The Twelfth Hour

Void of stars. How can that be?
I search for a reason. I try to trace the lines back in my memory…
what could I have possibly done to turn the sky black?
The trouble is that I can’t remember.
It seems that I fell asleep.

When I was young and the sky was still littered with stars, the Sorcerer came to visit Yantel. He had been seeking a pupil for many years, and no doubt he visited many other villages and hamlets and perhaps even great cities, all to no avail. There were a handful of applicants for the job in my village and a crowd gathered to witness the trial.
The Sorcerer lined the prospective apprentices up. To each one he posed the same question:

“Who is the great magician who makes the sky blue and the grass green?”

“You are, oh great Askander!” one tried and the Sorcerer shook his head and moved on.

“It must be Philoneous the Second, council to the wise King in Arander.” Tried another. Again the sorcerer merely shook his head and continued down the line.

Various mythic Sorcerers and fairytale witches were named. One somber youth suggested it was the King of the Gods, but all were met with a shake of the head.

“No apprentice here.” The sorcerer announced and the crowd sighed with disappointment.

I laughed and the Sorcerer turned and caught my eyes with his. There were stars in his eyes too, if I remember rightly, or at least there was the fire that burns in stars.

“What is your answer?” he asked.

“Mine? I, I’m not an applicant.” I stammered.

“But you think you know the real answer. Tell me.”

I swallowed, slowly recovering myself.

“The answer is me. I am the magician who makes the sky blue and the grass green.”

“Tell me why you think that is the answer.” The magician demanded.

With a shrug I obliged.

“Well, have you ever had a dream? How do you know that this is not a dream? If life is a dream, if I am a dream, then I am also the dreamer, and if so then I am responsible for giving sky and the grass their color.”

“But life is life, it is not a dream.” One of the flustered applicants informed me.

“Then you have not dreamed as I have dreamed. Nor lived life as I have lived it.” I retorted.

The young man began to object again but the Sorcerer waived a dismissive hand at him and said to me,

“Get your things and come with me if you are ready to learn The Terrible Way and one day become a Sorcerer.”

I did not tell my parents I was leaving, they wouldn’t have let me go, and I did not gather my things. I left the village right then with Askander. I left my family’s land and the sheep it was my job to tend and the girl my parents would have wanted me to marry in a few years. I left my brothers and bread baking in the oven and warm sleepy afternoons watching clouds pass over the hillsides. I asked my younger brother to tell our parents goodbye for me.  With Askander leading the way I walked out of the village and along a lonely road and up the mountain path under millions of stars and a new white moon. There were most definitely stars then, and if the sky was a color, then it was indigo.

I spent 12 years in Askander’s tower doing as I was told each day. There were stars in all of that time. Most often I was told not to do this or that. Do not open that book. If a door appears in the west end of the tower, do not open it. If a maiden arrives and begs for help or sanctuary, do not let her in and do not go out. Do not eat garlic. Do not drink wine. Do not touch my hat.

There was so much that I did not do, but there were some things that I did. Mostly sweeping, mopping, cooking, washing, emptying chamber pots, feeding goats and chickens, weeding the garden. Sometimes, however, I was shown how to do something extraordinary, though I think I occasionally failed to notice precisely how extraordinary they were at the time.

I learned how to breathe as the dragons breathe and walk in the shadow land between worlds. The technique for turning lead into gold was revealed to me but I found it hard to master and was stuck in practice each day. I also learned the names of many stars and looked at them through a magickal glass studying their movement across the sky. Thus I know they were there then, for I was a careful observer of all of their habits and color.

I worked from dawn until midnight each day with time split between chores, basic education, and my more obvious magickal studies and practices. There were never enough hours in the day to complete the tasks given me, and I was always tired when it was time to lay my head upon my pillow of straw. Askander himself was tireless. He worked furiously at his alchemical practices all through the morning as I did my chores, saw to my education through the afternoon, resumed his own research in his vast library as I practiced my magickal work, checking in on me from time to time to critique and adjust my practice, and then when I lay down to sleep he continued his own work all through the night, never sleeping a wink.

In 12 years Askander never slept. I would, now and then, awake in the night and tip toeing from my chamber, observe him on the balcony in his study of the night sky with the magickal glass, or find him creating charts of the stars, or maps of the shadows. Some nights I dared not open a closed door, transfixed in terror of the frightful sounds and voices vibrating through the walls. Other nights I would go down to the garden in the walled courtyard to see the sparks of light showering out of the windows of Askander’s chambers at the top of the tower. Most nights I slept, too exhausted to entertain curiosity.

