I breathe in the night, its darkness running warm into my blood, then I breathe out the day. Its light is cold, biting my skin as it grows. There is no place to hide in it. Then, when the darkness is all gone, I sit back and rattle my chains. The silver links chime like bells, the sound echoing in my cell. The sound pleases me, but I’m always careful not to rattle them by accident.
If they came and found that the night still remained, they might not return.
Soon I can hear them approaching, feet shuffling in the hallway. The three great locks tumble open, one by one, and then my cell door opens to reveal the Mountain King. His eyes squint a little at the day I have made, before focusing on me.
“Your chains displease you?” he says. His tone is grave, polite, as if asking after my health.
“No more than usual,” I answer.
He steps forward, lifting his feet so as not to disturb the day. “I would have them replaced with gold, if I could. You are worthy of it, but they would not hold you.” Our talk is always the same. It was once a game we played, and now has become no more than a ritual, phrases asked and answered.
“The silver honors me sufficiently,” I assure him, and he nods. Then in troop his men, the gatherers of the day. They carry bags woven from golden mesh and shovels with blades plated with gold. With swift precision they wield their tools, shoveling the day into the bags to be carried out into the kingdom under the mountain (or so I am told!) to provide the realm with light. As they work it grows darker in my cell. Their shovels move faster and faster, slicing through the thinning light. I can see nervousness start to pass among them, jumping from man to man. Still, they work on, unwilling to pass on the least morsel of the day.
They have reason to fear, of course. A moment, a flick of my hand, and I could seize an arm or a leg or a neck. Then I could see what darkness lurked in their meat.
But I do not. If they feared me too much, then the king might refuse to carry out the day. I would have to lie here among it, chained into place, unable to escape, forced to wallow in the cold light I had created until the end of all things.
For a moment I feel a tickling, as if I am watched by someone. I look up but see only the Mountain King watching me. His gaze is familiar to me as the stones in my cell; this was strange and unfamiliar, this regard. But the gatherers are tending to the corners, claiming the last sweepings of light. Perhaps I dreamed it.
As the last bag closes, the night has returned to my cell. The door opens and I hear them hurry out. The Mountain King’s voice sounds different in the dark: “We thank you, as always.”
How assured he sounded when first my cell opened! How afraid he now sounds! The texture of his fear ripples over me, its terror and uncertainty hot in my mouth. I smile unseen in the dark. The cell door closes and the three locks tumble shut, roaring like trumpets.
I sit back and breathe in the night once more.
• • •
Eventually I come to the end of the night. I rattle my chains and wait.
And wait.
And wait.
I wait so long that I am forced to rattle them again, my pleasure at doing so marred by my curiosity. What could keep them? I have resolved to rattle them once more when their footsteps start in the hall. But when the locks tumble open and the door swings wide, the Mountain King does not stand there. It is another. While I have never made a close study of their kind, I am certain I have not seen this one before. He is much younger, I think, less confident. He could be carved from fear.
He steps forward, all trembling uncertainty. “The king is ill,” he says in a quaver.
At first, I say nothing. The king is my captor, not my friend. But I am anxious to have the day removed and he seems to expect something, so I nod. “How unfortunate,” then nothing more.
It seems to be enough, for he gestures back into the hall. In a moment the gatherers of the day are at work. The uncertainty of the king’s condition seems to affect them as well; their work is hasty, clumsy. One gatherer in particular, rather than starting near me when the day is strongest, instead begins at a distance. As the day is gathered from elsewhere in the cell, he is forced nearer and nearer to me to recover more and more of the light.
Now I can smell him in the growing darkness, his scent strong as it mingles with the twilight. It is intoxicating. As he works my thoughts stray: if I reached for him, would he see? As my fingers wrapped around him, would he scream? And most of all, what darkness flavors his flesh?
It is too much. I shift and the chiming of my chains fills the cell.
As one, the gatherers whirl towards me, fear in every face. Then, with great haste they seize their tools and flee. They are like shadows vanishing. A little of the day remains, collected in the cracks. As the substitute for their king begins to close the door, I can see the gatherer whose scent still fills my nostrils. He is staring back at me and is still there when the door slams shut.
I smell him still as I breathe.
• • •
Things go better for them next time. The king remains ill, but they are coming to grips with it. The fear running through them is bound, no more than an undercurrent flavoring the air. It does not interfere with their work. Only …
Only the little gatherer, who tempted me so. I would have expected him to keep far away, clearing out a distant corner. But no. He is shoveling beside my chains again, and his scent is as strong as ever. It is like a strange flower blossoming in a cave, rich and ambrosial.
As the light disappears into the golden bags, I stare at him. He feels my gaze and looks up. A little smile tugs at my lips, but nothing more. To my surprise I think I see him smile back, but the warm darkness lies too thick to be certain.
I hear them scuttle out, and I find myself unable to look towards the door. My hope that he might be there watching is outweighed by the fear he might not.
This time the slam of the door shakes me as never before, each lock’s turning a silver spike pinning me in place. All I can do is breathe, in and out, in and out.
• • •
Before the darkness is half gone, I hear footsteps in the hall. Not the tramp of many, but the quiet pace of one. The door swings wide and in steps a figure carrying a long torch; its flame flickers, as though caught by a strong breeze.
The figure stops before me but says nothing. Only stares at me in my chains. I cannot make out the face in the shadow of torchlight. But I breathe in, and the scent fills me. It is him: the gatherer from before, the one who smiled at me, the one whose nervousness had filled me with such elation.
My heart pounds in my chest as I look at him. “Who are you?” I ask.
He hesitates, and when he speaks, his voice is thin, youthful. “My name is Elan.”
“Elan. Why have you come?”
“I wanted to see you again, alone. Without the others.”
