Swan on the Moor

Chapter 13

Avalbane sat alone on his throne now, the empty hall yawning before him, twisting the hank of wolf fur between his fingers, staring at nothing. Why did they disobey him? Even Weylin, weak as he was. Strong Sidhe like Caadman and Merion. Why were they thinking thus? Had he not returned to them every strength? Was it not enough? He was pure, the purest source of magic, the king of all Faerie.

They needed more, clearly. A sign of his rightful rule. He had for a long while been considering this to himself, and perhaps it was time...if the power had returned, which clearly it had, then...

He stood, tucking the wolf fur inside his robe. He would need it later...oh yes, he could do so much with it. They would fear and respect him, and then they would love him, if that was what it took.

A slow, cold smile spread over his features as he began to walk, a walk so familiar he barely needed to think about the way the floor of light faded slowly to black hematite and finally dank trails of mud and moss, fungus and battered carven stone. Badb Catha swept another low bow as he approached, slipping out of the nest of bones and scraps in which she roosted and he inclined his head to her, striding straight up to the bars of the cell and announcing in triumph,

"Dusk Lord, you hear me? I shall complete the Great Ritual today. The time has come. So long I have felt it right, so long I have waited lest the risk outweigh the benefit, lest the Weapons return without intervention – but they are things of Power, are they not? They needed to be wooed, seduced, then taken. I shall take them...I shall hold their mastery."

The cut on the prisoner's face had crusted over, making any small movement tear the skin apart anew, but he spoke, ignoring the rip. "You will enslave Faerie with the Great Weapons. There is no depth to which you will not sink."

"No height to which I will not rise," Avalbane snarled. "There is no slavery in rightful devotion. The Great Weapons will only be held by one worthy of carrying them, and that is surely I. The Ritual failed for so many. It will not fail for me. And then..." he pulled the hank of wolf hair from his robe. "Do you know what this is?"

The Dusk Lord's eyes rolled towards the tiny hank. "You killed your puppet, your lackey." His voice was blank, immeasurably weary.

"With the Great Weapons melded to my hand, I can use a scrap of his self to meld his powers with mine," Avalbane whispered. "Is that not how the Weapons worked? The ring Biothantach stole away the powers and vitality of enemies. Our warriors and the warriors we blessed to fight for us would use it to sap the very lives of their enemies with a touch." He smiled again, sweet as a summer sky. "I shall take my enemies' powers. Those who are loyal and true may share in these powers. Those who are weak, who fail me, even now, shall forfeit their very selves as the price for their rebellion."

The figure in the chains, so enduring for so long, cried out. It was a sound of pain so pure that even Avalbane paused in his taunts and even Badb Catha, a being of blood lust, outside the prison and remembering victories past, shuddered. It was the sound of all the powerful fallen, all the betrayed, all the broke and helpless who could not, would not, give in...all those beyond the light.

Avalbane stared at the figure as the cry died away, and for a moment, just a heartbeat, remembered what this being had once been to him, his opposite, his same, and how he had betrayed him for humanity. The moment he remembered discovering the Dusk Lord swayed and seduced from his duties and self, while he,

Avalbane, sought even then, so young to return the light to their world, all his rage and revulsion returned, and the moment of remembered sympathy evaporated. How could he have considered a moment of forgiveness to this being? He deserved his pain, every eternal moment of it. Avalbane would ensure that not a moment passed that the Dusk Lord did not regret his betrayal, the ultimate betrayal, for what he was, had been. He had been the bringer of twilight, who swept his black swords to cut open the sky, to let the dusk and the shadows in, and he had been seduced away by the weak and the worthless. There had been wonder in his eyes when Avalbane had found him. To the day the Lord of Light could not fathom how something so degrading could bring such a look of wonder to those endless sunset eyes. It gnawed at Avalbane's heart, that the Dusk Lord had never shown wonder before at the things of Faerie; the dominion of his station, the pride and dignity and elemental glory of his self. Yet one day, something struck him and he was taken away forever...

"Rot in eternity," Avalbane snarled, "While I bring back majesty to the worthy and the faithful. How dare you abandon me?"

The figure was silent now, but Avalbane could feel a thousand emotions sloughing from the cell like perfume. He hated each and every one, for the Dusk Lord he remembered at the height of his power was as cold and indifferent as the shadows he caused. He had shown gravity and not a soul could tell what hid behind those eyes. His stoicism was the one remaining thing Avalbane respected him for, and now, even that faded? He remembered comparing the whimpering of those he tortured earlier to the Lord's silence and self-possession, and at the thought of Avalbane's highest triumph, he surrendered even this of himself?

"Weak," Avalbane roared, the sudden rush of his anger boiling through his veins. "How dare you? You, of all beings, you..." Wrapping his hands in his sleeves to protect them from the burn of the iron, he flung back the cell door and tore from a holding in the wall a long barbed whip set with iron ends charmed with the darkest forbidden magics to rip through otherwise impenetrable magical armour, and tore it through the air again and again at the prostrate form. Each blow tore through the magic of the armour, offering no more resistance than butter, and into the flesh below until the Dusk Lord's body resembled nothing more than the carved meat of a corpse, the white of bone showing through. As Avalbane stood, panting, flecked with blood down his otherwise spotless white robe, the figure did not even now utter a moan.

"Worthless," Avalbane gasped, tucking the whip back into the wall bracket. It was a treasure he was careful to keep hidden, for under Faerie law it was forbidden for what it was: a torturous death weapon. Avalbane, however, was less quick to condemn things that could be used for a greater good and had patiently searched long and dark roads, extracted information and covered a thousand tracks to find the thing in the first place, buried in the Upperworld by some earlier king, to protect Faerie from decimation through the Great Wars. That was foolishness, for sure. Of course most could not be trusted to wield such an item well, but it had its uses. Upon the Dusk Lord, the great traitor, it was justice.

The figure stirred, and, in obvious agony, gasped out, "You will never be happy or strong, truly, Avalbane. You don't understand what such feelings are. You never did."

"Yet I stand here, and you are nothing more than a prisoner, believed dead or lost by almost every other being of your home," Avalbane said, coldly, feeling something approaching peace enter his soul again. The floor ran sticky and dark with blood, and he stepped away, leaving the cell, carefully pulling the door to. "Think on that and despair."

When Avalbane had left and the corridor was again black and silent, only the distant toneless humming of Badb Catha drifting through the air, the Lord of Dusk allowed himself, silently, as he never had before, to weep.