Dark Imaginings
A Scheme in The Dark
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A Scheme in the Dark
was sleeping soundly when Dyhedriel slipped out of the golden enclosure they’d
lain within. At first the forest refused
to part so he could leave but when he withdrew a small iron dagger from the
sole of his leather boot and threatened to hack his way through the wall of
golden undergrowth, the foliage shuddered at the dreaded metal being held so
close and begrudgingly parted to let him through.
moon was full and for once it showed clear in the Silheen’s eternally glowing
sky as Morfran’s ‘Voice’ made his way quietly through the sleeping
citadel. Usually the perpetual twilight
in which the Silheen kept their Realm by use of their powerful magic left the
sky too illuminated for the moon to be so clearly visible.
to return to his aunt The Morbanu. She
would be eager to hear of his progress in weakening the Silheen hierarchy.
slid along the few watery shadows beneath the towering trees that had been
growing in the Silheen’s forests since the beginning of time.
spirits primordial, which allowed them to shape their homes and city from the
living trees themselves in such a way that the wood still grew, still
flourished, as though it had not been touched at all.
that normally the trees acted as sentries as effective as the archers who
patrolled the land’s borders. They
didn’t see Dyhedriel but in that moment no one could.
bastard Silheen weren’t the only ones who could use glamour, he scoffed to
himself.
magic was far more powerful than a cheap Silheen party trick.
‘God’ he served. He’d had to hold back
from laughing whenever he said something pious like ‘Morfran’s strength saved
me’. Morfran was a simpering, crying
little waste of space and Dyhedriel had tricked him out of his powers as easily
as stealing from a child. No, he was
sure it would have been harder to steal from a child.
too stupid to keep...
sharp pain fired through Dyhedriel’s heart as it always did when he thought of
the crying man and what he had done to him.
It was his conscience, the bastard thing.
powers...and that he now did was yet another reason to detest the worm.
the God’s ability to control minds with a mere suggestion had been worth it
though, even if Dyhedriel’s natural abilities and powers and the fact that he
was no novice in combat himself did see him hold his own more than easily
without it. The little gift that Morfran
had given him was a definite boon. After
all, why swing a sword yourself when you can get someone else to do it for
you? Especially...
as skilled as Arithien.
the noble...the mighty General of the Silheen Hosts who drove the Creatures of
Shadow underground a millennium ago.
such a legendary hero and military genius the Silheen had proven remarkably
susceptible to Dyhedriel’s powers of persuasion once he made sure that the
General accidently on purpose ‘lost’ the amulet of his office.
that was forged at the beginning of time in the bowels of the world.
allowed to use under the terms of the age-old pact they had made with the benevolent
spirits of the primordial forests in which they lived but the metal was so rare
that their entire people held only a few pieces in their possession.
silver metal that was similarly acceptable to the forest spirits but which lacked
the volatile powers of the druid’s lithae.
Dyhedriel and his kind hated the metal so much that even thinking about
it made him scowl and shudder.
Silheen thought that it was the power of The Spire of Light that kept their
land in perpetual twilight and also kept Dyhedriel’s forebears in their own
dark realm. Well, maybe The Spire
of Shadow in the Gloom but lithae hurt them far worse than light and it
neutralised their shadow magic as well.
It even worked against spells that weren’t from the Gloom but which were
used for wickedness - such as Dyhedriel’s use of Morfran’s otherwise ‘good’
power for ‘evil’ purposes.
the Gods, (even though they were mostly indulgent and couldn’t care less about
the lower Spheres) that there were only a few known pieces of horrid lithae
left in existence. The rest had been
lost or destroyed over the millennium and now, thanks to Dyhedriel, there was
one piece less.
Dyhedriel had disposed of Arithien’s lithae amulet all it had taken was a
single ‘lost puppy look’ in the Silheen Court and a few bats of his eyelashes
for the General to become putty in his hands.
In reality it had actually been a little harder than that for Dyhedriel
to seduce the fair Silheen. Arithien was
a stubborn suspicious bastard with strong instincts but Dyhedriel had won in
the end. Rat cunning always does.
been his downfall.
last the Silheen Shield loomed before Dyhedriel and not a moment too soon.
look around from some ridiculous nervous legacy left over from his time spent
in The Shield. He found no difficulty
coming or going through the elven barrier, regardless of the fact that it had
sent so many others mad. Others – who
mostly human - suddenly found themselves lost when they approached the Silheen
border and were led in a merry round that found them back at the point where
they had started. If they were
persistent or just unlucky they found themselves lost within the perimeter of
The Shield and that never ended well. A
person could be lost for centuries within the mists and not age a day even if
he was mortal. When he emerged,
that he that he had known was dust.
Dyhedriel didn’t fear The Shield. He
didn’t fear what lurked in the dark as humans did.
the dark and without even having to think he negotiated his way through the
swirling haunted mists where the Realm of Gloom overlapped the Realm of
Dreams. After all this
thought their Shield was a testimony to their mighty and powerful nature magic.
get the more determined ones lost within its mind-numbing haze but the Silheen
had far more powerful enemies than puny humans...enemies with memories so long
lived that they never forgot a grudge and for whom The Shield was little more
than an inconvenience. Enemies kind of
like Dyhedriel.
