David R. Downing

         A young couple, weary from the toils of a long day, lovingly laid their daughter to bed. Autumn's chilling winds tapped at the windowpanes and twisted the trees outside in a strange and mysterious dance. The girl closed her eyes. She knew that sleep would not come easily, and when it did, the dreams would soon follow...

         In the middle of the forest, in a narrow glen ringed by tall aspens gradually tossing their golden display to the gray of winter, was a pit. A ragged clearing circled the pit, slowly funneling into the black depth. Some said that on harsh winter nights a strange light leaked from the depths. Others swore that they heard voices, scratching, and unrecognizable sounds coming from that dark emptiness.

         "Stay back from the pit," mothers would warn their children as they headed off to play. These warnings were occasionally disobeyed, and from time to time a child would go missing and never be found; the deep yawning depth of the hidden world remaining a mysterious and forbidding secret.

         Into this glen came a young girl. She was alone, and she scrambled across the rocky clearing, lowered her legs into the black hole, and stood briefly on a fragile shelf before losing her footing in the slimy dark and sliding feet first down curving passages that progressively narrowed, then widened, then narrowed again. She splashed through blind underwater tunnels where slithering things brushed against her bare legs and skittering creatures eyed her with wary gazes from soggy shelves and muddy pockets. Yet she continued on, down into the depths unknown.

         At length the girl observed a dim red light beaconing through the black. She followed the light and saw that it grew to reveal a fiery chamber with glowing stones and black liquid oozing from holes tortured in the walls of a massive cavern. Smoke curled from the pool of liquid fire that formed the swirling floor of the chamber, and in the pool several blocks of black slag were cast about like islands set adrift in a sea of fire. In the center of the chamber several chunks of slag had hardened together and achieved some degree of permanence. On this tenuous platform stood a hideous creature such as no child should ever bear witness to.

         The creature was neither man nor beast, yet it was both at once. It stood on hoofed feet and spindly legs that supported a broad chest and powerful arms. The creature's hideous head was a mix of human features distorted with the sharp fangs, heavy eyebrows, and ringed horns of a monster. In one arm the creature held a crooked staff, forged from the blackest of metal and brought to a five-pointed star at its terminus. With the other hand the beast stirred a boiling cauldron forged from the lava itself and occasionally lifted the ragged spoon to his lips for a taste of the viscous fluid. His back was to the young girl who had stepped carefully across the floating packs of slag and now waited at the edge of the rough platform. He knew that she was there, but he made no sign of it. The beast could not be bothered to acknowledge her presence.

         "I have that which you want." The young girl's shaky voice ventured across the expanse.

         The beast turned slowly, a blood crusted smile drawn from his scaly skin. He took two steps forward to see more closely through the heavy smoke of the chamber who it was that had dared to disturb his silence. He stood fully twice the height of the child. Red, slatted eyes glowed through the curling smoke of the boiling liquids and looked down on the girl. There was no weakness in his stance, no mercy in his gaze.

         "But you can't have it," she said.

         The beast chuckled. Smoke coursed between his ragged teeth and circled his head in a black cloud. He drew back his rough lips to reveal a twitching, multi-pointed tongue that lashed around the inside of his mouth and slithered out between the ridges of his sharpened teeth.

         "And what, child, is it that I want?"

         "I don't know, and I don't care." Her words were firm, her stance defiant. "Whatever it is, you can't have it."

         The beast's lips drew back along a pointed jaw as a hideous smile formed on his face. He was amused. To him, this was just a game; the prey coming into the den of the hunter to be consumed. He toyed with his thoughts, like the cat plays with the rodent.

         "You don't know who it is to whom you speak." There was arrogance in his booming voice, menace in his threatening tone. "I command the powers of Hell! With this single claw," the beast flexed a threatening paw before the young girl's face, "I wield more devastation than you have yet seen in your entire life. I possess more strength than all those who you think will protect you. I take what I want. I don't negotiate with those that I have already selected."

         With a flip of his wrist, the beast commanded a spray of molten fire to splatter against the wall. From the smoking remnants oozed slithering creatures that hissed at the girl and lashed across the void with forked tongues. In the shadows of the massive chamber, hundreds of winged creatures flexed their knotted muscles against burning stone and readied weapons sharpened by fire. Flames coursed along the ridges of the beast's spine, and his forked tail whipped in slicing arcs behind his head. The girl flinched at the ferocity behind the beast's words. But she was undeterred.

         "You can't have what you want, and you can't take it. Or you would already have."

         A sharp crack broke across the cavern. The beast roared, threw back his head, and laughed in fire-laced hysteria. Black, leathery wings sprouted from the folds in his back and flapped in the darkness, sending showers of glowing embers from the walls and ceilings.

