Light in Darkness

   I wrote a short story for an assignment and thought I may as well put it somewhere. So I'm posting it here. I, ah, don't actually know whether it's any good or not, but it is a bit of backstory to the rather longer tale that this blog is named for. Constructive criticism is always welcome! So, random stranger, I hope you enjoy my odd little tale.




   She waited in darkness so profound that at first she believed herself blind. This was not so, for once the cloaked ones opened the door to her cell, the harsh torch-light in the hallway made black, blurry shapes of her captors against the orange glare.
   “Will you take oaths of us?” asked one of them in a honeyed tenor voice. “If not, you will go the way of your parents.”
   Indeed, her parents had died refusing such oaths, as her friends had lived by making them. They were not friends now, she thought, since they had hidden their faces in cowls so deep with shadow, now that they had joined themselves to the dark-cloaked people.
   “I will not,” she said, and refused to say anything more to them. The cloaked ones left eventually, though they came back sometimes to ask again. They showed her fine and tempting meals of many courses, offered her many other things to satisfy her heart’s desires, but she ignored them all, for what she wanted most was gone from her forever.
   At last their store of enticements failed and they came no longer. She was alone in the unrelenting blackness, with nothing but her own breath to keep her company. They brought her food sometimes and water regularly, but never enough, and never better than the slops she had, in another life, fed her family’s goats.
   To amuse herself she sang, or told herself tales, or shuffled around her cell, clinging to the wall. It was always cold, and the girl felt that she might never be warm again, for the chill in the stone sank deep into her bones and settled there.
   Her only respite from the darkness was in sleep - for with sleep came dreams, and memory.
   So she slept, and dreamed of star-filled skies and sunny summer fields full of rustling wildflowers and ripening wheat, and mountains so tall they seemed to touch the fierce blue heavens. And more often, she dreamed her way through memories and out into a strange and misty realm in which only change was constant.
   It was there that she was freest, though the shadows that filled her waking hours filled this dream-realm also. But this, too, changed, for on one of her many explorations, she found or was found by a spark that hovered in the air, burning like a small star above her head. Fascinated, for memories of light grew dim with the passing of time, she watched as it danced through the air.
   When it fled, she followed. Soon it was joined by threads of such vibrant and vivacious hue that all the darkness she endured in waking was forgotten. Colors twined about her in a dizzying parade, and she followed the path they illuminated despite its steepness. Her only sense of direction came from her sleeping body, somewhere behind her, below her, and to the left. She felt no fear; she knew she could wake whenever she chose. But she did not so choose, for how could she give up this marvelous light for the blindness of her waking hours?
   At last the path ended in mist so deep that she could see no farther than her own nose, though the threads and sparks that surrounded her made everything glow. And up ahead there was a brilliance far greater than her remembered sun, though it did not burn her eyes. It moved toward the girl as she continued forward, and the mist dispersed enough for her to see that the fierce burning was centered around a man. He shone with inner light, and the threads of light which she had followed mingled with those that swirled around him in an ever-moving tapestry.
   “Dreamwalker’s child, why do you come here alone?” he asked, bending down on one knee to meet her.
   “What is a Dreamwalker?” she asked after a moment's consideration, twisting her hair around her fingers.
   “One who lives between two realms - for you, I think, it is Ryndari and the Dragomir.” The shining man waited for a moment, then asked, “Why have your parents not taught you?”
   “They were killed,” the girl said, looking down at her bare feet as she steeled herself against tears. When she looked up again, a furrow ran between the man’s brows.
   “Well,” he said, “I cannot leave you to wander the Dragomir alone; there are dangers here that no child should face.”
   She took a step back. “Oh, please do not make me wake,” she pleaded. “There is no light there, and my dreams are fading.”
   The threads that swirled around the shining man turned chaotic - confused? “No light? Are you blind, then, in the waking world?”
   “No,” she said, shaking her head. “The people who raided my village have killed us or forced oaths from us. I would not speak the oaths, but they haven’t killed me, and I don’t know why. They k-killed my parents for that, after all. Instead they keep me in a room where there is no light at all.” And to her complete and utter embarrassment, the girl found that she was not so indifferent to all this as she had thought herself. A stifled sob escaped, and the shining man rose from his crouch to put an arm around her. Instead of flinching away as she would have normally, she leaned into his shoulder and wept with a wrenching agony that made her sleeping self nearly wake.
   As soon as she could control her deep, silent sobbing, she pulled away and hid her face, wondering what had caused her to seek comfort from a stranger. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
   “Did this happen recently?” the man asked her, ignoring her shame. She shrugged.
   “I can’t tell time. It seems like forever that I’ve been in the dark,” she told him, smearing tears away from her cheeks.
