Darus
knelt in the field of wildflowers, trying to decide which color would be more
appropriate for the bouquet, blue or purple. He already had two blue flowers,
but none as bright a blue as this one. And the purple was a deep, violet hue
with a sweet smell that complimented the other flowers.
In
the end he plucked both, unable to decide which one was best and feeling the
need to return soon.
This
was it, the big day. A day she would remember for the rest of her life, their
lives.
Not
that she didn’t know how he felt about her, he’d said it often enough, showed
her on every occasion. Love was a sensation he’d never felt before, and could
never get enough of.
And
he loved her, his beloved Mytha.
The
bouquet in his hands was huge now, his fingers barely wrapping around the stems
of the many fragrant flowers. Despite having at least one of every color of
flower he could imagine, the bundle of happiness in his hand still seemed to be
missing something. Perhaps he could summon a butterfly to land on it as he
handed it to her.
Mytha
filled his thoughts as Darus returned to the small hut he shared with his
beloved.
They
lived on the edge of the village, a fact he lamented for her sake, born of
necessity. Her parent’s hadn’t approved of Mytha’s marriage to a stranger, and
the village wasn’t excited about it either. With no past and a cloudy future,
no one really knew what to make of the odd young man who’d wandered into their
midst just a few years ago, with no memory of his past.
But
Mytha did. She was in love with him from the minute she saw him, or so she’d
said on that wonderful day when they finally expressed their true feelings for
one another. That had been the happiest day of his life. He’d been unsure of
her at first, unsure of anything, but her soft touch and gentle nature had made
him feel at ease, despite the fear and anxiety he felt coming from so many of
the villagers.
That
was the first thing that had struck him oddly as he stood among them for the
first time. He felt their fear, their
trembling emotions. Knew they were terrified
of him, though he was slight, haggard, and ragged of clothing. He didn’t know
why they were scared, not at first, but he knew.
And
despite his many contributions to the town since that day, many people were still
suspicious of his presence there, some were still downright terrified. Others
had darker emotions.
Darus
had shown an aptitude for building with wood, Mytha’s father’s trade. Actually,
Darus quickly found that he could learn almost anything instantly, a trait
others in the village didn’t seem to have. He decided early on to try and keep
such things to himself; people were nervous enough around him as it was.
In
those early days, Mytha never seemed to let the opinions of the others bother
her. She took every opportunity to be near Darus, and soon her lovely features
and adoring green eyes began to grow on him. It had been strange to him at
first, for though he could feel every other person’s thoughts and feelings in
the village, hers always remained a mystery to him. He could never feel her
mind, and never really understood why.
Ultimately,
he could tell how she felt about him without feeling her mind.
He’d
been falling in love with her, without knowing it, really; love and the other
emotions still being so strange to him.
He knew it was wonderful, this feeling, better than anything he’d ever
felt in his life. How he knew that, since his memory had been wiped clean
wasn’t clear, but know it he did, like a born instinct.
Mytha
had insisted her parents give the disoriented young man shelter in those early
days. But their misgivings about the young stranger constantly weighed heavily on
his mind, until at last he built his own small hut at the outskirts of the
village.
Though
they remained distrustful of him, most people had no problem availing
themselves of the prodigious strength the young man possessed. One by one,
people began asking him for all sorts of favors, services he was only too happy
to provide in the hopes it might ease their anxiety.
Those
efforts only proved partially successful.
What
should have been a joyous occasion turned sad when Mytha brought him home and
announced her intention to marry Darus. Her father at first tried to forbid it,
but in the end relented, knowing his daughter well. If he didn’t allow it here,
she’d simply run off with the young man, and he’d rather keep her nearby.
Marriage
was a strange concept to Darus at first, one of many he’d been forced to learn
as he lived with people, rather than being taught as others seemed to have
been.
In
the end he thought it was probably one of the greatest institutions ever
created. Somehow, he thought his own people had no idea of such a concept,
despite not knowing who his people really were.
And
so they’d lived together, on the outskirts of Valen, for one year exactly,
today. An anniversary seemed important, a fact he’d observed while living with
Mytha’s parents. It felt important as well, acknowledging the day they’d
pledged their undying love to one another for the rest of their lives.
Mytha
was waiting for him on the doorstep as he returned. Her dark look and tapping
foot told a tale of annoyance. He’d slipped out that morning before she awoke.
Thinking back, he probably should have told her he was going out.
Her
eyes brightened though when she noticed the flowers in his hand. She took a
deep breath, inhaling their delightful fragrance.
“Happy
first anniversary Mytha. I love you dearly.”
Mytha
began to weep for joy as she gazed into his eyes. It didn’t matter who he was,
what he was, or where he was from. She could his love there in those eyes, feel
it in her heart.
