Whoa, Jess, you quoted!! :lol:
Nah, seriously, girls, thank you so much for your replies, you know how muh they mean to me.
So, I actually planned to post tomorrow or Thursday, but Stacy got me all giddy with Dance of the Debutante, so since her chapter's next I am posting it now to thank her.
If she likes it, that is, I am nervous!Chapter three. Killing loneliness. (the girl, the wizard and his obsession).Again, she was looking at a man and a woman. They were sitting very close together, and his hands lay open on the table like flowers, nestled into the paler ones of his companion. But Lilith had no chance to observe them discreetly like any stranger would do, because both their eyes had been looking at her, she realized, since she left the barstool by the bench and went to sit on a vacant chair identical to the one that was before her now.
For a split second this awareness annoyed her. She wondered, half the way between bitterness and shame, if the couple of strangers before her had been silently judging her, whispering, their heads close. Look, she’s going to die. She wondered if something in her face showed it, if the unavoidable sentence of death struck at her had already began to affect her appearance, stealing away the gleam of her eyes, tainting her skin with the decaying rottenness of corpses.
But when she moved a step closer, invading their vital space, the man looked at her and smiled openly.
“Good evening, Lilith.” He said merrily, “please, take a seat.”
She did, placing the glass before her, and like she remembered about it just then, raised it to take a sip of the drink. It scratched her mouth and throat, sliding into her stomach, burning coldly.
“Let us introduce ourselves,” the man spoke again, his voice ringing of the same peculiar vibration that she felt oddly familiar – she scanned her mind for the memory of it, through memories she owned before she stepped past the crimson door, and a flat surprise confirmed that the emotion in the voice of the man was – simply – happiness.
“My name is Dominic,” he stretched his hand, that Lilith shook absent-mindedly, “and this is Penelope.”
“Lilith.” She said her name like she was chewing it, and it tasted alien on her lips. The young woman before her was beautiful, she mused in her quiet stupor: she had long, dark hair and flawless skin. Her eyes looked like splinters of sapphire.
Beside her, the young man twitched in open glee. He looked positively young, not particularly handsome, but the light spreading on his irregular features gave him the appearance of a spirited, joyful creature.
“Dominic,” the girl, Penelope, spoke for the first time, “please, try and calm down, it’s not very polite towards our Lilith, given what she is facing tonight.”
She had spoken in a sweet, intimate voice, but the effect of her words seemed to seed down the man’s enthusiasm. Still, a rebel smile broke on his lips as he turned to Lilith, scrolling his shoulders in a childish apology.
“It’s our first night out in a while,” he explained, “but Penelope is right. Sorry, Lilith.”
“It’s… fine,” she replied at once, tightening her inner grip on something in the back of her head that stirred: a wounded, nightmarish beast of fear pulled its leash with a growl of protest, roaring in an intelligible language that it was starting to wake up.
It was about time, Lilith mused, keeping it down with not much effort: the fear, the ultimate fear full of awareness had been starting to knot and get a shape, while she was looking into the pure eyes of the blonde muse who told her how good it felt to walk barefoot on the grass; and now, she was forced to endure the company of two polite strangers who talked to her like she had a dying illness…
“Why is it your first night out?” she resumed in asking politely, and into her mind the monster flared its nostrils and waited, alert.
The two of them exchanged a quick glance; there was no doubt the young man was bursting to talk, but when Lilith’s eyes jerked aside to Penelope’s face she saw concern, and shame, in her azure pools.
“We heard you talking to Dixie, and to them,” Penelope said slowly, like every word was heavy on her lips; when she said ‘them’ she did not point at the table behind her, but she obviously meant it; “We know that you would not mind sharing some words will all the patrons here, but, you see, we were wondering… how good would it be?”
Lilith’s mind quivered, and wrapped up like a snake around Penelope’s words. Her last sentence hung mid-way between the two of them oscillating heavy of cryptic meanings. For a split second Lilith was about to say: ‘how good would it be for me to know all about life, death and what lies behind them, since I am dying?’, but before she could, her snakelike mind jerked forwards, words slipping from her mouth, out of reach to her will power:
“What’s your sin?” she asked quietly. When words rolled out her mouth, she smiled.