Realm of Reality where humans dwelled wasn’t the only land that Silhee overlapped
and if the elves’ realm was the domain of Dreams then Dyhedriel’s was the
dominion of nightmares. Harsh whines and
haunted screams made by the tortured souls of the lost, both born and yet to be,
filled the swirling black mists of the gloom and tore over the bleak twisted
landscape that was largely desolate apart from ragged sharp edged mountains
whose tips were wrapped in black poisonous ice and led the way to the Citadel
of Malyce. The sounds in the Gloom grated on ear drums and curdled blood but to
Dyhedriel it was like a sweet symphony.
Home, sweet home...
shoulders were still a bit tensed and he thought that what he
something; maybe eat a few souls, cause a bit of misery, that kind of thing but
such pleasures would have to wait for at least a few more days.
the Silheen could rot in hell.
wait...that’s right...hell was coming to them...
laughed loud and hard and commended himself on his wittiness as a hiss and rush
of slick black shadow engulfed him and swirled around him until his corporeal
form melted and he became one with it.
He had a fair way to travel to get to the bottomless cave at the base of
Mount Despeath where the Morbanu dwelled, far to the east of the Malyce and he
could travel far faster as a wraith than he could as a Silheen.
the fair Silheen’s ethereal mares and he used the numerous shadows in the Gloom
as his highway. When he reached the end
of one inky black silhouette he drew another toward him in the blink of an eye,
so fast that his passage over the murky desolate land was as smooth as flowing
water and not disjointed at all.
Morbanu, cloaked in a boiling mass of dark that shifted and flowed around her
like an angry sea, waited for his coming in the womb like cavern she inhabited
in the deep dark of the mountain. Only
her ghostly white hands and blood-red nails could be seen hovering from within
her shadow attire as though they weren’t attached to a body at all.
Dyhedriel entered her abode and stood before her once more as a tall dark
Silheen she lifted her head and her pale face appeared, floating disembodied in
the churning black mists. She glared at
him with black glimmering eyes that had no whites and then she returned her
attention to the charred black cauldron she had been tending that bubbled over
a fire so hot that it seemed that lava was pooled beneath it.
which neither the sputtering fire nor the bubbling contents of the cauldron lift,
was broken at last by her voice. Her words
floated heavily through the thick air and were a rasping whisper of death.
between her crimson lips as she spoke. “
Morbanu shot him a seething look and sneered through her pointed teeth.
gave a bored yawn and looked at his mistress from beneath his straight black
brows. “Arithien is accompanying me on
the morrow just as we knew he would – the sucker!”
just gave him a dry look he straightened his chiselled features and
continued. “Everything is going to
plan. King Uren is eating out of my palm
like the dog he is and tomorrow, so too will the Lycean Alpha Evan the Black
conscience wouldn’t let him, “Arithien will be dealt with.”
Morbanu left her fire and floated the round fringe of the cavernous room they
stood within. She moved in tightening
spirals around Dyhedriel, who had to shake his head and blink a few times to
stop himself from going dizzy, until she was close enough to trail her long red
claw-like nails across his black leather vest.
“What of Uren’s wife, Lysarial?
rolled his eyes. “I told you,
until Evan shatters the Spire of Light, thereby enabling our Dark Hosts to
enter Silhee to support my rule since as you know, you older breed have a
problem with light in that it tends to fry you alive.
revolt before I have the Hosts to
enforce my rule. After I have the power of the Realm of Dreams in my hands,
brat to you. Well, I’ll deliver the
child at least... I want to bone
Lysarial myself first.” He smiled lecherously.
claws dragged slowly along Dyhedriel’s skin and The Morbanu’s hiss filled his
pointed ears. “Do not touch the Silheen
Queen nephew lest what Morfran saw in the Bright Glade comes to pass.
sharp pain lanced Dyhedriel’s already complaining conscience at the mention of
the deity he had tricked but he forced it aside and hid his discomfort under
the bored look he gave his aunt.
“Morfran is a halfwit who suffers from verbal diarrhoea.
imbecile he is, it has probably already come to pass and the child long dead
and gone.”
moves differently in the lower Spheres Dyhedriel and it moves backward in the
Realm of Bliss. I am not interested in
taking chances. The child Morfran spoke
of had the pointed ears of one of the Silheen and held a staff of Hazel, the
wood sacred to their druids. I will kill
Uren’s daughter and eliminate any chance of the prophecy coming to pass with
her but if you touch Lysarial and risk getting her with child again I shall
tear you apart and scatter your shade across the four Spheres.
sucked his top lip and scowled but he nodded.
a child would have the power to drive the Creatures of Shadow so deep into The
Gloom that we might never be able to find our way back to the borders of the
mortal Realm. If that happens we would
be deprived of one of our favourite feeding grounds.
mean that we would once again be at the mercy of the fair race.
tired of losing to the Creatures of Light.
I want revenge, an evening of the score and as long as you
leggings and out of Lysarial, I will have it!”