The Starless One, chapter 1

Fantasy story about a woman who has been cursed to do evil.

Chapter 1.

The company halted in a narrow valley.
Deep night had fallen as they marched, and they were anxious. Their plan to cut through a tract of Itor land avoiding the swampland near Gorhl with its inimical sprite denizens on the way to Sasadan had gone badly wrong.
Some thought they’d been spotted by Itor watchmen, others said nay, it was only the stillness that had made the birds’ restless cries seem so ominous.
The few hundred men had become lost in avoiding the sound of marching soldiers, always heard on the known paths they wished to take out of Itor lands. They'd gone with all the speed and stealth they could muster but always the sounds followed.

And now they saw the way they'd been forced to take didn’t pass right through the ravine as they'd thought, but was obstructed by a fall of stones too high and steep to climb over.
There were voices and the clank of iron on iron in the pass behind them.
The way back was blocked.
‘The Itor are coming.’ a man groaned, ‘We were fools to take this route.’
‘Better their soldiers than their High Caulen.’ another replied.
The voices behind them didn’t come closer however, and the soldiers and nobles began to think their presence might have remained undiscovered by the Itor.
Accordingly, they lowered their voices, and made no watchfires. Preparing to wait out the night.


Far above them, on a peak of the cliffs a lone figure watched the company, arms folded. Waiting.
Silent as a carven statue.
It took a step forward off the cliff, letting itself fall slowly to the sparse grass several hundred feet below.

It walked quietly in, among the nervous footsoldiers, before they’d had time to notice the stranger.
The figure unfolded its arms and spread them wide.
One man glanced up at the ordinary stars, and in their luminescence he saw the silent figure and gasped.

All saw her then.

And the cry of terror that went up to heaven woke the stars and the birds sleeping in the cliffs.

The tall woman put out a pale hand in the darkness as if to touch the face of one man.
His mouth opened in a cry of anguish that rent the silent air as she took hold of, and played with his voice; making him scream higher and louder than the others, a lead performer on a great stage leading a concerto of tortured sound, as his fellows lost control of their voices to their tormentor, and she pitched them with cruelty, low or high, loud or soft, as she used their shrieks to compose a horrible music of nightmare, understandable and pleasing only to her ears.

How beautiful,
The tall woman thought,
I am sorry it cannot last longer.

Lamentation was the only human sound she found pleasant. Speech and laughter cut her ears like knives. Only their screaming was bearable, even pleasurable. And she indulged this pleasure tonight to the full.
The shrieks and screams reverberated around her, waking echoes in all the enclosed valley’s rocks and hollows.
Birds nesting in the cliffs chittered anxiously to one another to know what had gone wrong with the humans in the valley below before huddling closer over their eggs once more.

The song of death lasted less than an hour.
But in that time the soldiers, nobles and servants, suffered more than they would have during five years in the cruelest torture chamber of their world.
As each nerve and tendon severed under the strain put on it and finally their voices failed completely like broken instruments.

The woman let her hands fall.

It didn’t matter,
Her paltry toys were broken, but her masters would bring her others to play with, later.

For now, the Grih, the Itor’s sorcerer, had set spells which were calling her back to Teneurphis, the City of Darkness, high in the the mountains of Dowr. Gently now they called, but soon their pull would become unendurable, and she must go, or be dragged there by sheer force.
Some of the men about her had already died, succumbing to her mercilessness, but many were still alive and would continue in living torment, until she raised her hands against them one final time.
To their ruin.
She turned softly about in a circle, watching their poor, already broken bodies shatter as she gave them death.

The stars gazed down coldly, as though shocked by the dreadful carnage she'd left in the vale.
The bodies were beyond recognition as human. Blasting life out of the men they’d once been had stained her white arms and dress with many red droplets.
She stood still, the only living being left. Quite small and innocent-looking in that terrible valley under the frowning cliffs.

It was time to go.
She rose softly in the air, floating up towards the mountain ridges with little exertion.

So she returned, walking across the starlight.

Up over the foothills, past the fort of Cestodie guarding the road to its sister city, Teneurphis high above, as she followed the treacherously steep road’s glimmering grey line far below her. Then finally, up Mount Tayeijun, the tallest mountain in that part of the world, into the black city held in its icebound embrace.

Back too, to the Itor, her masters. The men who'd commanded her evil deeds this night. They were men, dark, cruel and powerful.
A people whose joy was in the brazen clash of swords and all the sounds of war, stirring them on to victory.
Although tonight after trapping them, the Itor had given her the pleasure of massacring the innocent men who'd dared to cross their lands, alone, rather than taking the strangers’ lives themselves.
These men, who had taken her from her forgotten homeland, half feared, half despised her, for being so strong yet helpless in their power.
They had found a way to control her, to keep her as a helpless slave, to caress or torment as they chose. And she fought for them, as queen or slave by turn, able to turn a great army to a lake of ash and blood at whim.
To many in Emdeeuse she was Terror itself.

