And in the Darkness Bind Them

The boys returned to the dormitory without being seen, and spoke of nothing but the dead horse for about an hour before the excitement of the mission wore off.  Nillë kindled the fire, as Olwen barked out comments and suggestions to ‘help’, and the others sprawled over their bunks, throwing books and clothes aside to make space. 

Nadroth arrived after a while, with suppers for them on a large wooden tray.  Throwing a wary scowl around the room, he stooped and laid the tray on the sideboard then left without uttering a word.

“Why exactly does he detest us?” asked Marillion.

“Because he thinks we look down upon him,” answered Olwen.

“Which you do,” said Meldir beneath his breath.

“He detests Herilmar,” Rúnyaquar answered, inspecting the contents of his plate with a ruddy-cheeked frown.  “He only stays here because he was so disliked in Armenelos.  I hear there was some scandal.”

“Yes,” sighed Olwen, “and I hear it is going to rain lizards tomorrow.”

“Who cares why he is here,” mumbled Nillë.  “I do not like him.”

“Because he frightens you,” mocked Olwen.  “And your mother is not here to protect you from him!”

“Leave it Olwen,” said Meldir.

Marillion watched them pick at their supper and smiled, though he kept the gesture well hidden.  Perhaps, he thought, it was not wise to show how pleased he was to be in their company, or that he had found a group he felt comfortable with at last, in case he cursed his good fortune.  So instead he kept quiet and slipped off his coat, opening a few buttons on his tunic before he crossed to the sideboard and took the one remaining plate.  He did not try to identify the meat, since it was probably best not to think about where it had come from.

It was only as he came back to his bed and sat with his plate on his lap that he noticed Meldir, and caught the other boy watching him, a question quite obviously poised on his lips.

“What?” Marillion asked, a little wary of the answer.

“My father told me once,” Meldir replied cagily, “that the Line of Elros still had elven blood, and that all their descendants were truly half-elves.”

“Hardly,” said Marillion.  “Perhaps there is a trace of elven blood in us, but I should think it would be a small amount, after so long.”

“Very well,” nodded Meldir.  “I only wondered.”

“Wondered?”

“If that was why…why you were…”

“Why I look the way I do?  Why I am a ghost?”

“I did not mean it as an insult.”

Marillion sighed and softened slightly.  “Sorry.  Only the children in the village…”

“Thought you were the strangest thing they’d ever seen?” Meldir finished.  “Well they would.  People feel they have to ridicule those who are different.  It frightens them because they cannot cope with anything beyond their tiny little world.”

“Is that why your mother thinks you should be evil?” asked Nillë.

“No, I do not think so,” Marillion sighed.  “But it did not help.  I think it has something to do with when I was born.  She had a vision.  Also the healer who was called to help bring me into the world was found dead on the night of my birth.  They think he was struck by lightning.”

Meldir and Olwen seemed morbidly impressed by this.

“So what is it?” asked Olwen.  “Were you ill as a child?”

“The healer said there as nothing wrong.  I was simply born this way.  He said it happened, though not often.”

“There was a man in my father’s household,” said Rúnyaquar, “who had the same thing.  He said it was just something in the blood.  They way some people are born with freckles.”

“Tell me,” said Olwen, “is this the father who is Clerk of the Harbours, or is this the father who is dead?  Just so I can keep abreast of today’s story.”

Rúnyaquar pouted and slammed his empty plate down on the sideboard, before skulking off to change for bed.

“I once had a rabbit that was white,” said Nillë helpfully.  Rúnyaquar, who had turned to offer some insult to Olwen, froze with his mouth open and stared, as did all the others, at the smaller boy. 

“He was born all white,” Nillë explained.  “With pinkish eyes, like yours.”

“There you are then,” said Olwen with a smirk.  “You must be half-rabbit.  Marillion Perlapattë!”

“Have you ever had the urge,” added Meldir, “to go and live in a hole in the ground?”

“He is the only one who’s eaten his vegetables tonight,” said Olwen.

Marillion smiled but kept quiet, while the others laughed and sniggered.  He knew (or at least suspected) that Nillë was more the target of their humour, but still he found himself feeling a little uncomfortable, and sat on his bed, unsure how he should react.

“I only meant…” protested Nillë.

“Maybe you can burrow out of here,” muttered Meldir.  “Let us all escape.”

“Nillë,” interrupted Olwen thoughtfully, “do you remember when you were very small?”

“He still is very small,” mumbled Rúnyaquar.

“A little,” said Nillë.  “Why?”