“I
love you too, Darus. Always.”
She
wrapped her arms around him and kissed him gently, passionately, lovingly. She
wanted him to feel her love for him in that embrace, and he did. Down to his
soul.
The
young couple spent the rest of the day reminiscing about the past. She asked
him all the questions about his past that she’d asked a hundred times before,
and he did his best to answer her honestly. She smiled every time he came to a
dead-end. She would make up a story then, saying he’d come from a wealthy noble
family, or was a lost little boy raised by dwarves in the nearby Black Stone
Mountains. He smiled at her tales, wondering if they might be true.
A
full moon rose as they lay outside in the night air, comfortably wrapped in each
other’s arms. They no longer needed or wanted words; it was enough to simply
lie together and look up at the boundless night sky. The stars themselves looked
down on them in seeming approval of their love for each other.
He
would never forget that night.
It
was Darus who first smelt the strange odor. Smoke, heavy smoke it was, burnt
and acrid. When Mytha noticed as well, the couple rose to find the source. A
bright light was flickering from the center of the village.
A
house was on fire. Most of the town had crowded around it now. A few men were
carrying buckets of water, throwing futile drops on a raging inferno. Maggie
Sanders, a washer-woman who’d lost her husband not long after Darus had entered
the village, was wailing in tears. This was her house.
“My
son, my son.” Her words barely discernable through the anguish in her voice.
“Oh
no.” Mytha whispered as they watched the house burn.
Darus
began to walk forward before he really knew what he was doing. If her son was
in that burning house, why was she standing out here crying about it? Of
course, the flames. They were harmful to humans.
Though
he’d seen fire a hundred times, watched people cook with it and learned
culinary himself, it had taken him awhile to understand its nature. For reasons
he’d never understood, the heat of a fire had never seemed to touch his skin,
nor cause him pain in any way.
Seeing
another way to help ease the villager’s fear of him, Darus plunged into the
burning house.
“No!
Darus! Don’t!” He heard Mytha’s cries, but he had to do this. Not just for
himself, but for this helpless human child as well. He’d seen death in the
village as well as life, and its effect on him had been profound. The last
thing he wanted was to see death on a child’s face, the sound of a mother’s
sorrowful anguish.
Flames
leapt around him, at him, trying to torture him. He ignored them. His clothes
burnt soon enough, a small price to pay if he could save this child.
Darus
found the boy soon. By fortune or fate, the flames had just begun to reach the
middle of the house where the boy was hiding under his bed. The boy was
coughing profusely, ash covered his lips. He moved little when Darus pushed the
bed aside and offered his hands.
Taking
the boy up and covering his delicate skin with the remains of a blanket, Darus
pushed through the flames. Suddenly, in what seemed only a few steps, the pair was
outside again, well away from the flames.
“Micha!”
the mother’s voice shot through the din of the blaze. Hushed gasps erupted from
the assembled crowd as Darus handed over the young boy to his mother. After
casting a strange, fleeting glance to her son’s rescuer, mother and son
disappeared into the night.
Suddenly
Mytha stood before her beloved; so much pride in her eyes. She looked him over
and smiled, noticing his clothes were almost burnt off entirely.
Others
around were noticing it as well.
“Your
about to need something to cover up with, son.” The gruff voice came from a disheveled
man with a grey beard and no hair on his head. “Aren’t you hurting?”
Darus
looked down. His shirt was long gone, and his pants were slowly burning into
ashes. He put them out as best he could.
“Ah,
yes. Thank you.” Darus replied, somewhat sheepishly. “I better go home and get
some clothes on. Will you need me to come back and help you put out this fire?”
“No
thanks, we won’t need your help anymore, tonight.” The venomous reply came from
a younger man, with a smaller beard, and a hateful gaze.
Darus,
despite having just saved a young child from a certain death, suddenly felt
uncomfortable and ashamed.
“Oh,
well, okay. I, uh, I guess we’ll be on our way.”
“You
do that.”
Darus
turned toward home. Mytha followed, after giving the suspicious townsfolk a
look of her own.
Suddenly
the first voice, the old man’s, cried out.
“Wait
a minute.”
The
pair turned to see the old man, the younger, and much of the crowd moving
toward them. The older one, who’d been the sheriff here for some twenty-odd years,
walked up next to them. He studied Darus intently for a moment.
“You
don’t have a mark on you, do you boy? Not a burn, not so much as a scratch. How
is that, hmm? The rest of us couldn’t get near the place, and yet here you are
just walking in and out as easy as you please. Care to explain it, son?”
“We
don’t have to explain it.” Mytha replied. She knew the town was disturbed by
his presence, but she didn’t like where this was going. Not at all.
