Loved by Darkness
by Alice Montrose
April 12, 2004
The dark figure watched the hamlet with great interest, well-hidden by the forest's thicket and the night's mists that haunted through the valley. Even the heavens seemed to work in his favour, the slender sickle of the Crescent Moon partly hidden behind clouds.
With keen senses, the stranger felt the night's spell work its magic on the villagers, watched them retire to their little houses with mud-brick walls and wooden doors and shutters. Everyone preferred the relative safety of their homes to the risks of staying outside when the night's creatures started to rise. More and more men would lead their families inside, a burning torch from the village's fire in their hands to chase away possible demons.
'Not that there are any nearby,' Arawn mused, his voluminous dark cloak making it impossible to distinguish anything but a pair of amber eyes underneath it. Not that it mattered - no human who could see him had been born of this people, and the few creatures who could dared not venture near him unless it was absolutely necessary. He lived alone, and stayed that way.
Down in the valley, the last of the torches disappeared inside, safe of a pair that guarded the sanctuary's entrance. The fire in the middle of the village had been smothered as well, and the few men who acted as night guards had gathered around it, huddled in their mantles and furs. Still, he waited a little longer. There was no harm in it, and he had plenty of time for what he'd come here to do.
Finally, Arawn descended into the valley, feet soundlessly stepping on fallen leaves and twigs with practiced ease. Invisible to the guards' sleepy eyes, he crossed the village and entered the sanctuary, a faint flickering of torchlight the only sign he'd gone that way.
The treasure he was after was in a tiny cell all the way in the back, behind a locked and barred door. It didn't matter, for it was open as soon as he had located it, and nobody was there to stop him from going in. The druid's apprentice, asleep on a pallet next to the altar, didn't even move. Only his dog lifted its head from where it lay, but lowered it again at the smallest sign from the dark-cloaked figure. It was so easy, Arawn mused, that he didn't know why they even bothered with demon wards and spells when, as far as he was concerned, they were ineffective.
His treasure lay on a wooden bed, covered with the thinnest white sheet. The smell of sleeping drugs was heavy in the air, and amber eyes rested on the nearby incense burner. Perhaps the herb-induced sleep was so deep that it made the young man unaware of the bone-chilling night air.
He smiled, carefully stepping closer and nearly touching the pale skin, rendered bluish by the cold. "Soon, my dear Dwyn, we shall be together once more," he promised. The dark cloak fell, yet did not reveal anything but blackness. Black clothes, black boots, even black pieces of jewellery that adorned them. Black hair, falling to the stranger's mid-back, obscuring his face as he bent down to grasp the veil that covered the youth and pull it away.
"Even trapped in this mortal coil you are more beautiful than I could remember," Arawn whispered into the night, gloved hands now running over soft skin, acquainting themselves with this new body as they had once gotten to know another, godly form. A soft sign escaped slightly-parted lips, but there was no other sign that the young man would wake up. He would not, Arawn knew, until the Samhain Festival the following night.
Black gloves were removed, revealing marble-white skin and long, amber-tinted nails. Arawn was not mortal, and therefore didn't look like them. Nor did he look like the crude statues of their gods that they had devised. He was perfect in his darkness, the ruler of the underworld as his people knew it, and not like the one the inhabitants to this faraway land believed in. No, not at all like Midir...
Midir, who had stolen his lover Dwyn from him, and had trapped him in a mortal's body so that he would die, Midir, who had planned to have Dwyn sacrificed so that his immortal soul would be forever lost.
Midir, who now lay in pieces scattered through the deepest dungeons of Arawn's Hall, guarded by demon warriors, and whose heart had been sent to the Council of the Elder Gods as both statement and promise. Arawn did not like it when those he cared about were being messed with, and especially not when his younger step-brother tried to steal his lover from him. Midir had paid; and now he was here to get his Dwyn back.
The pale fingers moved to caress reddish strands of hair and trace the contours of closed eyelids and colourless lips. Arawn frowned, remembering pale green eyes filled with mirth, and the feeling of Dwyn's mouth on his own. It had been nearly a century since he had been devoid of his lover's presence - a short time-span for gods, yet so long and restless for this particular immortal. It felt like ages since he had learned of Midir's betrayal, and had started to hunt him down and demand to know what had been done with his lover. And here he was now, in this forgotten village, looking down at Dwyn's senseless mortal body.
