night falls. or has fallen.
why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn?
why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn?
AS the story unfolds, imagine it told like this: by a spy wrapped in shadows, some of it muffling his mouth—a bit like a thick winter scarf. His voice is quiet and unadorned, pitched tinglingly low, and aided by, in no particular order: a dash of melancholy, an unplaceable accent, and a backdrop of misty rain.
"Once there was a boy who's mother, on her deathbed, entrusted to him a secret."
The rhythmic shh, shh of rain slashing the window drowned out the creaking of old floorboards as Seraphina settled tensely down besides him. He tried not to watch her, out of manners (which Caine, as Verona, was obligated to practice convincingly). Instead, he allowed his shadow-veiled gaze to linger on her unbound hair, scattered like freshly fallen snow on the worn carpet. It was easier to admit how pretty he had always thought it—like a bolt of white silk, but finer—while his mind still swam in wine. Or ale.
Or Saints else Rudolph had poured into his cup that evening.
"This secret was not so simple as a string of whispered words." he continued. "From behind her pillow, the mother drew out a tattered flour sack. 'Let not this secret die with me. If you meet anything and wish to catch it, just open this sack and tell beasts or birds or whatever else to get into it, and they’ll do just that, and you can close the sack and do with them what you will.' The boy accepted it solemnly, tying it to his belt, and the mother passed on in peace. Years passed, and while the sack stayed empty, the boy carried it with him always. Because that is what you do with a secret—you carry it and carry it until the day it kills you."
Abruptly, Caine paused; stiffly, he leaned forwards. A tendril of snowy hair lifted up from the floor. Like a stunned moth it hovered, fluttering weakly, for half a heartbeat; before it was resignedly set down again.
"Or you kill it," he added at last, so low and quiet that the rain almost ran away with it.
Almost.
I am tired of playing games, he had told her.
(He did not think it was a game anymore.)
Blithely he drew back between one blink and the next, as if nothing had ever happened. Time resumed its flowing. Rain continued its drumming. Shadows went forth with their writhing.
Spies returned to their storytelling.
"One midwinter morning, the boy stumbled upon a painted palace nestled deep inside a pocket of forest, just north of his usual hunting grounds. At once, he knew he had found the king's abandoned winter palace.
That night, the boy went to the village's headman and asked how the king could desert such a fine abode. 'Because of the devils,' said the headman. 'Devils?' asked the boy. 'Devils,' replied the headman. 'Every night at midnight they crowd into the palace to play cards and bang pots and what with all the devilries that come into their heads, there's no living in the palace for decent folk.' Hearing this, the boy became aglow with determination. 'And does nobody clear them out?' he asked. 'And what, may I ask, scares a devil?' was the headman's bitter response.
'Send for the king,' said the boy, for he had the answer. 'Tell his majesty his palace shall be rid of devils by the morn.'
At once, the boy made for the palace with his sack tied around his waist like a belt. Arriving before midnight, he sat by the fireplace and puffed solemnly on a pipe as he waited. Twelve o'clock sharp, there started a yelling and a banging of spoons on pots. The boy adjusted his belt. As five devils with snakes for tails came bursting through the palace doors, the boy greeted them by adjusting his belt, and that infuriated them.
As the fattest devil of the lot swung his hissing tail at his head, the boy plucked up his sack and loosened the drawstrings. As the thinnest devil of the lot stabbed a glowing poker at his eye, the boy opened his sack wide and said: 'See this sack?' The devils froze, perplexed. 'Well, what are you waiting for? Get into it.'
One by one, obedient as dogs, devil after devil dove headfirst into the sack—and the boy drew the strings tightly closed.
And so the boy, now a hero, returned to the king his winter palace. As a show of goodwill the king promised to the boy his daughter's hand in marriage, which the princess had agreed to gladly. Heroes were rare in their little kingdom. Like a precious jewel, how ravishing it would be for the princess to have a hero on her arm. In time, from their union came a son; and it was in the spring of the little prince's ninth year that the story continues again.