The night came, I remember there were still stars, when Askander told me that he would sleep. I was now told that Askander would at last take his respite for a period of 24 hours. He unveiled for me a device for keeping track of the time. I was charged with remaining awake as he slept, and awakening him by ringing a bell after the 24^th hour.

He went into his room and lay down on his much unused mattress. I covered him with the blanket and watched him close his eyes and fall almost instantly asleep. Sitting with him for a while my eyes scanned over the titles upon the spines of the walls of books surrounding us. When I was sure that he was asleep I stood and removed one volume from the shelf and leafed gently through the pages before sliding it softly back into place. Askander was truly deeply asleep. It had certainly been a lonely 12 years, but now for the first time in so long I was actually alone.

I went out on his balcony and beheld the constellations blazing bright. I was struck then, by the certainty that each star was a Sorcerer just as Askander and I, and that we drew power and light from one another. In 12 years I had felt cut off from the world and alone with my teacher who was sometimes my beloved father and sometimes an unbearable tyrant as the situation demanded. Now I saw that I could never be alone, that we were multitude, that I was one of a school of stars populating the great abyss.

Lost in thought I nearly did not hear the soft weeping coming from below, but soon it distracted me from my reverie. Peering down I saw a young woman in a torn dress tapping on the tower door. It seemed clear that she had been through some ordeal, so tattered were her garments, so pale her tear streaked cheeks. I hurried down the spiral staircase. I opened the door.

“Please sir, we were attacked by bandits and my father was killed. I escaped but have been lost in these mountains for days. I am so hungry. Can you not help me?”

I invited her in. She was cold so I clothed her, and hungry so I fed her, or rather I showed her to the kitchen larder and she cooked for us both. I had not enjoyed a meal since beginning my apprenticeship as I was the cook, and not good at it. Full and content I sat next to the hearth with her and asked her name. I do not now recall it. She told me that she had seen a bottle of wine in the larder and went to retrieve it. At first I declined when she offered to fill my cup.

“One drink is not vice.” She said as she filled her own cup. I accepted.

 We sipped our wine and watched the flames dance for a while and she began to sing.

It was a beautiful song. One might say, enchanting. It reminded me first of my youth in Yantel, of being a boy watching the grass of the fields sway in the breeze and wondering about the world and the heavens and myself. Then it carried me away to Arander to the white city walls and blue and gold flags whipped by the wind. A princess stood on the wall looking out over the forest, waiting for her father’s return. Inside the forest a starving Cobbler’s son was hunting a golden stag but when the Cobbler’s son drew his arrow the stag saw him and said,

“Spare my life and I will grant you a wish.”

So the youth asked for the hand of the princess. He let the stag go, not really believing his wish could be fulfilled, and left the forest still hungry, but on the road he saw a man besieged by bandits and once more drew his bow. This time he shot true, killing one bandit so the others fled. The man on the road was the King returning from a pilgrimage to the fountain where he had been praying for a worthy husband for his daughter. He brought the Cobbler’s son back to the castle to wed the princess. At the wedding the princess played her lute and sang to her bridegroom with a voice like golden honey. Thereafter she sat the foot of the bed and played for him each night until he fell asleep. On the twelfth night as he was close to slumber, he opened his eyes and beheld an old woman sitting at the foot of the bed, strumming the loot and singing. She was not the fair beauty he thought he had wed, but a gnarled and bent creature with stringy, greasy grey hair hanging limp under her crown. She leered at him with hallow eyes and grinned with a cavernous mouth lacking many teeth.

That was when I realized that my own eyes had shut. Startled, I opened them and found that I sat alone in the darkness before a cold hearth. I searched clumsily in the darkness for a candle and a match. When it was lit I fumbled in my pocket for the time keeping device. Its many moving parts had stopped and the indicator had frozen upon the twelfth hour. How much time had really passed? Full of dread I raced up the stairs to Askander’s chamber at the top of the tower. He was gone. I called out his name. I found the bell and rang it and called for him before I came here to the balcony and beheld the sky. Void of stars.

How can that be?

Even now that I have remembered so much, I am unsure. When was it that I fell asleep? In the field as a child? Have I only dreamed that I was selected to be a sorcerer’s apprentice? Or am I truly the apprentice that failed his master and let all the stars die? My foolishness, my disobedience, my failure to keep my master’s way as it was taught me resulting in disaster. Perhaps I am the Sorcerer himself who is yet to reach the twelfth hour, quietly dreaming of being my own apprentice, letting the fear that he will fail me take sway.  

