The Dark Chronicles Ch. 00

Nymue set off, the satchel bumping against her side. She was small for her age, not yet fourteen, but her limbs were strong and quick. She would climb trees and fearlessly find the highest nests. At first she stole the eggs, but then her mother showed her how to cradle fallen birds in the cup of her hands and to feel the tiny spirits there, and Nymue learned the strength of every life, and how it was vital.

Nymue kept to the south side of the river, for she knew the sands were widest there, where the river met the sea; she would see the flood of the tide as it broke over the bar and wouldn't need to run. As she reached the shore, Nymue looked high to the sun and judged the length of the shadows, knowing she must wait a short time for the tide to reach its lowest ebb.

The girl had an instinctive, immediate grasp of numbers and angles, and remembered the shadows of the sun, from solstice to solstice. It pleased her, this endless round, and she took confidence from its constancy and predictability. Her mother might use the guts of birds for her auguries, but the daughter already knew deeper, longer rhythms.

Satisfied that she had the most use of her time with the tide at its lowest ebb, Nymue set off over the hard sand, her footsteps a straight trail behind her to the dunes. After a count of a hundred breaths she stopped and turned, and her track went straight back and blurred into a single line, and she was surrounded by sand. Behind her and to the south Nymue could see the far curve of land. To the west where the sun sets she could see the distant shimmer of water, not yet breaking the bar. She had plenty of time before the tide turned, and she began to dig.

Slowly Nymue filled her satchel with the small cockle shells, dreamily looking forward to their salty taste and the soft flesh boiled open in an iron kettle on the fire, picked up with a precious fork found in an abandoned villa. Nymue often day-dreamed, her mind in a hundred places, none of them where she actually was; and the open expanse of sand echoed the spaces in her mind, vast and wide, looking always outwards. She wriggled her toes in the sand, feeling the water just below the surface, warm in the sun. Nymue felt luxurious, stretching her young body under the high, hot sun.

Something caught her eye and she was aware of a strange silence. Off towards the sea, she saw a flock of wading birds rising from the sand, then another and another, a myriad of shapes rising against the sky. What has startled them? thought Nymue, why are the birds rising? Usually, the birds stayed down on the wide sands, probing with their long beaks for worms and slithering things that lived in the mud. On edge now, Nymue turned to face the distant estuary, straining her eyes to see what had alarmed the birds. With a thump of her heart, she saw, far off but nothing should be there, far off a shimmering edge of white, moving fast upon the sands. She looked around her, instinctively checking where the land was. Something was not right, what was that shimmer, that running line?

With a surge of horror, Nymue saw that it was water, a band of water moving fast across the sand. But the tide is down, she whispered to herself, not believing this impossible thing. She heard a distant rush and it was the sound of waves in a storm pushed high upon the beach and breaking. Nymue knew this was not right. This wave was an unnatural thing, and she began to run. As she ran she tied the satchel with its strap and held it close to her breast to keep it there. She ran, her breath heaving, but the sound of the rushing water was faster behind her. Nymue knew she could not turn around, it would stop her flight, so she did not see the rising wave pushing up, following her faster than a horse runs, following her faster than she could run.

The front of the wave caught Nymue and knocked her feet from under her, and she was tumbling, tumbling, thrown by the force and speed of the wave, which smashed into her back and rushed past her. She made herself as small as she could, folding herself into the smallest ball of a girl, a tiny thing like a rock or a pebble, to fall down to the sand and let the water rush over her. The tumult of the wave sped on towards the land, and she rose to the surface, gasping for air, but in a still water behind the roaring spume and the breaking peak.

Quickly, Nymue oriented herself to the land, oh but it's so far away. The water rushed and swirled around her, and she knew this was no tide, for as sudden as the wave had broken up around her, then with a mighty huge suck, the water shot back towards the sea, a fast moving sheet of rippling, awful water, brown with mud and sand, until the sand was bare.

Nymue sobbed for breath and pulled her shift around her. Her hands still grabbed the satchel, clutching it so tight her fingers were white. Shakily she got to her feet and tried to make sense of what had happened. She squeezed water from her long hair, heavy to her waist with water and sand. She did not understand what this was. How could the tide rise and fall so fast? Never before had she seen a breaking wave cover these sands. Twice, when she was younger, she had gone farther out than was wise; but those times, why, she could steadily walk before the water and it would follow her like a puppy, catching her ankles but only inches deep. A skip and a jump would leave the tide behind.