Arawn sat down on the edge of the hard bed - made out of wood planks and nothing else, which annoyed him beyond telling - and bent his head to touch his lips to Dwyn's, black hair pooling around them. The mortal flesh was cold and the breath of the sleeping man only a whisper, yet Arawn was not disappointed. Oh, no, quite the contrary. Because soon the flesh would be warm, the closed eyes would once again shine with mischief, and Dwyn's kisses would be his for the taking.
"Soon, my lover. Soon, I shall rescue your soul from these boorish mortals, and we shall be together once more."
Arawn rose and carefully replaced the sheet over the sleeping form, then locked the door exactly as it had been before he had entered. His dark form dissolved in the shadows of the small cell, watching and waiting.
They came for Dwyn at sunset, two men from the village and the old, shrivelled druid. Their bear-like bodies filled the tiny cell and caused Arawn to wince at the thought of them handling Dwyn's slender, graceful body. They were all alike, these people, and had undoubtedly marked Dwyn as demon-spawned from the moment they had realized he would become nothing like them. But even born in a mortal body, a god's essence could not be changed, and the child would become much alike to the god's true aspect. No doubt Midir had counted on that, and had marked the child as a sacrificial lamb from the start. For if a god were sacrificed to the darkness in a Samhain Night ritual, his soul would forever be lost.
Well, the villagers would get their offering tonight, but they would not kill Dwyn's soul. That was what Arawn was there to prevent.
Unseen by mortal eyes, he watched the druid pour a tonic down the young man's throat to rouse him from his deep sleep. Dwyn shuddered and his eyes opened, pale green as Arawn had expected; yet their intelligence was dulled by the numerous potions he had undoubtedly been made to drink. To him, everything would be a haze of strange shapes, colours and sounds.
"The hour has come, Catha maec Mannan," the druid spoke. The two villagers each took hold of one slender arm and half-dragged the young man out of the cell, the druid trailing after them as he chanted under his breath. Useless spells, Arawn knew as he too followed them. It mattered not what these people called him, to Arawn he would still be the same god he had fallen in love with.
He watched as Dwyn was literally dumped in a basin of cold water, supposedly to purify him before he would be brought to the altar, and was then dried roughly with a rag. One would think these people would know that a messenger to the gods was supposed to be treated with respect, but the dark god knew the whole village was honestly glad to be rid of one who did not belong among them. It could be read on the faces of all the people that had gathered in the sanctuary that evening as Dwyn was led to the altar by the two designated guards, naked and shivering.
A cold fury ran through Arawn, and he swore to himself that by dawn there would not be one house left standing in this place.
The rest of the ceremony was dull, and the druid's chanting and whimpering made Arawn sick. On the altar, Dwyn had been tied down by his hands and feet. The sacrificial dagger lay on a silver plate nearby, its blade sharp and hungry for blood.
At the same time the druid finally stopped his wailing and turned to perform the sacrifice, Arawn circled behind the altar and bent down to whisper a name in the young man's ear. "Dwyn."
The green eyes widened as Dwyn's head suddenly jerked to one side. Arawn ran his hand through the red hair again; any movement that the old druid would notice he would blame on the flickering torchlight.
"Dwyn," Arawn said again as the knife was lifted. "Come with me, Dwyn."
The knife plunged down, but life had already fled that mortal body. Smiling, Arawn pulled back and let the druid do his work. What they did to the dead body mattered not; the spirit Arawn had searched out to save was gone. Now all that Arawn had to do was find him.
Flames devoured the dreaded sanctuary and spread out through the rest of the village with terrifying ease. The dark-cloaked figure left it behind, ignoring the screams and smell of burning flesh.
He found Dwyn on the shores of a nearby lake, his naked form cloaked in mists as he gazed on the water's surface. As Arawn approached, the beautiful head turned; there were tears running down Dwyn's face. Arawn opened his arms and pulled the unresisting body to him; it radiated warmth and strength. Arawn caressed the reddish hair and slender back, lending his lover the support he needed.
"All that hate," Dwyn eventually whispered, his face still buried in Arawn's shoulder. "Only hate and disgust... I am the god of love, Arawn. Can you imagine what it did to me?"
"It matters not, beloved," Arawn replied. "It matters not. I am here, and we are going home."
~ The End ~
FictionPress.com - let the words flow