“Do you remember,” Olwen went on without looking up, “if your mother dropped you at all?  On your head perhaps?”

“Wait until tomorrow,” grumbled Nillë.  “We have archery tomorrow.  I shall shoot you in the behind!”

“Make sure you aim for my head then!”

“Tomorrow will be a better day,” mused Meldir, as he too prepared to go to bed.  “Tomorrow we shall be learning languages again in the morning and shall practice archery if the weather is good.  You can see then what we do, Marillion.”

“See how stupid Nillë is,” muttered Olwen.

“If you have not seen that already,” added Rúnyaquar.

Marillion waited until they had all doused their candles and had slipped into bed before he withdrew to the shadows and changed into his nightshirt.  He listened as the last jokes faded and a sleepy silence descended, only broken by the occasional snap from the fire.  Then finally he climbed into an unfamiliar bed and lay quietly, hoping he would soon become accustomed to the sounds of other bodies in the room with him.  The fire continued to crackle and its light played on the walls, bathing them all in warm shadows.  The boys lay still for a long time, huddled beneath their blankets.

“What was it called, your rabbit?” asked Olwen suddenly.  “Nillë?”

“It was called Lossë, ‘snowy’.  Because it was white.”

“That is original,” muttered Meldir through his blankets.

“What happened to it?” asked Olwen.

“Father said it had gone across the seas to white shores,” said Nillë.  “I was very sad, I think, but our cook made a special feast in Lossë’s honour.”

“What exactly do you eat when you are celebrating a rabbit’s departure?” asked Rúnyaquar.

“I am not sure,” said Nillë.  “I think it was rabbit pie.”

There was a moment’s silence, then Olwen gave a snort and laughed aloud.

~*~

Slowly Marillion began to adjust to the odd routines that came of sharing his life with others, and though he still awoke at times, startled by the sound of foreign breathing around him, he found himself gradually growing comfortable.  He had no trouble at lessons, as his father had always brought him tutors and, with few companions, Marillion had had nothing else to concentrate upon.  He spent most of his time, however, observing his fellow students, whilst making sure they never saw him do so.  He would not quite call them ‘friends’, and he had never told them his innermost secrets, yet they were closer to him than any before.  After the novelty of the rabbit joke had worn off, they even ceased in their references to his colouring, which surprised Marillion a little.  The village children had seven or eight nicknames for him within five minutes of their meeting.

The instinct that the house itself was strange, however, did not wane with time.  Although the thought was shoved aside on occasion, it would always return whenever there were no distractions.  When Marillion awoke in the midst of a dark, silent night he would feel the unnaturalness of the air and listen to the absolute quiet, trying to fathom what was wrong with the place.

Herilmar too seemed to be at one with his house, and had the same aura of mystery, as though his thoughts were constantly on hidden, dangerous things.  Once or twice, during their lessons with him, Marillion had glanced up from his books and saw the master stare through the window, a graveside melancholy falling over him, almost as though he was waiting for someone he loved dearly, yet who would never return.  As the months passed, Marillion began to suspect that some tragedy had befallen this house, some event that had shaken the place, and its master, to the core and whose effects lingered on to that day.

They saw no sign of Hermald Herilmarion, nor did the Master of the House ever mention his only son, despite his being the reason for the children’s stay.  Marillion noted that none of his companions dared to ask about him either, and later found out from Meldir that they had tried this.  When they first arrived, Meldir said, they asked where Hermald was and when he would join them.

“Herilmar merely sighed,” Meldir had told him, “and said, ‘when he is ready’.”

Yet despite these oddities, and the overwhelming neglect encountered in every corner of the house, Marillion found himself dreading the coming winter, when their little group would be separated.  He was not sure if his father would return to bring him home, or if Ilmarnië would persuade her husband to leave him there, but certainly the others were intent on returning for a week or so.  Either way, thought Marillion, he would end up alone again, whether in his parents’ house or here in this dilapidated folly.

So when their last night came, and when the others finally stopped chatting about their plans for the journey home, Marillion found himself unable to sleep, a dark mood sitting heavily in his chest.

The others dozed beneath their blankets, little undulating mounds brushed by the firelight.  The flames licked low, the embers glittering, and outside the winter wind moaned dolefully, rattling the ancient windowpanes.  Marillion shuffled and tried to find a more comfortable position in his bed but his brain remained alert despite his tiredness.  He listened to the absolute silence that seemed to ooze from distant parts of the house, his thoughts full of frantic ideas.  He tried to think what it might be like to return home and dive into that old life once again, to become the forgotten spectre of the house once more.