“I’m
the law here missy, and you’ll tell me whatever I want to hear. So shut your
yap. Well, how ‘bout it?”
Darus
stumbled with his answer. He had none, really.
“Well,
I, I don’t know. I just, saw the boy was in trouble and I reacted. I guess I
didn’t think about the fire.”
“I
don’t care about the fire. I want to know how you survived it without a scratch
on you.”
Darus
was taken aback.
“I,
I don’t know. I, don’t”
“What
does it matter?” Mytha asked, her voice beginning to crack. “He just saved Micha’s
life. When none of the rest of you would even try. How can you…”
“Shut
up, harlot!” The younger man yelled, acid in his voice. “You turned your back
on us and married this stranger. You’re just as bad as he is!”
“Bad?
We’re bad?” Mytha could scarcely believe what she was hearing.
Darus
could. He could feel the hate coming from these two human men before him. The
intense jealousy, especially from the younger one. The rest were frightened, of
Darus, of this sheriff, seemingly of everything. Darus knew he had to calm this
down soon, or it was going to get ugly, bloody.
“I
honestly don’t know why the fire didn’t burn me, sir. It’s never hurt me, a
fact I probably should have told you about sooner. I know that now. I can only
promise you that I only wanted to save the child, and I have never meant any
harm or disrespect to you or anyone else.”
Darus
sensed something from the sheriff at that, relief? Satisfaction? He never knew
for sure. He did know that his words only inflamed the younger man even more.
“So,
you have been hiding something from us. I knew it. What else have you been
keeping to yourself, huh? Did you bewitch Mytha to love you?”
“Of
course not.” Darus replied. “And I haven’t kept anything from you on purpose. I
swear to you that I have no memory of myself or my life before I came here. And…”
“Liar!”
the younger man shouted. “He’s a thief and liar. And now it looks like he’s a
witch or something. He ain’t human, that’s for certain now. I say we run him up
a tree, see if he survives that.”
The
sheriff turned to the young man.
“Hang
him? For what?”
“Witchcraft,
or something. He ain’t human anyway; we need to get rid of him before he turns
his powers on us.”
“I
have no powers.” Darus pleaded.
“Shut
up!”
The
sheriff pointed a crooked finger at the young man, hushing him.
“You
shut up, Markus. I do the talking here.”
The
younger man was having none of it. He sensed his chance, and he was taking it.
“Then
do something, if you’re the sheriff. He’s a witch or something, you gonna just
let him walk away?” Markus turned to the mob, who were listening intently to
the tense exchange. “How ‘bout it, folks? We just gonna let this monster walk
away?”
“Monster?”
Mytha’s calm, imploring voice cut through the night. “How can you call him
that? He just saved a child’s life. He’s been nothing but good to me and this
entire village. He’s been there for all of you, whenever you needed him, and
has he ever asked for one thing in return? No, and yet you all are afraid of
him, hate him. But you don’t have too, he’s a good soul, of that I’m sure. I
know him, live with him, love him. He’s the best man I’ve ever known.”
Markus
saw his chances for glory begin to slip away.
“Ya,
well, that doesn’t prove anything. You were bewitched by him. You’ll say
whatever he wants you to say.” Markus turned to the assembled crowd. “Just
because he used his powers to save little Micha doesn’t mean he won’t use those
same powers against us later. Can we take the chance? I say no. What happens if
we do something he doesn’t like one day? Who’ll be able to stop him? He’s a
monster, or a witch, or something. Whatever he is, we can’t let him stay here.”
Markus
looked down, finding a good solid rock with which to emphasize his point.
Before
anyone could stop him, before the sheriff could object, before anyone could
move, Markus was standing up, leaned back, and threw the rock as hard and fast
as he could, aiming straight for Darus’ head.
It
struck Mytha instead.
Blood
erupted from her right temple, squirting all over the ground even as she fell.
Horrified gasps from the crowd were ignored by Darus as he caught his beloved
before she hit the ground.
Sheriff
Pots was livid.
“Dang
you, Markus!” The sheriff was old, but rage gave him the strength to put Markus
on the ground, out cold, with one blow to the side of the head.
The
sheriff looked back at the bleeding young woman; the crowd held its collective
breath; and Darus cradled the love of his life in his arms.
With
the house still blazing in the background, the sheriff dispersed the crowd, and
then gathered the unconscious Markus on his back. Turning once more before he
left, Darus and the young woman were suddenly gone.
What
had Markus done? Had he just doomed them all?
Darus
rushed back to the small hut he shared with his beloved. He laid her gently on
their bed, tears in his eyes.
Blood
flowed from her wound, no matter how hard Darus pushed. She began to pale, and
he knew her life was slipping away.