But this, this was wrong, so wrong. A wave couldn't come and go like that, mother earth didn't move that way. The tide came in and the tide went out, and it was predictable and a perfect thing. This was wrong. Nymue looked to the sky. That was wrong, too, the baleful red of the high sun. Where was the perfect white light of the daily sun? Wrongness surged around the girl, and she was scared.

And her guts; Mother, what was this sudden sharp pain in the depths of her belly? What hand gripped her right inside? Nymue bent double with cramps, and remembered her sisters when the curse first came upon them. She fell to the sand, winded by the sudden pain, and rocked there, holding herself tight. The girl fought tears brought by the pain, but she cried out without knowing, her cry soaring up like a frightened bird. Lying on the wet sand, shivering with cold, Nymue clutched herself until slowly the pain eased. Shaking, she crawled for a short while, then pushed herself to her feet.

Nymue limped towards the distant shore, the satchel heavy about her neck. The dunes were so far away, she hurt from the cramps, and she hurt from the pounding she had received from the malignant wave. Then horror, once again horror, she heard again the rushing of water rising behind her. She turned to face the wave and stood terrified as she saw it rush towards her, a wall of water higher than her head. This time, though, she was better prepared. Just before the water took her, Nymue took in the biggest, deepest breath she could, and threw herself in the same direction as the rushing, roaring wave, letting it carry her towards the shore.

The girl remembered how quickly the previous wave had turned and sucked back to sea, and knew she must grip the sand like a limpet to stop herself being dragged back out. So Nymue used the malevolence of the wrongness against itself, and let herself be swept and tumbled towards the shore, terror still in her limbs, but carried by this force, not fighting it. Gulping for air, she was swept along, and the wave took her in. Some sense in the girl told her the moment of the back surge, and she dived down and plunged her hands into the grip of the sand and held herself there as the water rushed back out. As she did so, Nymue felt the satchel rip from her body and it was lost to her.

But she survived. For a second time, Nymue struggled to her feet as the hateful waters withdrew. She wasted no time making for the dunes, but they were still so far away. So far. Without the bag, she just had to move herself, and she did, with shuffling steps. Her body was bruised and bashed, and again she felt the awful cramp deep in her belly. Sobbing with pain, Nymue lurched forward, and slowly the dunes came into view. She struggled on, weak with exhaustion, not knowing if the nightmare world was over or if it was just beginning.

With a third horrible rush, another wave smashed into her, but even in her dread Nymue sensed a regularity to them. Again she was spun and tumbled and thrust towards the shore. Nymue was weaker now, and when the wave sucked back it pulled her feet from under her and dragged her back the same distance she had tumbled, and she was no closer to the shore. This time too, the furious sea ripped and tore the girl's garments from her body, and Nyneva was naked and small, a tired hurt animal, but with an animal's instinct for survival. She pulled herself to her feet and limped towards the dunes, counting this time, counting, counting, and was warned.

When the fourth wave struck, Nymue stood firm, neither going with the wave nor surrendering to it, but stood still and anchored, pushing her feet into the sand. Mother earth gave her strength, and so Nymue stood against the fourth wave, and it was smaller than the other waves, and she let it pass. Knowing now the horrible, inevitable intervals between the dreadful surges, this time she made herself run, driving her thin naked limbs as fast as she had ever run. Ignoring the sharp stabbing pains in her belly she kept on, and struggled in the softer sand and the slope. Nymue realised she had left the long slope of the sand and was in the foot of the dunes. She stopped and looked down, and saw that the wrongness that was the water between the tides, even now the waves had reached this high.

Nymue struggled on, and saw that she had finally reached the line of the highest tide and must now be safe. Turning towards the sea, the dreadful sea, she held her arms around her smallness and waited. She did not wait long, but the fifth wave was small and weak, as if it too had tired in its rush upon the sand. By the time it reached her, its force was spent and the water didn't reach her knees. The muddy flow slopped and shifted around Nymue, but it was sluggish and slow.