Still, he mused, it would only be for a week or so.

He rolled over again and pulled his blankets right up to his chin.  Across the room, Nillë began to snore softly.  He would miss them all, he thought.

He was not sure what made his ears prick or his heart stop for a moment, but suddenly Marillion found himself sitting upright in bed, his senses trained and an indefinable fear creeping over his being.  He listened to the sounds of the house and was certain he heard a floorboard creak outside.  In any other house this would not have alarmed him, but he knew no one moved in this place after dark, once Nadroth had gone to bed.  Marillion lifted the bedclothes and laid them gently aside, before he swung his legs down to the floor and crept across the room.  None of the boys stirred as he opened the door, and Marillion made sure to ease his way through without letting the hinges creak. 

A wiser idea, however, might have been to take a candle, but Marillion did not think.  He found himself instead plunged into darkness in the corridor outside, with only a sliver of firelight spilling out of the room behind him.  Only then did he ask himself why he was wandering the hallways at night or what he expected to find there.

He stood for a while, the silence weighing heavily on his shoulders.  His pulse boomed through his ears and he realised his heart was pounding.  The darkness took on a life of its own, stretching endlessly off to every side of him.  He imagined the shadows seething and writhing like serpents at his feet.  If the house seemed strange and cold in daylight, it was all the more hideous at night.

A scream cut across that silence so unexpectedly that Marillion suspected his brain might be damaged.  It was as if some part of his mind had snapped, as the sound seemed to penetrate not just his ears but his skull as well, and a cold shiver rippled down his back as though someone had emptied a bucket of ice into his nightshirt.  When at last the tortured cry faded, the claustrophobic quiet resumed as if nothing had happened, but Marillion stood paralysed by fear and revulsion for a long while before he thought to venture further into the dark.

In the past few months he had forgotten the details of his first day at Herilmar’s house, but it all came flooding back into his mind as he felt his way along the hall.  The scream, he thought.  He had heard the scream before, back then.

He glanced back towards the thin line of firelight seeping around the door to the dormitory.  Surely one of the others heard it too?  Surely no one could sleep through such a painful sound?  Yet no one moved. 

Certain that the noise had come from up ahead, Marillion paused for a while, wondering if it was wise to proceed.  Would he really want to meet the person at the other end of such a scream?  Would he really want to see someone in such agony?  Yet something morbid spurred him on.  He did not think to help or alert anyone.  Somehow the situation did not seem real enough for that sort of idea.  Pressing his palm against the wood-panelled wall, he shuffled slowly through the blackness and strained his ears. 

Far ahead he heard a whisper of movement and again he froze, waiting for something to leap at him out of the dark. 

A low, droning murmur hummed through the air, so low at first that he wondered if it was just the wind, but then the voice rose up suddenly into another scream.  This time Marillion headed towards the sound right away and felt the sharp edge of a corner beneath his palm. He followed the twist in the corridor and glimpsed a light ahead, another faint sliver escaping around the edges of a closed door. 

Lingering by the door for what felt like an eternity, Marillion ran over the possibilities in his mind.  Should he barge in and confront this demon?  Should he call for help?  Should he hurry back to the dormitory before he was discovered?  The creature, whatever it was, fell silent again but he could hear the gentle shifting of fabric inside the room as something moved around.  Moreover his neck prickled and his senses flared.  Though he could see nothing at the end of the corridor he felt certain there was something there, watching him.  Though somehow he knew that it was not Nadroth.  Nor was it the Lord of the House.  Perhaps his imagination was over excited, he mused.  Perhaps he should go back to bed and forget all this.

Yet something pushed him to open that door and step through.

He entered a bedchamber, lit only by the faltering flames of an open fire in the hearth.  The glow cast eerie shadows on the elven carvings all around the room, making the varnished wooden figures and birds seem to come alive.  Marillion stood for a moment before the room sank fully into his brain but then he became aware of a figure writhing beneath the bedclothes. 

As he ventured nearer, the figure’s face came into view, peering at him over the counterpane with a look of ashen-faced terror.  He saw a young boy, perhaps Marillion’s age or younger, deathly thin and pale.  He let a pathetic whimper escape his lipless mouth as Marillion approached, as though begging for his life.

“I mean you no harm,” Marillion whispered.  “Who are you?”

The boy’s face contorted even more, though now he stared not at Marillion, but at something by the door.  Marillion sensed the presence behind him seconds later and gasped, making to turn around, but a heavy hand landed upon his shoulder before he could do so.

“What,” seethed Lord Herilmar, “do you think you are doing?”