left to play in rewind.
"Rehtom-eaf, ti hcout ro ekat lliw rehto on; enola enim dna enim si eman ym."
"Saw enim sa ... sega fo tsud eht dna ... emit ot tsol eb ton ti tel. Eman ruoy ekat ton meht tel. Og uoy nehw uoy fo lli kaeps ton meht tel. Rehtaf teews, sdeed doog od uoy."
What? Dazed and desperate to breathe, Salvador reached for the white eye of the moon and gathered it in his fist. Time had no meaning to the fae. They were only tools to the will of time. But if he could just clutch the dial in his hand and turn it back...
"My name is Lucien Jean-Pierre Rosie." It was as if a heated electricity had struck the air....
"My name is Lucien Jean-Pierre Rosie." Power, as old and ancient as the elder himself, churned the currents of the air and broke through the fae's domain....
"My name is Lucien Jean-Pierre Rosie." It curled tight, suffocated and drenched in a weight that was more than tangible or potent.
"My name is...."
"Let them not take your name."
"My name is mine and mine alone."
"Let it not be lost to time...."
"My name is...."
"...and the dust of ages..."
"...no other will take or touch it..."
"...as mine was."
"Gods give names to men so that they will build kingdoms for them."
"My name is...."
"And take them away so that they will build none."
"My name is...."
"I will see to it that he only makes a kingdom of the one."
"Else he make none."
"My name is..."
Salvador sucked in a copper-tainted breath and exhaled a sigh of a recent memory. Only, the words came out wrong. I spoke to a whisper once. I held a memory in my hand. "Ambrose," he hissed to the red night. He gathered the moon in his hand and sent the light away by closing his eyes.
(Cross-posted from Mutual Endeavors.)
Your long winter is yet to come. His long winter came and went. This year there was no death, no flood of memories to drown in before the hour struck. Though it still came, as it did every year. This year it did not come for him, and it came early.
The first year his gift was silence. He only remembered how the buzz of noise had ceased. There were no whispering voices in the air. No jingling notes of chime song. No maddening mysteries of riddles and rhyme. There was nothing but a soothing lack of what others had once believed to be a mental illness. Only schizophrenics heard voices. Only crazy boys suffering hallucinations saw things that no one else could see. Then there was nothing but peace for three blessedly long months.
When the second winter came, he knew her. He had finally learned the truth from the lies and knew his mother as no child of his kind ever should. She took her leave and he tucked her in for a season of sleep. There were church bells that morning, as there had been a few short days before. She shared secrets with him. They shared respect and better understanding of one another.
Last year had been the worst. His third winter brought him pain and death. She gave him a casket made of ice and buried his spirit under bones. They traded places. He slept in place of her. He dreamed. He woke as something he had never meant to be, but it was what he had to be.
This winter took everything away from him. It built no memorial for him. Contrary to the season, it turned everything to dust and ash. There was a fire.
Salvador had grown accustomed to fires breaking out in this city. A great many of them he had watched from distant places. He knew who had set them. He knew she had stopped, and it had been some time since anything important had been set ablaze. Seeing the horizon light up a color he could not see that night seemed strange. It was only strange because of the perfect timing and the mournful music in the air.
Outside, no more than a block away, the great bells of the Catholic church began to strike midnight.... A centralized sound broke through the howl of wolves. A single chiming note like copper rings on a staff being jangled together just once.... A haze of pulsing red shadowed the landscape of church ruins.
At the stroke of midnight, his world turned inside out.
The streets below were not empty. Rhydin was a city that never slept. There were always people at every hour. There were taverns and businesses that never closed. There was always someone walking by, as there was this night, to hear a body fall into a metal bin full of refuse tucked away in a passed by alley.
Winter came early, as a tidal wave of electric red that washed over him and pushed him from his ledge. Salvador fell overboard and sank into a sea that lapped the shore in reverse. The not yet full moon glowed as a brilliant white eye and burned his vision away. Like the flames that licked and devoured the club Ambrosia. Like the shadow that pooled up from the ashes to swallow a man whole.
The sky was not black that night, but red. A haze of constant swimming red that drowned and smothered him, pushed him against plastic bags and vegetable peels. He clawed at metal walls that screeched protest against his desperate climb. There was a pulse throbbing against his eyes and a haunting melody of copper chime ringing in his ears. Old words and conversations that growled like demonic incantations. The night became a flood of video left to play in rewind.
"Rehtom-eaf, ti hcout ro ekat lliw rehto on; enola enim dna enim si eman ym."
"Saw enim sa ... sega fo tsud eht dna ... emit ot tsol eb ton ti tel. Eman ruoy ekat ton meht tel. Og uoy nehw uoy fo lli kaeps ton meht tel. Rehtaf teews, sdeed doog od uoy."
What? Dazed and desperate to breathe, Salvador reached for the white eye of the moon and gathered it in his fist. Time had no meaning to the fae. They were only tools to the will of time. But if he could just clutch the dial in his hand and turn it back...
"My name is Lucien Jean-Pierre Rosie." It was as if a heated electricity had struck the air....
"My name is Lucien Jean-Pierre Rosie." Power, as old and ancient as the elder himself, churned the currents of the air and broke through the fae's domain....
"My name is Lucien Jean-Pierre Rosie." It curled tight, suffocated and drenched in a weight that was more than tangible or potent.
"My name is...."
"Let them not take your name."
"My name is mine and mine alone."
"Let it not be lost to time...."
"My name is...."
"...and the dust of ages..."
"...no other will take or touch it..."
"...as mine was."
"Gods give names to men so that they will build kingdoms for them."
"My name is...."
"And take them away so that they will build none."
"My name is...."
"I will see to it that he only makes a kingdom of the one."
"Else he make none."
"My name is..."
Salvador sucked in a copper-tainted breath and exhaled a sigh of a recent memory. Only, the words came out wrong. I spoke to a whisper once. I held a memory in my hand. "Ambrose," he hissed to the red night. He gathered the moon in his hand and sent the light away by closing his eyes.