tenebrae
The work of the eyes is done.
Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.
~Rilke
His eyes close against Azrael’s words. But his teeth press tight.
There, there in the darkness, locked in the tomb of his body, the window of his eyes shuttered up, Tenebrae writhes.
“What makes you think my darkness has not already consumed me?” The monk asks, though it is no question at all. He is already swallowed down in Caligo’s black, in his deep remorse, like a bottomless well. There is no light left within him, except that which others place there: Maeve with the fire that terrifies her, Morr with the fire the defines her, Moira with her light that glows bright enough to end the world and Elena with the light of her soul, more beautiful than the sun. Then Boudika, with the flame of her hope…
They are all there, lighting the parts of him that he cannot. He moves into each of their light and watches how it beats back his consuming shadows.
If the monk and his shadows are silent, where the monk stands still, his shadows do not. They gather to prowl in the space between the two men. They flare up like wings, beating the air in anger and despair.
The irony is that both men stand, jealous and dismal, broken by the smile of a girl as light as the sun. Elena, with her blue, blue eyes and her touch that sank deeper than his skin and bones and muscle. She sank herself into his heart, stitched herself into Tenebrae’s soul. But as he stares he sees how Azrael has it all. His eyes tell all, Tenebrae thinks. If only he could see them, the monk could reach in and draw out the shed-star’s soul and heart and see how both bear Elena’s marks, like fingerprints, moulded by her love.
You should go.
He should.
He should leave and not look back. There is nothing for him here. And yet there is everything. Tenebrae turns within a word, moves slowly through the crowd and leaves. It is silent, an almost gentle retreat. Without the monk seems placid, unbroken, nearly serene. Within, oh, he is a storm, a wave gathering. His soul rocks like a boat, loosed from its moorings. He leaves with guilt and sorrow burning through the fabric of his being.
There is nothing more for him here.
That is a litany his heart tries to make itself believe.
But his shadows know. And they turn and crawl back the way he has come. They loom like night before the shedstar and vow their voice is coming, their claws their teeth, their sentient being. The cry out in Tenebrae’s magic, in his DNA, but he cannot understand magic, not until it has a voice, not until it cries out that Azrael’s daughter is not his at all, but theirs, theirs, theirs.