Dominic and Penelope were looking at her, she noticed, not shaken at all, not taken aback by her hazardous leap: she had somehow took for granted that their presence there needed an explanation, and this explanation could just be as bad as they seemed so gentle and kind. Apparently, they agreed.
Penelope’s pale hand reached the one of her companion. She did not clasp it, but she ran a finger down the lines of his palm, confidently, like she had done it a million times before, and her eyes never left Lilith. The girl wished to see them turn cold, judgmental or angry, but all there was in Penelope’s eyes was a serene indulgence. There was triumph and love, and maybe a bit of compassion.
“I think you should start our telling, Dominic,” she began, “but Lilith, let me say something before Dom tells you all about us: you are right, there is a sin above us, like on the most of the people here. You’re right in not giving for granted people’s good, because it means to train yourself to rely on their mercy, and mercy graces victims less often than one might fear. Be bad, if you can; don’t hurt anyone, but keep in mind you might need to very soon. There’s another thing – “
Her sapphire eyes blazed, and her lips parted to disclose teeth that were just as white as her skin,
“Do not judge us. We are, to the eyes of most, bad people. We’ll go to Hell – because Hell exists, trust me – but still we are of the kindest people you’ll find in this venue, and given what it’s left to leave to you, it’s not much. Do not judge any of your people, little Lilith; you might not be here with a purpose, but keep on listening to us nevertheless, you never know.”
“How do you know?” Lilith cut her cross, because Penelope’s eyes shone too vividly and her voice was as white as her teeth.
“I do not
know,” The woman replied slowly, “I
see.”
“Fine.” Dominic interrupted her. This time there was no cheerfulness in his voice, but a grave seriousness, and he somehow looked older than five minutes before.
“Our story is, actually, quite simple, at least for the standards of the magical world. It could take us light ages to scan and check all the moral implications, but it’s not lessons I am meant to provide you with. Your time is running fast, so let’s simply concentrate on facts. Feel free to question, anyway.”
He paused, a small, imperceptible hesitation before a leap; his chest heaved a bit and his chin pointed an inch upper when he said, with a strange, metallic pride:
“I am a wizard.”
“A wizard.” Lilith repeated, refraining at once from saying: ‘a wizard, you?’
“I am two-hundred and forty-six years old, but as you can see, I still look reasonably young. I told you are free to question, but let me explain everything properly. I am not boasting my skills here, trust me, I used to be a very powerful wizard, and I can handle deadly enchantments. Of course when it comes to power you have different currents of thought, and you’ll find many who don’t agree with me, and were happy to see me end up… well, you’ll see. I was one of the Seven who destroyed the Formulae of Change, legacy of the Druids.”
Lilith gasped.
The destruction of the Formulae of Change was the Waterloo of the untamed magical world, was the magical upside down of the French Revolution, the proof that past centuries and centuries, wizards and witches could still claim their leadership on the magical world, overcoming all the other creatures.
However, when seven among the most powerful wizards and witches of the time gathered in a hidden location, about a century before, and through a treacherous, long series of spells destroyed all the copies of the ancient enchantment forged by the Druids, that allowed the radical change in the nature of their performer, it was more than a demonstrative action.
‘
Through water and flame and paper and stone, I command thee, lest come undone.’
The ultimate destroying spell had become the universal motto of lodged Magic, the magic of civilized creatures, of books, candles and spells. And, the young man before her was one of those who…
“I used to be a good alchemist,” Dominic went on, proud but poised, “Actually, spells have always been something complementary, to me. I need to feel my power over things, and spells, the verbal ones in riddles, they are too volatile. No, give me something tangible, give me dragon claw powder and mercury, ash and wine,
and, a tying spell, of course. Any questions?” he smiled at Lilith’s dropped jaw. She felt a shiver run through her spine, and suddenly, her hands jerked to fists: she never dreamed about meeting a man who was this close to everything she had always been eager to know, and yet there he was, before her, revealing secrets even too wild and beautiful for a humble human mind to handle– and he wondered if she had questions, she, Lilith, who worshipped magic like a light chasing away darkness, Lilith, who had been living on questions and now she was about to die.