  Some of the light around him, warm hues of orange and rusty red, reached out to her, though he did not move himself. “I cannot reach you at this time, to give you aid,” he said. “We live in different realms, you and I, and I will be not be here long, for I have an errand to be about, and cannot linger.” She waited; it seemed to her that he was thinking aloud as her mother had often done. He sighed deeply and looked at her. “Still, it would not be right to leave you alone in the Dragomir without protection or guidance, and who can say whether I came this way tonight through chance or providence?”
   Since she didn’t understand half of what he was saying, she said nothing; she didn’t think the question was for her, anyway. She watched as the threads of light looped lazily about him as he rubbed his chin, lost in thought, and waited for his decision.
   At last the stranger looked up at the veiled sky. “How old are you?” he asked.
   “I’m older than nine summers,” the girl said, for she had been so when they had all been taken.
   “Yes, you seem so,” the man agreed. “Well, then you are old enough to choose your path in life. Would you do so now?”
   “How can I choose any path, when I’m in prison?” she asked, eyebrows knitting together. “There are no paths there, only walls and a floor.”
   He smiled at her. “This is a chance to change yourself, not what is around you - though you may eventually do that as well. As you chose not to take oaths of or be joined with evil, so now I give you a choice. If you promise to seek light and defend it, to hope and not despair, and to serve and protect those who do the same, you will receive what you need most in days of darkness and trouble.”
   Slowly, she studied him. There were darker colors woven into the radiance that surrounded him, but none of those hues attracted more darkness. She saw none of the emptiness or massive hunger that defined those who had killed her parents. The light in him reached out warmly to her. And so she nodded, and as he held out a hand to her, she stepped forward to place her own in it. He knelt and put a hand on her shoulder.
   “I am Suniel, messenger to Kirian. His power is promised to all who walk in darkness, seeking sight. As he serves all who seek, so those who need his strength must also serve. If you ask for light you shall receive it, so long as you strive to keep it with you always. If you ask for guidance it will be given unless you turn from it.
   “A gift is given to all who live; it is theirs to use it in service or selfishness, and Kirian’s strength will guide your own gift if you use it well and freely in the service of others. His purpose is to give all who walk honorably in the world a light by which they may see truth clearly. If you covenant with Kirian, he will not let you go astray, nor walk in darkness - while you hold true to your oath. Yet if you break that promise, he is not bound any more. I, Suniel, who am his messenger, have authority to act in his name; therefore I take his part in making this covenant.”
   The girl listened and considered. Though she was alone and imprisoned, she still harbored hope that someday she would see sky, feel wind, and hear the sounds of tree and bird and water again. Someday, perhaps, she would be free to do the things that she promised. “If I cannot do what I have promised because I have no chance, is that a breaking of the oath?” she asked, with a troubled frown.
   He shook his head. “You must be willing - if you truly cannot do what you have promised, then no oaths are broken. It is not you who decides your truthfulness, however, but a higher authority even than Kirian - and while that final judge will not condemn those who had no chance, he knows perfectly whether the terms have been met or not. You cannot lie to Truth, for he sees all.”
   Taking a long breath for courage, the girl nodded. “I will make this covenant,” she said.
   “Do you swear, then, to the high god of heaven, to give freely what you have, be it time or earthly goods, to those who stand in need of succor?” Suniel asked.
   “As long as I live, I will freely give my time or earthly goods to those who stand in need,” the girl said. “I swear it to the high god of heaven.”
   Suniel nodded and asked, “Do you swear to guide the lost, bringing light to darkness and truth to those in error?”
   “I swear that I will bring light to darkness, truth to those in error, and - and that I will guide the lost,” the girl said, stumbling a little over the words. How could she do any of those, when she was the lost one?
   “And do you swear to use your Talent to bring good, and not evil, on your fellowmen?”
   “I swear by - by the high god of heaven that - that I will use my Talent to bring good and not evil on my fellowmen.” Suniel released her and stood, and the girl watched in wonder as the light around him brightened almost unbearably.
   “Kirian will honor this covenant so long as you also do so,” he said. Solemnly he added, “If ever you forget your oaths and do contrary to them, he will withdraw his help from you. But you may always turn back to him by renewing the covenant you have made.”
   “I understand,” she said, and his face softened.
   “Kirian’s blessing will be with you now. You need not fear death or darkness,” said Suniel. “Now you must wake, child. I cannot delay any longer.”
   “Thank you,” she said, and watched as he paced away from her, never once looking back.
   As she woke, she thought at first that she was still asleep, for the dancing, spiraling threads of light which had led her to Kirian’s messenger danced through the air still in flashes and sparks that lit the entire cell. But her body was sore from the rough stone floor, and though there was light enough to see by, a shroud of darkness still surrounded her, though it had drawn back a little. Dazed, she clambered to her feet, then broke forth into sudden song as she threw her arms out wide - for she was mired in utter darkness no longer; she had been promised light, and light she now joyously received.