         "You are so foolish! I can destroy you in an instant! With my bare claws I can pull the heart from your chest!" the beast roared. "I can burn the skin from your flesh and leave you sobbing in a ruined pile on the floor. I can bring fire and death down upon your house. I can cause fever and boils to wrack your parents' bodies. I can ruin your existence. In an instant, I can take your life or I can make you beg for me to take it and save you from the suffering that I can bring upon you."

         "Perhaps," the girl shrank from the ferocity but saw through the bravado to what she knew to be the truth, "but you still would not have that which you want. If you harm me you will lose all chance, so you won't do it."

         The slits of the beast's eyes narrowed, his massive wings folded back into the cavities in his back. He pursed his scaly lips and pawed at them with taloned fingers. His words were thoughtful and directed.

          "And what is it that you want, my child? It is fame? Wealth? Health for your father and mother? I can give those things to you. I can make your life be the envy of all others. I can bring you paradise. I can offer you anything that you desire."

         "A false paradise, bought at a price. No, I will have nothing of your gifts. I say again, you can't have that which you want. Whatever it is that I have must be worth far more than all that you offer. You are too shrewd a haggler for it to be otherwise."

         Silence filled the massive chamber like a cloud rolling off of the ocean. The beast stared in the eyes of the child, meeting her gaze in a silent debate before finally speaking.

         "Who are you?" The words were tense, swift, and sharp. There was no hiding the ire, no cloaking the disgust.

         A slight smile sprouted from the young girl's face. "I am no one, and I am everyone. I stand alone before you, but I am one of millions. I am nothing special, hardly different from the multitude. Yet something that I am, and I suspect something that we all are, is greater than that which is you. What I have is more precious than all that you profess to offer. You ask who I am, yet, who are you?"

         Her words were like daggers digging into his hide. They struck like arrows, burning with light and truth. The beast wilted before the girl. His minions crawled back into the slimy holes from which they came. The girl's courage was a brilliant flare revealing all of the beast's weaknesses, his sorrows, and his fears. Before her, he was naked and exposed. He shrank from the truth, humbled and defeated.

          "I am alone. I am weak, and I am powerless." The beast turned away from the girl and retreated to a back corner of the slag pile. His resolve had been broken. He could not deny the girl's truths. If he could take her prize he would have done it long ago. He could not take it; she must give it to him willingly, and she would not. "I am nothing," he whispered to the dark.

         "That's not all." The girl's voice chased the beast across the slag. "Leave me. Disturb my dreams no more."

         Her words reverberated bravely off the black walls of the cavern and rose in volume and command with each echo. They demanded response. The beast could only lower his head and nod in subjugation. "I will leave you alone."

         In the middle of the forest was a pit, centered in a glen where the hares leapt and tumbled in the tall grasses. The glen was ringed by tall aspens that straightened to the mounting sun and sprouted a multitude of fresh new growth from their strengthening branches. A shaft of brilliant sunlight beamed into the pit, illuminating the darkness in a golden glow. 

         From this pit emerged a small child, covered with the slime of the dark and drenched in the cold dark waters of the underworld. The dew on the grass washed clean her bare feet. She paused at a small spring at the edge of the glen, washed the dark from her clothes, and lifted her face to dry in the morning sun. It was spring, and it was a new day...

         Somewhere, sheltered in the safe confines of thick walls and shuttered windows, a young girl awoke from her nightmares. She was drenched in sweat and her body yet shivered from the memory. It was dark; she was alone, but she was not afraid. Emboldened by the memory of the dream, the girl steeled her will and whispered into the dark.

         "You cannot touch me," she said. And she knew that it was true.

         The day may come when this girl's name will be known throughout the world. She may command armies, master the sciences, or rule nations. One day she may be a mother, protectively nursing her newborn or standing defiantly between her children and any who dare to cause harm. The day may come when all men would know of this girl, or perhaps only one man would be given the treasure of the depths of her thoughts. One day she would be a woman, and she alone would define all that that would mean.

         But this was not yet that day. On this day she was still a child. Yet she was a child armed with all the strengths which one day she would so mightily wield. For on this day, she retained her cunning, her courage, and her dogged determination. On this day, as on each day previous and for each yet to come, she held fast to that which the demon so much wanted, yet could not have.

         She held firm to her soul.

 

 

Copyright 2006, David R. Downing

David R. Downing, when not writing, leads a team of dedicated professionals providing laboratory information management system (LIMS) consultancy and automation solution configurations for Fortune 500 companies throughout North America.

Writing is usually more fun.

 

 

Cover: "The Lady Returns"

Copyright 2006, Melinda S Reynolds 

Self-taught artist and writer; drawing came first, writing second.  My favorite genres are fantasy and sci-fi because of the depth of imagination.