When the woman returned from the shambles-like devastation left behind in the valley. She found a festal celebration had begun in the main hall.
The Itor soldiers had returned early to carouse and celebrate their easy victory.
A high-ranking lord accosted her, wreathed in slightly revolted smiles. He knew what she'd done tonight, for he was a long time warrior of the Itor, and had seen what she was capable of many times before.
Her cruelty was famous throughout all lands, the sight of her meant death to all the Itor's enemies.
However, he made no mention of what she'd done that night, and drew her into the gathering regardless of her bloody clothing, - indeed the gore was considered a mark of honour by many there; and at his request, with a flick of her wrist she made lights appear out of nothing, resembling white candle flames all over the massive building's black-pillared walls that reached higher than eye could see in the gloomy night hours, lighting them a soft glow, illuminating drunken, black-bejewelled and dressed revellers in all their darkling ways.


*****


Such was her gift; to create or destroy, but she rarely used it for her own desires, having little interest in it.
Her only True joy was to mount into the night sky as far as she could; and run there, as close to the pure stars as might be.

The woman's servants came to fetch her, guiding her away to remove her clothing, all covered in blood from the killings. The maids cleansed her body and clad her in the black ceremonial armour, cold against her skin which was left bare under the shining metal.
And lead her away to the tunnelled stairway going up and up, to the blackstone Seat about which the last, ancient, many-clawed Osorkis writhed in his black coils, sleeping maybe, until the world’s end.

In that blank chamber walled by darkness, high above the black city she sat, waiting for her doom.


Slowly the chief Itor filed in, till they stood rank upon rank vanishing in the gloomy distance.
She watched them silently from under lowered eyelids.
The princes stood nearest. Four of them were war-hardened, swarthy and cold hearted. Yet there was not one among those four who had not at some time been on his knees in front of her, asking the passionless woman for her love in maniac wildness. The Fifth however, Xarhl, was still a child in years and although pride claimed him, he was not yet fully tainted by the cruelty and ill deeds he witnessed daily in his elder brothers.
He stood a little behind them as he always did, almost hidden behind their tall, broad figures.
All five princes were hooded, as was appropriate at times of ceremony. Their fine jewels and proud features hidden, only the star-like glister of their dark eyes showed, reflecting the ring of torches that flamed white around the circular platform, kindled and burning by her power.


And now there was a quiet murmur –a gentle, tender music to her ears –if pleasant to no-one else’s.
And, in the centre of the great host, the men began to part like sea waves rolling, two by two, forming a path from the furthest end, up towards where she was seated on the low dais.
As the two final soldiers parted, she saw what had caused the music and she leant forward, attracted like a wolf to blood.
–And yet… the attraction was more than that, –a feeling of something stronger than herself, stronger than her power, tugging at her from outside.
Nothing interested her, only killing and her beloved stars.
But this… this was different.

She stood up, slowly. Gazing ahead to what two men half dragged, half carried into her vision.

A girl.

Thin and weak, in that black place her fair hair and skin all white and gold. A pale light shone out of her very being.

The music had come from her too, but now that she saw the newcomer –that music changed.

It was no longer pleasant to her ear,

There was pain in it… Suffering… She wanted it to stop. It hurt her.
She walked down towards the girl, stately and tall, proud head held high. She would stop this music.
Stop it. Stop it…
Drawing near she saw why there had been (to start with) a melody for her. The girl was sobbing, moaning dully with pain, holding one thin wrist where there ought to have been a hand.
She halted a few feet from the girl, confused, that crying should have been music in her ears, but instead it made her suddenly sick.
The girl looked up suddenly, startled by the darkness of Her proximity. Then bowed low in Volmar fashion.
‘Are you the Queen?’
The girl asked, in a voice that quivered like ill-used sunshine.
Somehow, in some way, that soft voice was sweeter to her ear than any threnody of shrieking terror had ever been.
She didn't know why, it was the first time a human’s spoken words had not hurt her –and the first time the music of their vocalised pain had been abominable.
‘No.’
She turned to the Chief Prince, wondering what she was expected to do with this strange creature.
‘She is like you.’ He responded, in answer to her silent question.
‘She has a Power like yours, but we cannot use it. Therefore you must destroy her!’
‘No! Please, you must have mercy on me! I can't hurt you, why must you kill me? I don't want to die…’
The voice was little and tired, fading even in those few words, but…beautiful.

Why was it beautiful?
With each new utterance it became lovelier than before, it made her remember… remember… what exactly?
A time before She had been always in pain, scarred through and through, till her soul was as weathered as the osorkis's skin. Scaly, hard, and rough with healed tissue…
A time when she had been innocent, pure, –not like this…
A memory came. One she hadn't known she possessed till that moment, a memory of flowers and dragonflies, a sunlit meadow.
Her mother.

She stood transfixed.

The girl had crept forward to the tall woman's knees, and touched the armoured plate with her single, trembling hand, the stump where her other hand should be resting against it also.
She peered up blindly, her pale face beseeching.
‘Please…’
That voice…
She stayed herself a moment, trying to make up her mind to the deed. But the compulsion she’d felt towards this girl as soon as she entered the chamber had by now grown too strong.
She could not kill this pitiful creature, with the sweet voice of a song…
Can I save her… The woman thought,

There was one way.
If she could make them believe it.
She, who had never cared for the life of any living thing, except to make music out of its pain. Conducting an orchestra by torturing people by degrees, making their many cries loud or quiet into a threnody of symphonic coalition only she understood.

