A Memory of Kings

Chapter 1 – Darkness & Light

         He awoke to darkness so complete he could not tell the difference between opening his eyes and closing them.  The ghostly remnants of his dreams receded quickly into the blackness taking with them a memory of light.  He stood and his head cracked solidly against the rock above him.  His roar of pain startled him, as if he had never heard such a sound before, and, thinking upon this, he realized that he could not remember ever hearing his own voice.  Groping around him he felt the damp stone and began to walk, one halting step after the other.
         There was no way to tell how long or how far he walked.  He began by counting the number of times he stumbled and fell to the unforgiving stone, but he soon lost count.  Several times he stopped and wondered if it would not be better to simply lose himself into the darkness, but something compelled him to continue on.  When he tried to focus on this compulsion brief flickers of memories would skirt across his mind, as if trying to break free from some impenetrable fog. 
         Eventually he began counting his dreams to keep track of how long he had been in the darkness. . .or at least how long he had been aware of it.  Occasionally the shuffle of his steps against the rock was interrupted by others groping through the dark.  The first time he had heard another voice in the endless night he had began to run towards the sound, joy overwhelming him at the thought of some other soul, any other soul, sharing this eternal blindness.  Then something had gripped his arm, something hairy and dank and the voice had shrieked in terror and fled, crashing blindly into the walls of the caverns until his world was again silent.
         After his seventh dream he began to hear the rustle of feathers and a voice that followed him repeating again and again,
         “There must be more. . .there must be more.”
         He soon realized it was his voice mumbling, and clenched his teeth tight.  The sound of feathers, however, continued. 
         He could not remember his name.  He knew he had once had one, had once had a life somewhere. . .that was not here.  Yet when he tried to remember the details faded into the fog leaving but brief flashes of memories like glinting reflections from the falling pieces of a broken glass.  In those glimpses he saw things he did not understand; a king, a lamb, and falling stones.
         Gradually he became aware that the air was growing steadily less foul, and soon a light breeze could be felt.  The darkness began to lift until he came to a vast chamber so huge he could no longer find walls to grip.  Above him a million points of light blinded his unused eyes and he crumbled in terror to the ground trying to hide from them.  A soft carpet of grass met him where before all he had known was stone.  He sat perfectly still; afraid he had slipped into sleep and was dreaming.  Slowly the world began to brighten, and he remained where he knelt marveling at the colors flooding his mind which were at the same time both familiar and foreign. 
         The myriad of tiny lights above him was replaced by a general glow, and then pierced by a blinding circle of light.  Squinting against the painful brightness he raised his hand to shield his eyes and froze, terrified.  Though he could not ever remember seeing his hand before he was horrified by what met his eyes; a huge hoary thing, covered with dark coarse hair.
         “Drev’n!”  The voice exploded in his ears.  He turned towards the sound, disoriented, and glimpsed a blur of feathers before he felt the sudden pressure on the back of his head.  The ground rushed up to met him, and this time the grass was not so soft.
         “He was here just as she said he would be.”  He heard a voice say as the world swam and darkened.
         “His wings. . .how can this be?”  Another voice answered.
         “We were lucky to catch him only just emerging from the labyrinth,” the first voice continued, “bind him with the chains and put him in the cart.  We must reach Arden before the day is over.”
         The darkness returned, but this time there were no dreams.

.  .  .

