Because it seems a shame that no-one else would see it otherwise.

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A dream of flying …


You soar like a falcon over the eddies and currents of the air, swooping and diving for the sheer exaltation that this freedom brings you.

But you’re drawn, north, ever north, to the land that borders your own, the land that some part, some human part, knows is your enemy. A vision, you think, knowing that in some reality your body lies sleeping in a white tower while your soul flies free.

A presence, protecting, reassuring; Roman in form and ancient in humour. “I will not leave you; even in dreams. You and I stand together, fight together, die together if that is what our duty demands. Are we not warriors of Mithras’ blood?”

You see, with the clarity of the owl, a monster lurking in the gorse. Horrid of face, with tusks like a boar and eyes that bulge like a fishes, bedecked with leather and rotting cloth, with a smell that would turn a pigs stomach and a demeanour that speaks of devilment. The creature lurks, tearing at the raw body of a rabbit, fresh caught, its blood dripping down his cheeks as he hunkers, hiding from the pursuit.

You see the hunters; their limbs bedecked with targe and broadsword and their tartans of a colour familiar to you from the Bonefire and the death of children. They hold torches aloft and the creature they hunt crouches lower and lower, eyes closed so as not to betray himself with the reflection of hatred that gleams within his horrible orbs.

And then a twig snaps, near to the beast though you would swear that it was not him that moved. The hunters circle and close, their spears ready and their faces grim. This is the end of a long hunt, you sense, and there is an unholy joy in their actions as they move towards their quarry.

The beating of the bushes starts; the beast does not react. Then with a careless laugh, one of the men thrusts his torch deep into the wet heather and whispers a word or two in a language that grates upon your ears and the flames catch with a sulphurous stench. The gorse and heather light, though the flame is not quite true as it flickers and flits from branch to branch, heading towards the creature who only seeks solitude. But the fire finds him, and he rises, screeching and squealing as he tries to break through the boundary of warriors who surround him.

Deep their spears strike though his hide is tougher than boars skin and his will as strong as steel. Deep they strike again and the blood starts to flow, thick and black in the eldritch torch light. Deep, and he swings a careless arm, striking one of the hunters across the neck and dropping him to the floor, dead as the conscience that was sold.

A roar of pain and anguish as the beast mourns, the other warriors forgotten, their weapons ignored as arms more gentle than could possibly be imagined from one so bestial cradle the fallen warrior. Words almost unrecognisable pour from his mouth; a lamentation for the dead.

“Padraig, my sister’s son. You have brought my doom upon me with your death! Geased was I never to take blood from my own family. Geased to protect you. Geased to watch over you. And with your death, you have bought mine own. Doom, doom to the Clan MacGrugrach!”

The hunters retire, their evil work done. One death is all that was called for, one curse enough for this night. The flames flicker and fade and the hunters depart, taking the smell of sulphur and brimstone with them.

The beast mourns again, in words that scritch and scratch at your ears, the pain the only thing you recognise. And behind him, a shadowy figure, half man, half weaver, the stars shine through its body, distorted as if my smoke smeared glass. It gestures, and a spider forms from the darkness, its yellow fangs the only colour in is midnight hued form. It scuttles and skitters as it moves towards the creature with the human heart and pauses, slightly, before it begins its ascent. Eight steps at a time it climbs, ascending with grim purpose. And then, choosing its moment, it bites, the yellow fangs sinking deeper than they have a right to and the venom pumping directly to that oh so human heart.

The creature starts, but does not react in time, its eyes on the smoke that stalks it.

“You”, it rasps; “you who were my best student and my worst enemy. You who were never blood of my blood. You I curse with the power of the death of the deathless. You who I taught everything you know, but the merest fraction of my knowledge, I curse you.”

The language changes, the night air cut and battered by the bruising words that follow. Each phrase is accompanied by the shadowing of a vein as the poison spreads through the beast’s unprotected body. Each phrase darkens the already blackened night. Each phrase strikes the spider as it scuttles towards the smoke, causing it to glow with darkness visible.

The creature stops, coughing as the venom reaches his heart, smiling for the few seconds that he has left.

”The last gift you learnt, and the most difficult, that I bind to you. No longer will you roam freely from that which is truly you. Now it must be in your sight at all times. That which makes you strong, now only makes you more vulnerable.”

“I curse you with the blood curse. Rot in hell”.

A wave of power and of darkness, and you wake; the dream of flying forgotten as you hope desperately to be able to see the light.