As she stood there, small and naked and alone, Nymue felt a curious pulse in the base of her belly and a long, loose feeling there, not as fierce as the cramps before, but new to her and heavy. She felt a wetness on her legs, and as the foul wave retreated, Nymue watched it take swirls of red blood away from her, pulling and threading thin trails of rich red blood. And Nymue bled, her first course given up to the horrible surge of the fifth wave, and she didn't know what it meant. She looked up at the sky, and the harsh red clouds flowed there, echoing her young womanhood as the foul water washed her first blood away.

Nymue shook, her body exhausted and shocked, weakened with the terror of the water, weakened by her blood. Somehow she knew that the fifth wave was the last, that the proper tide would walk across the sand like it always did, and the world would turn as it always turned.

Nymue' s animal instinct was still strong, and she made herself climb to the height of the dune, some final safe place where the sand was dry. She found a small hollow and crept near to a thicket of small trees, and collapsed, small and huddled, turning within herself. With a long shudder, her exhausted body slumped into unconsciousness, and she felt nothing, no pain, no fear, just nothing.

Then, in her nothingness, Nymue felt herself rising, light and buoyant, her spirit rising. She felt herself turn, rolling once, and her eyes opened. She looked down and saw a small huddled thing curled small on itself, curled on the ground, and it grew smaller. The child lay sleeping, and at first Nymue wondered who she was, this bleeding and scratched girl; then realised the girl was herself. Then her body didn't matter, as Nymue felt herself rise and rise, high to the sky. She felt a small tug in her belly, and looked at herself and saw a streaming silver chord, no thicker than a hair, but shimmering white light and silver brightness, streaming down to the small pale thing on the ground.

Eyes wide with wonder now, Nymue was high above the earth, and saw off to the east, where the morning sun rises, far off in the shimmering distance, the conical rise of the sacred hill surrounded by water. She knew she would go there soon, to the Isle of Glas. Her spirit rushed on and higher, and far below her, Nymue saw the estuary as it narrowed between the rising hills on either side, like a woman's thighs parting and the rolling hills beyond. Nymue saw the Goddess below her sleeping, her lush curves sinuous and fertile, waiting. And look, down there in the sea, Nymue saw five curving lines beating and running against the shore and some mysterious male force was in them, some huge force pushed them on, surging up into the Goddess and stirring her with some new awakening.

Then, with a snap and a jolt, Nymue's vision ended and her world went black. She felt a rush and a surge and the clutching of cold flesh, and blackness descended over her. She felt nothing more.

* * * *

"Child, my poor child, what has happened here?"

Vivyane was frantic, her mother's senses fully alert, searching as soon as she realised the girl should have returned. Vivyane knew the water well. She had not seen the five waves, but she could tell from the twisting and spiralling drags of water on the far sands, and the rivulets and rushing paths made high in the dunes, that something strange and fierce had passed through here.

Vivyane wrapped the girl in a coarse woollen cloth to cover her nakedness and to make her warm. She stood, and cradling her small daughter close to her body, Vivyane made her way back to their home. In the courtyard, serving girls rushed to find soft bindings and fresh water and to fan the fire in the hearth. Vivyane cleansed her daughter, and she was covered in bruises and scratches.

"I'm bleeding, Mother, my blood is upon me." Nymue's voice was small, barely a whisper. "I flew, mother, and saw the Goddess, our holy mother."

Vivyane didn't doubt, but there were more than two mysteries here. "Why are you naked, child? Where are your clothes?"

"I lost the cockles, the sea took everything from me. I couldn't run, I tried, but I couldn't run fast enough. I flew, Mama, so high. I'm so tired, let me sleep." Nymue opened her eyes. "Five waves, Mother, but the last one was small. I was scared, Mama, so scared. I flew up into the sky. The waves tumbled me around and round. I lost the cockles, Mother." Her eyes flickered and closed, and Vivyane sat by her little daughter all through the night.

"Little sparrow," she sang, "little sparrow..."

Nymue slept, and Vivyane wondered why the Goddess had called upon the girl. Her auguries had not foretold this; they were silent and told her nothing.

Above them, the sickle moon was a baleful red; and in the morning the sun rose in its own blood and the world turned and turned. The sun rose and the sun fell, and the moon too, always red.

In her long delirium, Nymue whispered, "There's a dragen coming, Mother, he's coming soon with his hot breath and sharp claws. There's a dragen coming soon."

© electricblue66 2018