She would save this child.

She shook the girl off with a disdainful movement, in order to show the Itor she had no sympathy with her, and turned to the Chief Prince saying:
‘No.
‘I cannot do it. She is too strong for me. Therefore I cannot destroy her by my own means. But I can seal away her power; if you will. Do you?’
The eldest Prince answered, saying:
‘If that is all you can do, yes. We will keep her here, away from the Volmar. The filth will not have the advantage of her aid. Do what you must.’
‘Yes, Lord.’
She walked away from them, back to, what was for Her, an undesired throne.
‘Bring her to me!’
She commanded the two Itor guards who stood on either side of the small prisoner.
The girl had recommenced sobbing quietly again, rocking to and fro over her mutilated arm. That crying was agony.
She wished the girl would stop, the sound hurt worse now, and made it hard to think, even more so than before.

Turning, she strode back to the dais and sat down, spreading her river of nitid black hair over the hewn obsidian and the hard scales of the Osorkis surrounding it.
The guards pushed the girl forward until she stumbled right up to the seat and fell a pace from it, scraping her thin knees.
Her wide eyes stared into nothingness as she bit her lips, trying not to cry anymore.
Then her sight came back to nearby sights. And she looked up, as if searching for something.
For a moment the two of them stared into each other’s eyes.
One could see her own calm white face, reflected in the swimming blackness of the other's huge eyes. The other saw a hard silver greyness, cold, strange…yet…familiar? And suddenly the fear in the dark eyes went away.
The seated one averted her gaze.

She had to do something; make them think she had taken control of the girl –that the girl was rendered harmless to them, but she didn't want to actually harm the child.
Now could feel the girl's power the Prince had said was there, although to her, it didn't appear as deadly as he had thought, it seemed locked away, very nearly untapped, and unlikely to be dangerous to the Itor. Still, the princes needn't know that, if they did, they would likely kill the girl out of hand…
She thought quickly.
Then she knew. Those lights from before, of course! It was simple.

Slowly, impressively, she lifted her arms, and directed her power of light again, this time towards the girl. Softly, gradually at first, a subtle gleam like an ember's glow, started stealing its way around the girl's body, suffusing her with radiance.
Until at last a halo of bright light encircled her whole being.
–It did nothing at all, beyond lighting up the dark hall until she could almost see the further end. The girl was completely unharmed.
However the Itor couldn't know that.
And they were satisfied that the threat to them was dealt with in full measure.
She relaxed slightly, as pleased as was possible for her, whose soul that had been frozen to nearly all emotion, love, hate, happiness, envy or sorrow, for as long as her memory stretched back.


It was done.
The girl looked bewildered by the light surrounding her, bouncing and glistening off her skin, and lifted her arm helplessly to look at it, she whispered something softly, like:
‘Heavens, help me,’ and then drew back again, cradling her hurt arm.
‘Take her to my chamber.’
She commanded the guards,
‘Only I can handle her! Is that understood? If not…’
‘It will be done as you say.’ The Chief Prince assured her, ‘If any man dares to interfere with her, his life will be shortened.’
‘Very good. Send her there then.’

The girl was taken away. The guards made her walk by herself this time, afraid to touch her; not knowing what effect the strange light might have on themselves.

And with the girl’s going, she lost the feeling of urgency which had held her captive.
She had spoken imperiously before, commanding them as though she truly were their queen. Now again, she no longer cared for anything. The unpleasant, sweet taste of silver, always present in her mouth since the Itor's sorcerer had first laid a curse of obedience on her, had been forgotten or driven away while the girl knelt near her feet. Now all its bitterness came back, more sickly and sour than before, till she almost gagged, but she could show no weakness before her masters, they would brook no weakness on her part.

However, she could face her doom with equanimity, so long as that childlike figure was safe.

The ceremony for which the Itor had gathered was fulfilled with the spilling of her blood on the stones in the High Chamber, a sacrifice to what being or demon she knew not and cared not. The Knife of Pra left another scar on her white body, it would heal eventually to a thin silver line, but now it was red, long and cruel, curved cunningly to fit into the unending pattern that would eventually cover her entire body.

She walked back towards her chamber, the chill armour very heavy on her tired bones.
Sending away the women who came to escort her there, before entering her own quarters.
She was most relieved that it had been the youngest prince who had been chosen to cut the pattern tonight. He was too young to have any desire for her, –Unlike his brothers.
For she was resplendently beautiful, despite the silver scars warping the smoothness of her skin. And the older princes delighted in taking her. When her blood on their hands gave them complete control over her for a time.

It was a torment.

She considered her penance for that night light indeed.

And now she was free. Free to see the strange girl, whose presence made her feel awake, and alive, as if for the past twenty years she had been in a dream that utterly lacked reality.
She hastened her steps along the high arched hallways, beside windows looking out into oblivion. She had to walk on the ground after her blood was stolen away, it made her power dwindle, sunken for a while.
And therefore she could not move in the air as she wished. But still, she could run, if only on the earth; and so she did.


******