“Why? To gawk at the thing in chains?”
He shakes his head with vehemence. “No.” The single word is almost a shout, rebounding in the cell as if it hoped to free itself. It dies away, finally, the silence holding us before he continues. “The king is dying.” His words are softer now. “There has been talk about what to do with you among the court.”
I blink. The king is the only one I have spoken to in so many, many years. For this I feel something for him, although it may be no more than familiarity. The other matter concerns me more. “And what have they decided?”
“Many of us,” he includes himself with a gesture, “feel you should be released. The summoning that brought you here should be broken, to allow you to return home.”
My home? I have been here for so long that I no longer remember it. I have only memories of being pulled from it. Cold green fire wrapped me, clawed my skin, before it cast me into the warm darkness. Strange faces stared down at me, silver chains locked around my wrists and ankles. I blink. Elan is still speaking.
“But the king’s sons have decided that you will stay, locked in this cell and bound by chains.” Elan hangs his head and when he raises it, silvery lines glitter on his cheeks. “The thought of it fills me with shame. That our people would do this to one as beautiful as you.”
I shake my head. “I am not what you think me.”
“No,” Elan said. “You bring us the day. You are no monster.”
He bends, setting the torch on the floor. “I searched long but could not find the key to your chains.”
“There is no key,” I say, but he does not hear me.
From beneath his cloak he pulls a short axe. “I will free you.” The blade glitters in the torchlight as he raises it up, then down.
The first blow cuts the link with ease. As it snaps I gasp. A pressure from my mind lifts, one I had felt for so long I had half-forgotten it. My blood surges. “Again!” I say.
He swings again, and again, and again, then drops the axe. I rise up. Sensations flood me, a thousand memories forgotten, a thousand urges returned.
“Now you are free,” says Elan, and I look down at him.
“Now I am free,” I say, and stretch out my hand. My fingers caress his cheek, and although I can feel that he loves me, he fears me as well, this thing he has freed but does not truly understand. “You have my thanks,” I say.
His voice squeaks even higher. “Will you depart?”
“Eventually,” I say, and crush him to my chest.
Though his scent is the strongest I can remember, I do not taste his flesh. He is fragile, too fragile to endure such. And he has stirred other feelings inside me, long denied: desire and need. Those I cannot repress. He struggles, to no avail.
When I am spent, the torch has all but burned out. No matter. The day has grown stronger in the cell, although it is still only half finished. I cover Elan’s trembling form with his cloak and stride out into the kingdom under the mountain, laughing as I go.
The people flee as I walk their paths, but some run slower than others. Each one I catch is filled with darkness, making them as a full wineskin, and I drink them down. With each one the daylight grows from me until I blaze like an inferno, light falling behind me in trails.
In the throne room I catch two of the old king’s sons. The last, the new king, I trail deep beneath the kingdom to the quiet halls of dust where they lay their dead. He cowers behind his father’s bier, and I devour him down to his anklebones. I do not partake of his father. His time has passed, and with it his flavor.
When I emerge, the kingdom lies deserted. Through the halls I search, seeking stragglers. I find none, only shadows.
For, to my surprise, the daylight is already beginning to fail. So soon? Did I tarry so long in the crypts? Confused, I follow the warm darkness, tracking it to its source, until I stand once more in my cell.
Elan still remains. At my appearance he flinches, pulling his cloak tighter in hopes of some protection. Something about him has changed. I gaze at him, curious, and then I see.
He, he is the source of the darkness. It spills from him with his every breath, filling the room. I laugh with delight. Had I done this to him? Or was it always within him, the cause of his strange pull to me? No matter. He is all that I need, all I desire, and the beauty it gives him draws me like a tide.
“You will stay with me,” I say. “Always and forever. Always.” The thought of it intoxicates me, and I shudder with pleasure.
Elan shivers. His left eye leaks a tear, a fragile diamond on his pale cheek. I reach out with a finger and capture it, bring it to my mouth. It is sweet beyond compare. “No,” Elan whispers, shaking his beautiful head.
“Yes.”
“No!” he screams. In a breath he is gone, footsteps fading in the hall. I follow.
Through the kingdom we race, him leading and I following, through galleries and passages and grottos. Twice I come across other strays, and twice I pause to taste before casting them aside. They do not satisfy.
I lose sight of Elan, but it matters not. His darkness cannot be denied, cannot be lost. Elan, Elan, Elan. He is all I can think of.
I track him into a great hall lined with towering statues, figures of grim majesty. His trail leads to a small door set in a corner. I enter and catch sight of him racing up a long tunnel. Darkness spills back down towards me, lapping at my feet in waves.
I follow to find him struggling with a latch. His face turns toward me at my approach. His terror is delicious. With desperate fury he throws himself against the door, trying to open it. I have almost reached him when it flies open and he disappears. I step through and catch my breath in wonder.
I am outside the kingdom, standing on what can only be the mountainside. Air rushes past me, clutching me. It is filled with scents unknown. I can see far, farther than I would have believed. I look down at a vast emptiness before me, set in shadowy twilight. At the bottom of it lies a great forest, ringed on one side by a great rolling darkness that can only be the sea. The air is cold but intoxicating. That I might not have ever have laid eyes upon this, had not Elan freed me.
The memory of his name electrifies me. I turn to see him running along the mountainside, burning like a silvery flame set in the night. He is crying, crying, crying.
I open my mouth to call to him but it is too late. He leaps out into the air. I race to him, afraid to watch him fall, but instead the darkness supports him. It spreads behind him like a cloud and I watch with longing and desire as he races away across the sky. Diamond tears fall from his eyes, each catching in the darkness to hang, marking a glittering path.
Breathe in the night, breathe out the day. I leap after him.