The little prince had fallen ill—horribly ill. Blood streamed from his throat, and his face had turned a sickly white. With haste the hero called the best doctors of the land to see to him, but their prognoses were all the same. 'Your son will die, we are sorry to say. There is nothing that can be done,' they said. 'Nothing?' the hero asked. 'Nothing. We are all mortal, sire. We all die eventually. He will go in peace,' said one, and in fury the hero dismissed them.
'But what of the immortal?' whispered the hero, as he ran to his chambers and drew out a tattered brown sack from within a twice-locked chest. Loosening the strings, the hero reached deep into the sack and pulled a fat, quivering devil out by his whimpering tail.
'Tell me, devil,' the hero said. 'Look at my son, and tell me what you see.' 'Death, m'lord,' answered the devil after a pause. 'Death stands by him, and waits.' Smiling, the devil pulled a glass from his pocket. 'Do you wish to see?' The hero took the glass and brought it to his eye—and as he looked towards the end of the prince's bed, there stood a black-robed figure, gaunt and somber and expectant. 'I see Death standing by my son's head,' said the hero. The devil clucked, and tucked the glass back inside his pocket. 'If Death is standing at your son’s feet, he will be well again. But if Death is standing at his head, then nothing can save him.'
Before the devil could say 'I am sorry, my lord,' the hero grabbed him by the tail and murmured: 'I thank you. Now go back inside the sack.' After even the devil was swallowed up again, the hero did not draw tight the sack's strings. Instead, he held it open with one hand and with the other, went to stroke his son's head. 'Worry not, my son. It is not your time yet.'
And, looking straight at the spot where he knew Death stood waiting, the hero opened the sack as wide as it could go. 'Death, I bid you go inside.' And Death dove headfirst inside the sack.
From that time onwards, there was no more dying in the world. There were births every day but no funerals, not one, for Death was trapped in a sack. For many years the kingdom lived in a deathless bliss, and the little prince grew handsome and strong. Until one day, the hero—who was now king, as the previous one had tired of ruling for ever—came across an old hag struggling to cross the road. All bones and wrinkled skin, her gums were teethless and her legs shook like rattles. The king whispered to himself, in pity: 'It was time for her to die years ago.'
The hag raised her head, for she had heard him. 'Yes,' she rasped. 'Long ago it was time for me to die. I was ready for it, and was glad to finally be at peace. But then you trapped Death in a sack, and robbed me of my eternal rest. I am not the only soul in the world who is tortured as I am. Mine is not the only place that is growing dusty besides our Saints. Hundreds and thousands of us who should have died drag on in misery. Those that are evil cannot be killed. Those who are sick cannot seek an end. Those that are healthy must spare their grain to feed the sick, the old, the evil, and the newborn.' The king grew silent as the hag hobbled towards him.
'The world, deathless, is no longer a world for the living. So my king, I ask you this. Do you still believe yourself a hero?'"
He had not looked at Seraphina once since beginning his story; and as he blinked out of it, he found himself awakening to snow-white and a river of gold. Shadows spiraled dazedly around Caine, the chains of magic leashing them loosening and loosening until there remained only a thin, diaphanous layer sheltering him. He didn't care. Somewhere in the midst of his story—no, it had been earlier than even that—he had lost the will to care.
He cleared his throat, brushed his hair out of his eyes. Drew himself to his hooves and crossed the distance (the gulf, the ravine, the whole entire sea) separating them. Stopping before he could touch her. His cloak slipped from his shoulders and he did nothing to stop it, merely sighed as it hit the carpet like a dead thing. His wings shivered from the sudden warmth that engulfed them, heat sucked in as shadows fled like oil over ice.
She knew, didn't she? Who he really was. And if she didn't—if she hadn't—he wasn't sorry. Verona would have been, but Caine wasn't. And he wasn't sorry about that either.
It was then that he learned silence had a sound too. It sounded like him staring wordlessly at her; like his cloak fluttering down to the floor; like a candle snuffing out after a long, long fight; like the night as it waited for the warmth of the sun.
{ @Seraphina "speaks" notes: Caine's story is adapted from the Russian folk tale The Soldier and Death }