“Why do you say you ‘used’ to be?” she asked stiffly. Inside her soul, the dark shapeless beast pulled its leash in an abrupt excess of strength. It roared words inside her head, and for an instant Lilith could not hear her own voice:
‘You’re dying already… walking barefoot on the grass… nobody worries about having a peculiarity… Lilith… don’t judge us… be bad if you can… Lilith… through water and flame…
Lilith…’
“I have been expelled from the lodge of Magic.” Dominic answered flatly, not an ounce of regret rippling his voice. “I still have powers, of course! Warlock blood stays within you until you die. Don’t believe it when they sell you nasty tales about wizards being sentenced to death, wands broken in two and stuff. Actually,” he pondered pensively, “there is no effective way to break a wand. It is a tool to catalyze power, you see, integral part of the wizard or witch. A wand breaks on its own only when its owner dies, and this can happen in two ways: they can be killed, or decide to let themselves die. I never met a warlock who succumbed to natural accidents or plagues.”
“But why have you…” Lilith began, but something in the corner of her eye answered her unsaid words: the white wide movement of Penelope’s hand.
“For me.” She said, “it’s because of me.”
“Penelope,” Dominic went on, his voice still low, narrating, and maybe this was the creepiest thing of all, how he looked so cheerful, young and alive and yet his voice sounded so flat and mesmerizingly far away, “yes, Penelope was the cause of my damnation. It’s because of her that I, one of the Greatest Seven, am now considered doomed scum.”
“It happened about eighty years ago. I used to live in England, at that time. It was a misty day of Spring, when I took a walk down Camden Town, in London. It was the daring, light-hearted and yet noble England of the 1920’s, and I was a powerful wizard. I’ll make a long story short for you, Lilith. I entered a painter’s shop, and she was there.” He paused, waiting.
“Framed in gold, hanging to the wall. Yes –“ he gently nodded at Lilith, though she didn’t speak, “it was the portrait of a young woman, just like you see her now. She sat in an oval frame, breast-length, looking away with one, gleaming blue eye. I don’t know what took over me in that moment. Maybe it was a revenge of the Druids, a hidden counter-jinx that struck at me when I first lay my eyes on that picture. I was cursed. I bought it and carried it home with me, and from the moment my hands touched the frame, I knew my fate had come to the ultimate twist.”
“As you can easily imagine, my obsession quickly turned into madness. Madness, for a wizard, is even more dangerous than for a humble man, because in both ways, it’s a back door creaking open inside your head, opening on a long, dark tunnel, full of poisonous spirits and odds. But the powers of a wizard are so impressive sometimes, that the abuse of them leads to tragedies never to be compared to the folly of a cursed man.”
“I wanted her. I spent days and nights away staring at her blue eye, lost away into dead distance, rocking on the floor, stretching my shaking hand to brush her painted lips. I called the name written at the bottom of the portrait like an omen – Penelope, Penelope. I forsake everything, food, sleep, light. The loneliness that is helplessly implied in our power, the one I had been experiencing for almost two centuries took its toll on me like never before. I could not take it.”
“I soon found out that there were no spells to bring to life an unanimated portrait. Giving life is not easy. Restore it, claim back the living from the realm of dead, it is difficult. But profuse life into something that never was alive, give it a brain, a voice, a conscience, well, it was impossible. It is not just about giving life, you see. You have to force life to stick inside its target, force it to independently replicate itself for good. It was impossible, as I said. But I had to do it.”
“Of course, you cannot create life from scratch, none of the most powerful of wizards can do it. All you can do is find a way to channel it into a precise target and force it to linger there. Sometimes though, the only way to find life, is to steal it.”