Or am I really a Cobbler’s son fallen prey to some plot and wed to a witch? Now she sits at the foot of my bed singing me a nightmare of fallen sorcerers and fallen stars. Are any of these dreams more or less dreams than any of the others? More or less real? I search for a reason. I try to trace the lines back in my memory.

What could I have possibly done to turn the sky black?
It seems that I fell asleep, but when?

Demons and Passengers

The creatures were lined up in three rows, each a little shorter than the one preceding it, so that their formation was pyramidal, pointing straight toward the relic. A large milky white stone, the relic was as tall as three men standing upon one another’s shoulders, making it just slightly taller than the creatures themselves. A bell was struck and those in the short row nearest to it lowered to their knees and knelt before the stone, and when they were all bent to the earth, those in the two rows behind followed suit. One of the creatures stood behind all the others, posted at the mammoth double doors at the end of the chapel. The doors of gray stone, etched with swirling designs, had been opened, and the creature stood guard ensuring that they remain so until the ceremony was complete. Like the others, its face was waxy and featureless, its forehead broad and flat. The bald head was webbed with traces of the blue veins just beneath the thin skin. Its flesh was pale and glossed over with a silver sheen. The tip of its scimitar was planted in the crevice between cobblestones on the ground in front of its clawed feet, its long sharp fingers were knotted as they rested firmly over the hilt. Light shone through the windows beyond the relic, passing through shards of stained glass of black and white and crystal hue. The bell was struck again and the creatures began to hum all together. Ahead of them, the stone glimmered faintly as though a light were flickering from within its opaque depths. Slowly and silently, the creature which stood at the door lifted its blade and eased its way towards its prostrate brethren. The hem of its own dark robe brushed softly over the ash colored stones of the floor, making a whispering sound whose warning was drowned out by the humming. With a growl, he leaped over the first row and landed for an instant with both feet upon the back of a startled creature kneeling in the second row. Then bounding gingerly forward, it drove the great scimitar downward into a creature that knelt in the center of the third row. The humming ceased, broken apart by startled cries that sounded like giant icebergs tearing the hull of a metal ship. A murmur of alarm and confusion boiled over. Those creatures nearest the attacker spilled away from the murder like the waters of a stream parted by a boulder, scrambling upward and outward at once to see what had landed upon them. There was a shout of,"The Elder, the Elder is slain!" as the assailant pulled the bloodied blade up and out of its victims bony old back. It wiped the steel clean upon the old creature’s black robe and the Elder fell over sideways and lay in a crumpled heap. Another creature flung itself recklessly at the murderer in an attempt to grapple the blade away, but the guardian of the door cut it down with hardly an effort. In a swift sweeping motion, the blade slashed across the belly of another that rushed at it from its right. The robe of that other parted as a male human tumbled out and hit the ground trembling. It was he that had absorbed the blow and blood was soaking through his white garments causing it to cling to his wounded breast. The creature that had housed him beneath the folds of its robe had a moment to cast its eyeless face downward, regarding its lost cargo with shock before attempting to block the attackers next blow. The one who had been the guardian threw the other creature back with a forceful shove and buried the point of its great scimitar into the center of the man, nearly cleaving him in two. The creature that had harbored the man shrieked, doubled over and collapsed.
Another of the creatures from the furthest row had come fully to its feet and while many of the others were following suit, this one threw back its robe, revealing a pale haired woman. She sat within a concave space in the creatures center, hanging over its sexless pelvic mound so that her legs dangled between the larger ones of her carrier. The interior of the creature was a nearly perfect throne, its flesh encased ribcage opened around her head like a crown of antlers, and delicate tendrils reached from its own heart, pulsing beneath thin membranes of flesh above her head, where they rested upon her temples and snaked over her shoulders to touch the bare flesh over her own heart .‘Cardea! Stop this! What are you doing?" she cried.The one who had been the guardian pulled back one half of its own robe and revealed its passenger, a pasty man with dark circles under his eyes. He was fitted within the creature just as she was within hers, but he gazed absently with wide unseeing eyes as if he were asleep and dreaming. A trickle of clear saliva slid its way out of the corner of his gaping mouth."Cardea! Cardea!" The woman screamed at him to no avail. "Cardea control your demon! See what you are doing! Cardea!"But the creature only dropped the robe and let it cover its inactive occupant up again. Raising its blade, it took one step forward, then another, and another, closing the distance between them. The room was swarming like an ant hill which has had water poured over it, but the way between them was clear. The woman screamed, her voice cracking, and the strange reverberating voice of her creature bellowed in unison with her own,"Cardea! Do you hear me?" She and the creature in which she was perched held their ground as the