No, no, no
please don’t leave me. I love you, so much. I need you, Mytha. You are my
reason to live, my purpose. All my heart is yours. Please don’t leave me now.
Please.
“She’s
gone. I’m sorry.”
Darus
had felt the new presence in his hut, knew it wasn’t one of the hateful
villagers. Didn’t care. All that mattered was his beloved.
“She’s
not gone.” Darus shot back. “I feel her heartbeat.”
“And
you feel it getting weaker. That wound is not meant to heal. These people are
so fragile.”
“I
won’t let her die.”
“And
how will you stop it? She’s already slipping away. You’ve forsaken your heritage;
you no longer have the power to save her life.”
“But
you do. Save her!”
He
knew, somehow, despite not knowing this stranger’s name, who he was or where he
came from, Darus knew he had the power to save Mytha’s life, and much more.
“Do
I?” The dark stranger, dressed all in black, seemed genuinely surprised. “How
do you know this?”
“I
just do.” Darus replied, desperate. Mytha’s heartbeat was faint now, almost
gone. Darus’ tears flowed freely now.
“Please,
please save her. I’ll do anything.”
“Indeed.”
The dark stranger seemed almost amused. “To what end? What shall you do then? How
far would you go?”
“Please!”
Darus cried. “Just save her!”
The
stranger hesitated a moment, almost too long. Suddenly he knelt down, wrapped
one hand around Mytha’s forehead and closed his eyes. Her bleeding stopped, but
her heartbeat remained faint. Her breathing was shallow.
The
stranger stood.
“This
is all I can do for her. You must do the rest.”
“How?”
“You’re
the expert in these people, you tell me. Or don’t you remember?”
Darus
looked down; staring into his beloved’s closed eyes.
“I
don’t remember anything.”
“Of
course.”
Darus
looked up at the stranger’s answer.
“What
do you mean? How did you know I lost my memory? Who are you?”
The
stranger shook his head.
“My
name is no longer for your ears. I am one of your kind though. By now you must
realize you aren’t human. You look like them, live like them, feel with them,
but you aren’t one of them. You forsook your past, to be with them, and when
that happened your old life was stripped from you. All your knowledge and
wisdom, gone. You can have it back, your memories, your knowledge, power. But
you’ll be unable to live with them, and this decision is irreversible. Once you
return to us, you can never go back to them. And in the end, it doesn’t matter.
They’re all doomed anyway.”
That
last part struck Darus with a cold gloom. He knew deep down this dark stranger
was right, somehow, without knowing who or what he was talking about. A dark
foreboding fell over the small hut.
“What
do you mean?”
“You
know, even though you don’t know. Think carefully, that knowledge comes with a
price. To return to us means leaving them, leaving her. So ask yourself what
you want, shall you live with us, or die with them?”
The
answer was clear before the question was asked. But what was the doom this familiar
stranger referred too? Darus felt the answer was close, on the edge of his
consciousness.
“Please,
what’s going to happen to them?”
The
stranger’s met Darus’ question with a long silence.
“I
cannot say.” His dark voice said at last. “Unless you are willing to return to
us.”
Darus
looked down at his beloved Mytha. She was barely breathing, but she was still
alive.
“I
can’t leave her. I won’t. I don’t know what I had in this old life you speak
of, but I cannot imagine it compared to the happiness I’ve felt since I met
her. I’d rather feel that for a few more minutes than spend a lifetime without
her.”
For
a long moment, the dark stranger had no answer.
“No,
my friend.” He replied at last, standing over Darus as he held his beloved’s
hand. “You had no such happiness in our life as you have now. Only duty, have
we. You have found so much more. For that, for your choice, I have always
respected you, even envied you. Would that I had the strength of conviction
that you have.”
The
dark stranger turned to leave.
“She’ll
live.” He said over one shoulder. “For as long as any of them. Cherish your
time together, old friend; do not waste it on trivial matters. I hope for the
best, for both of you.”
And
then he was gone.
Darus
stayed on the floor kneeling, hovering over his love, trying desperately to
impart his love, his strength, to her. He covered her with their best blankets,
in time lying beside her in the dark of their cabin.
The
wind outside blew briskly, a cold wind, unseasonable for the time of year. Darus
searched his mind, when he wasn’t worried about his beloved, for the meaning of
the dark stranger’s obscure warning. It danced at the edge of his mind,
taunting him with its hidden meaning.
He
surrendered at last, defeated in his effort to remember that or anything else
about his past.
The
stranger was right, what did it matter? What did matter was Mytha, their love,
and the time they had together.
He
determined to make the most of it, whatever was left to them, and they did.
When
the end at last came for them, Darus saw that it was swift, and painless.
It
was not to be so for much of humanity.