“I understood, at some point along my quest, that I was about to enter the lowest, the most horrid and unforgivable patterns of dark magic. The more I searched and learned, the more I understood I was about to doom myself forever, my soul, my future. But, I did not care. All I could see, through my feverish quest, was Penelope’s eye.”
Dominic stopped. There was something monstrous, something dirty, in his innocent and childish smile: it was the beautiful danger of a dancing snake, or a tiger about to leap. It was the gleam in the eye of the hawk, swooping in a dive.
“Somehow, I managed to create a potion, but I knew it was not enough. Can you tell me, Lilith, what does the twelfth rule of Spells warrant? I’ll begin it for you: the greater the magic – “
“- the greater the sacrifice. Wine for poison, gold for flight, sacrifice…” she swallowed, “sacrifice for life.”
“Precisely.” Dominic lifted Penelope’s hand into his own, smoothing it, and kindly forced it open. He dipped his face inside it, like smelling a white flower, and from there, he whispered again.
“I understood that the way you are understanding it now. I needed to steal life, and in the most brutal way I could think of, because my loath towards pain, and the helpless blame I’d put on myself was part of the requited sacrifice.”
He severed his face from Penelope’s hand, but didn’t let her go.
“I used to live in a small village on the north-east of London, at that time. It was a quiet place, perfect for my experiments. The people were too poor to mind my business, too earthbound. Yes, nothing more than ignorant peasants they were. Now, Lilith, what I am going to tell you might shock you, but as I said before, let’s stick to facts. You seem competent enough to understand why I did what I did. At least, I hope so.”
“There was a child. I saw him every day when I walked to and from the village for food. He tottered behind me for about half a mile, ragged, thin and pale, but always smiling. Sometimes, when he followed me to my shabby, he sang.”
“I am not sure I fathered him, I am quite sure of it though, but I guess we’ll never know.
So, it was a cold winter night, when the potion I let ripen for a full month was ready, and on that night I catered myself the last ingredient.”
“I found the boy after a quite short search. He was cuddled against the inner wall of a rundown house, shivering under his hooded mantel. I knelt before him, and he smiled when he saw me. I don’t think he was older than seven or eight, but they were so thin, at that time… so, I knelt before the boy, I took his face in my hands, and then –“
Dominic smiled slowly,
“I ripped his eyes out of his head.”
Lilith screamed. She did it without even thinking, a small, startled shriek, muffled by her stretched hands. She looked at the young man before her, who was not smiling anymore, but he was not sad, or ashamed, either. Inside her, the black beast roared in panic, and black spots appeared to blur her vision. She breathed, once, twice.
“I am not proud of what I did,” Dominic was saying, “but I had no choice.”
“No choice?” Lilith hissed, maybe too loudly, “no choice, you said?”
“Enough.” Penelope’s voice filled the gap between them, and the woman looked at her coldly, like a perfect, deadly porcelain doll, “who do you think you are? And most of all, who do you think we are? What were you expecting, children tales about fairies and unicorns? Take a look around you, little girl! We are cursed! All of us, everybody here, did something awful or were born in sin. What did all those years spent studying magic teach you? To believe? To suspect? Magic is not taught to believe, it’s taught to quit seeking moral implications in it.”
Lilith looked at her, wide-eyed.
“He did it all for you… and, this is all you can say? Is that the answer, in the end? No answer, no reason? How can
you catch some sleep?”
Penelope shook her head.
“I am alive. I didn’t ask for it, and this is a common feature of all living things. Why then should I feel guilty for something I was given without asking? I feel, I see, I have a man who loves me. I don’t care if this comes after the sacrifice of innocent strangers. Why should you do it?”
But Lilith was not listening to her anymore. Her eyes were looking at Dominic, who lingered on her an expectant look. Like before, when he told her about ancient rites of magic, he was waiting for her feedback, for her answers, and his blue eyes shone of confident expectation. Lilith looked at Penelope: maybe that was the real difference between good and bad, between those who could still aspire to redemption and those who were left behind: that the second stopped caring long ago.