killer closed the last little gap between them. A great noise thundered through the air, silencing all other sounds, as a gun was discharged. Cardea’s creature stopped mid step, the crown of its head suddenly absent. Under a rain of blood and guts, the blade slipped from its grip and clattered upon the stones. Then its towering bulk toppled over, lifeless.The doors had been thrown open and one of the sentries from the hall stood a few feet within the chapel, a smoking hand cannon held in its claw. A man with a bristling red beard leaped out of its belly and tore across the room. His vacated creature trailed close behind him. He looked up at the woman sitting in her demon, her face streaked with tears. He offered a hand to her and she came down from her creature. The man kissed her forehead, his beard brushing her face like the needles of a young pine tree."You’re alright then?" he asked her and she nodded. "The Elder." she said and they looked to the heap beyond Cardea. Together they rushed to the Elder’s fallen demon. Two more creatures strode over and gently rolled the large body out. The woman pulled open the robe, revealing a withered old man with long white hair, the top of his head matted with blood. Most of it had been spilled from the pierced heart of his demon, but his own skull had been cracked by the deadly strike. A sob caught in the throat of the white haired woman as she stepped backward. The bearded man stood behind her and gripped her arms to comfort her. A ring of creatures gathered about the Elder. More poured in through the opened doors of the chapel. An unrobed creature pushed its way through the crowd. Its passenger, a young flaxen haired man with thin and wiry arms, was clearly visible."There must be no crying here." He commanded. "All of you, retreat to your chambers for silent meditation. Only the heads of The Order should remain to help me to tend to the fallen" Slowly the mass began to shuffle back out the way it had come.The bearded man spoke up,"With your permission Reverence, I would like to conduct interviews in the great hall to ascertain the direct nature of this tragedy."The blonde haired man looked down from his seat at the other. After a pause he asked,"Aram isn’t it?""Yes Reverence.""So long as they are conducted quietly, one person at a time, then you have my permission.""Yes Reverence, I understand. It will be so." Then Aram turned the woman around to face him."You will be first Roan. Meet me there when you have collected yourself sufficiently." He gave her arms another squeeze and she nodded. Then they parted. He took his seat within his demon and strode out with the others.
Roan however, waited until she would not risk being trampled. Then she walked on her own two feet with her demon following several paces behind. She walked all the way to her quarters. The distance was greater than she had remembered. Years had passed since she had last walked it herself rather than relying on her demon. She supposed that this was the case for most. At the doorway, she paused to observe her demon standing tall and silent as a phantom, still dressed in the black ceremonial robes. Silently, she willed her demon to open the door and together they passed into their private chamber. Inside, Roan opened a small chest that sat upon her vanity. Within it, three vials remained undisturbed, held snugly in place by a sponge-like padding. There were empty indentations in the padding where the fourth, fifth, and sixth vial had been stored. Quickly she closed the chest and locked it with a brass key. After stowing the key in the pocket of an old coat hung within her wardrobe, she summoned her demon and took her place at its core. Back in the hallway she willed her demon to hasten the pace. She took care that they were not seen, turning once into an adjacent hallway and ducking into a doorway, and waiting there until the approaching footfalls echoed away into the distance. At last they reached the door that she sought. She silently willed the demon to lay its head against the door and through it, she listened to be sure that no one stirred within. Assured that the chamber was empty, she pressed the door open with her demon’s clawed hand and slipped inside.
Cardea’s bed was unmade. The wax of a candle had been spilled onto the floor and left to dry among cast off shirts and socks. A plate of partially eaten food stood upon the night table. There, near the plate, she spied what she was looking for. An emptied vial. One of those that she had given to him. Her demon snatched it up from the nightstand and deposited it in her own hand. After a careful search, she discovered the two remaining vials; one under the bed, another by the wash basin. Fingering the last vial, she recalled standing in just that spot, watching Cardea splash water over his face. She had offered him that first vial then."What’s this?" he had asked, taking it from her."Something that I mixed up. Something to ease your burden." She had told him.When the three empty vials had been placed into their spaces in the chest upon her vanity, she locked it and hid the key in the old coat once again. She smoothed her hair and checked herself in the mirror."Now, Aram, I have collected myself." She said quietly, her hand pressed upon the box. Then she mounted her demon and made her way to the Great Hall where Aram would be waiting. Any trace of guilt in her face could be hidden by sadness, any trace of shame could be hidden by despair. Her path was clear. Nobody would ever know what had really killed the Elder. Nobody would ever know that an attempt at rebirth had ended in destruction, that a simple wish for life had ended in sudden unexpected death. Nobody but Roan and the demon that carried her in its entrails, like a microbe of flesh in a giant body of stone.