         He awoke in another cave, but this cave, he saw, had rough walls of chiseled stone unlike the worn smooth walls of the darkness he had known for so long.  A dull red light played across the uneven walls casting shadows from where two figures were standing over him.  He heard the sharp snapping of bones an instant before the agonizing pain cascaded down his back.  He roared and thrashed against the heavy chains that bound him, grinding his knees into the floor and trying to rise.
         “What are you doing to me?”  He cried, trying to see what was happening.
         “Silence!”  A heavily booted foot lashed out at his face, sending him reeling.  When he opened his eyes, now swollen nearly shut, he could see two figures standing in the doorway leading to the room.  A small man, hunched over and carrying a large book stood behind an enormous figure robed in brilliant blue clothe.  He was far taller than any of the other men in the room with bronze skin and dark hair that tumbled down over a thin circlet of silver.  Behind him stretched out two harsh blue wings drawn up within the confines of what he now understood to be a dungeon.
         “Why?”  He moaned groggily.
         “Why?”  The tall winged figure answered incredulously.  His voice reverberated across the small room, overpowering any other sound.  He moved impossibly fast, and he felt his head being lifted until he sat on his knees over a shallow stone basin of water.  The image reflected back at him was covered with dark course hair, two thick curved horns emerged from the mass of his head on either side of a face that appeared elongated and beast-like in the rippling water.
         “You are cursed,”  The winged figure hissed in his ear, “for the sins of your life before you have received this mark of shame.  You are drev’n!”
         “No!  I was not like this. . .I remember. . .”
         “What do you remember?”  The winged figure roared, suddenly releasing him and stepping back, anger clouding his dark eyes.  “Do you remember your king?”
         “Yes, I. . .”
         “You betrayed him.”
         “No. . .”
         “You murdered him.”
         “No!”  He yelled weakly, “I wouldn’t. . .”
         “You are damned creature.” the winged figure looked at him, his eyes clearing, and spoke with what might have been pity, “In another life, perhaps, you could earn your redemption. . .but not this one.”
         He tried to reply but as another burst of agony filled him all he could to do was scream; his roar of anguish drowning out the sound of breaking bones.

.  .  .

         A hush fell across the fortress as Samuel of the blessed emerged from the dungeon, the warden at his side. 
         “I beg forgiveness,” the warden bowed lower from his already uncomfortably hunched position as he spoke, “for being so unworthy of your presence exalted one but would it not be better to simply kill him?”
         They had emerged from the dungeons below into a circular courtyard filled with long rows of red and white flowers spiraling out from the small building at its center which served as the entrance to the horrors below.  The warden followed half a step behind Samuel, still hunched and moving awkwardly, mindful not to overtake him.  Samuel walked to the edge of the fortress’ ramparts and looked out across the desert which spread out before him like a frozen ocean of sand.  On the horizon a smooth wall of rock jutted from the dunes and soared into the sky as far to the east and west as the eye could see.  In the north a bright gleam of white shone in the only gap, the sacred wall-city of Arden.
         “Yes.”  He replied at last, when the warden was sure he had not heard him.  “But such was the deal struck to find him.  Keep him in darkness and pain, break and bind his wings so that he will never trespass into the sacred sky, but he will not be killed.”
         “Yes exalted one.”  The warden replied.
         “Those you sent to capture him. . .”
         “My best. . .”  the warden began.
         “. . .are to die, regardless of rank.”  Samuel continued, not taking his eyes from the gleaming white city.
         “Yes lord,” the warden hesitated, “and myself?”
         Samuel looked down at him, his face impassive. 
         “This secret dies with you, when it is time for you to die.”
         Years passed.  Harvests prospered and failed, kingdoms grew strong and crumbled.  The warden kept his secret and the guards who stood watch at the door never saw the creature within.  They knew him only from his roars of anguish, from the sound of his thrashing against his chains, and then by a great silence.  Long after the first warden had died the guards called him the Gododdin, “the feared one”.  Dimly the Gododdin became aware that fewer and fewer guards stood watch over him, until at last none remained and he was alone again in the darkness, with only his dreams of light.

.  .  .