“Yes, I know why you did it.” She replied to his question that he never asked directly, “I know why his eyes.” She took a breath, and once again, words shimmered and flied into her head.
“The eye is the gate between the brain and the external world. It roots straight into the brain, but it’s the most out-oriented of our organs. Eyes connect us to each other more than anything else. Sight prevents isolation, and builds memory. With memory comes thought, and so, the whole rational process of lucubration. We think about what we see. Eyes record life, select, store it. Eyes were believed to be magical chests where the soul lived. Yes, eyes could be one of the three ultimate elements for powerful black magic: eyes, brain, and heart. But the other two are too attached to the soul of their owner, too intimately safe into their bodies. The eyes, instead, are less private right because of their purpose.”
Dominic nodded slowly.
“That is why I took them. I was not sure one eye was enough. I took them and hid them in a cloth. Once home, I dipped them into the cooled potion, handling them by the optical nerve. Then, carefully, I placed the portrait on a table, and I let the eye oscillate before it, slowly. I dangled it for seven times, in seven circles. Then I let it fall, right above Penelope’s mouth. For a moment I feared it might just slip away and squash to the floor, but instead, her lips opened when the eye touched them. I did the same with the other eye, and once she swallowed it, she turned towards me inside her frame, stretching her hands I had never seen before, and I clasped them and dragged her out.”
“That is why you said this is your first night out in while, yes?” Lilith’s voice mused tiredly, pensively, “A month to seed the potion and I bet you cannot do it too often. What does happen, when the effect of the spell begins to diminish?” She turned to the woman, who cast her eyes down.
“My eyes,” she said in a feeble voice, “they bleed me to blindness. It’s not… very nice.”
Lilith surveyed the two of them, slowly, before getting up.
“You are a great wizard,” she said respectfully. Dominic bowed his head in a light greeting, and Penelope smiled at her.
“Maybe we were asking too much of you, asking you to understand,” she said with what sounded like candid respect, but Lilith shook her head.
“You warned me, and begged me not to judge you. Actually I… I think I understand. Yes,” she repeated again, firmly,
“I think I understand. I am dying in a while and at least I wish it was for something great like…” she trailed off, but pointed her chin towards Penelope, who smiled sadly. For a moment, Lilith swore she saw a tear of blood roll down the woman’s immaculate cheek.
“You’re not much more wronged than me, after all.” She whispered softly, her head tilted down.
Tears blurred her vision, and all she could see were her feet, moving cautiously on the tawny floor, and her hand holding the glass. She almost tripped over a chair, before snapping her head up, surprised.
She was standing by one of the two corner tables, one of the two she didn’t make out properly in the smoky light. Now, much closer, she found herself standing by the side of a young man, who looked back at her curiously, a soft smile on his lips.
“Don’t cry,” he said kindly, tilting his head aside in a pensive concern. He had smoldering dark eyes that shone warm in the dim light. His hand lifted from the table in a wide move, like he was swimming.
“Come, sit here with us,” he said, even more sweetly.
“No.”
Another voice stopped Lilith dead in her tracks before she could accomplish the request. She turned abruptly, her drink sloshing dangerously, but the woman sitting at the table stood her glance with stubborn resolution.
“No, she can’t sit here, not yet.” She tossed a furious glare at the man, but he simply furrowed a brow.
“Vida…” he protested lazily, but the woman raised her chin in an imitation of his plain, weak concern.
“Orlando…” she said in a mocking tone. “She can’t. It’s too early.”
The young man called Orlando smiled apologetically at Lilith, making her frown. The stupid, absurd need of him opposing his companion made her guts growl, but all she could see on the man’s face was a dull, lazily sympathetic apology, when he pointed at the table behind her back like saying she needed to go there, first.
Lilith turned over, moving a hesitant step in that direction.
The voice of the man called Orlando reached her like a friendly, encouraging push.
“Remember to ask William about betrayal.”
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Song related to this chapter: H.I.M., 'killing loneliness'