Radiance

Chapter Ten

All things can tempt me from this craft of verse

One time it was a women’s face, or worse

The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;

Now nothing comes but readier to the hand

Than this accustomed toil.                                          

                                                                                                                                        All Things Can Tempt Me, W.B Yeats

At the wide Gateway a figure crossed in the morning mist. Tamar held her tongue while she tried to recognise him. His bulky figure stomped sluggishly along.

“Mrots? Wait, please!” She called out quietly.

He stopped in his tracks and turned to her. She caught up with him, forgetting quite how large he was, how rough his face was and how many battle scars crisscrossed his skin. His dancing inked figures seemed to be slowly awaking in the morning light, flexing and stretching. They must have enjoyed the night also, she thought.

“Yes, favoured one of Elior?” he asked in roguish yawn.

“May I ask you where Elior is?” Tamar tried to feign indifference.

“I last saw him with you, exiting by the water fall. I did not see him return.” He slurred.

“Oh, well, thank you.” She said, cringing at his stale breath. She scurried to give him a wide berth as he decided the conversation was finished.

“Make sure not to wake the beasts!” he laughed gruffly over his shoulder to her. She only watched him for a second before hurrying off to find the hollow tree. The courtyard was deserted. It was much harder to find the tree than she thought seeing as she had paid so little attention when brought here the first time. She really had been quite blind to it all at first she realised. But it hardly mattered now. Elior’s freedom mattered and with that she could help. Tree after tree she analysed, searching from every angle for an entrance. It took some time but after a while she knew she’d found it when it appeared like a wall in front of her, the most weathered and battered of them all.

The Night Ball had ceased to hold its magic over Tamar as she walked up the twisted stair case, occasionally stepping over creatures that hadn’t made it home. They smelt of stale sweat and smoke making Tamar retch inside. She moved around them carefully, not wishing to know what a startled Fallen was like when awoken by a stranger. The dance floor was scattered with dirt and slime and creatures lay passed out in dribs around the edges. The exhausted moon orbs bounced lightly around her, the only conscious being. She paused for a moment in the middle of the floor and felt pity surge through her for these pathetic beings. They had danced themselves sick, indulging in all the delights of the night for that momentary fix of satisfaction, only to awake the morning after with a little less dignity then before. A little further from redemption and craving that little bit more of things they couldn’t understand, ready to start the whole process again the following night. Elior wasn’t one of them.

Tip toeing further she reached the waterfall and passed by it to the outer walk ways. She noted how different it looked in the daylight, much like everything else here. The leaves seemed to hang lifeless and limp, the trees not bothering to feel the breeze when it passed through. Going carefully across the bridge Tamar found Elior almost exactly where she’d left him. He had shuffled back to lean against the bark and fallen asleep there. Eyelids resting he still looked unsettled and tense. It saddened her to know that even in his sleep he didn’t feel safe, he never knew peace.