         At first the sounds that drifted down through the stone and dirt were incomprehensible, so long had he been accustomed to the silence.  Soon he began to sort out the creaking of long unused hinges and heavy footsteps from the usual sounds of dripping water and small scurrying feet.  And then there was light.  He stared at it silently as it bobbed closer, rippling outwards as though it wanted to leap from the torch that mercilessly anchored it to a single source.
         “How much of your mind is left I wonder?”  Her voice tumbled across his silent world, “How much can be left after so many years?  After so much pain?”  The woman seemed to radiate as the torch reflected dully off her wings.  He tried to speak, someone he had not tried in. . .he could not tell. . .but only a choking growl escaped his cracked lips.
         “The last warden left this place long ago,” she continued softly, her pale green eyes fixated on him, “your prison has decayed around you, all but the chains that bear your name from the life before.”  Her eyes flashed, almost as if laughing.  The dim memories surged again in his mind, and the words of the last winged creature who had spoken to him in this place.
         “M. . .my name. . .is Gododdin.”  He rumbled softly, trying to carefully sound out each word.
         “Then rise, Gododdin.”  The woman smiled, her eyes again laughing, “One king has fallen, another now needs you.”

.  .  .

         The light was painful at first, as was her beauty.  Eventually he grew used to the light.  His muscles and legs felt stiff when they had begun their ascent, as they climbed higher and higher through level upon level of crumbling empty dungeons he gradually became accustomed to the exertion.  They emerged at last through what once had been a doorway but had long since rotted away.  Around them stood a vine covered garden, its plants having long since overgrown the stone pathways interlacing them.  She led him down a crumbling staircase to the foot of the fortress prison, where her escort was waiting for them. 
         “Lady Jubilee,” A tall man wearing polished silver armor snapped to attention as soon as they drew near.
         “Let us be off shield bearer.”  Jubilee smiled, and unwound her long red wings as if stretching.
         He had had time to look at his body in the light for the first time as they left the fortress, and had forced himself to not express shock at what he saw.  He was taller than any of the men or creatures in Jubilee’s escort, taller even than Jubilee herself.  His arms and legs were covered with dark thick hair and his feet. . .the hardest part was his feet.  When he looked down he saw two huge cloven hoofs.           A few of Jubilee’s escort were like him in some way, several looked to be horribly disfigured, two had heads that looked more akin to beasts than men, and one hulking figure looked out with beady eyes from between two long horns that curled beneath his head.  All of them, however, drew back from the Gododdin when he approached.  When they began marching north, towards a gleam of white on the horizon, the beasts and men fell in behind Jubilee who rode a beautiful grey horse.  The Gododdin walked beside her, cautiously eyeing the unfamiliar beast upon which she rode.
         “The one who put me in chains,” he growled, a deep anger rising as he remembered the blue winged figure, and gestured toward her long crimson wings now drawn up behind her, “he was one of you.”
         “Samuel?”  She answered him lightly.
         “He told me I was beyond redeeming, that I was damned.”
         “Samuel was. . .overzealous.”  She grinned down at him mischievously, her eyes flashing in the brilliant sun.  “Samuel passed through Arden’s Gate long ago.  There is a new Gatekeeper now, Darrow has changed much during your penance.”
         “And what is Darrow?”
         Jubilee reined her horse to a sudden stop, behind her their escort ground to an immediate halt.  “Do you see those mountains in the north?”  She asked, pointing towards the cliffs that dominated the horizon.  “That is the Wall, from here the wall runs unbroken east and west into the sea in a giant ring meeting again in the south.  Everything within the Wall is Darrow.”
         “Is there no way through the Wall?”
         “There is but one way,” Jubilee smiled mystically and pointed again towards the north.  Following her gaze he saw a gleam of white in the wall ahead.  “The wall city of Arden, built by the first of the blessed to guard the way to paradise for those who prove themselves worthy.”
         “And what is your paradise that one should be worthy?”  He muttered irreverently.
         Jubilee turned and looked at him; taking in his matted hair, his twisted form and ugly scars.  “Do you not wonder why you are here Gododdin?  Those souls who come to this place awake, as if from a dreamless sleep remembering almost nothing of their lives from the world before. . .only knowing that there was a world before they came to this place.  In Darrow you have been given a chance to atone for your sins, you say you betrayed your king?  Then here serve your lord faithfully and you will be forgiven the sin that has twisted your body.  Serve the blessed and we shall absolve you.”



Check back next week for the next chapter. . .or not as that's really your call.