Celia Friedman: Black Sun Rising

It occurred to her that she hadn’t heard him approach, that in the midst of all this sticky mud she should have had some warning—but then his eyes caught hers, held hers, and suddenly she couldn’t remember why that bothered her.

“Yes,” she stammered. “That is—I think so.” She felt breathless, as if she had been running instead of walking. She tried to step back, but her body wouldn’t obey. What kind of Working had he used to bind her?

But though he came close—too close—it was only to touch her chin with the tip of a well-manicured finger, turning her face up toward him. “So fragile,” he murmured. “So fine. And alone in the night. Not wise. Would you like an escort?” She whispered it. “Please.”

He offered his arm. After a moment, she took it. An antiquated gesture, straight out of the Revival period. Her hand shook slightly as it came to rest on the wool of his sleeve. No warmth came from the arm beneath, or any other part of him; he was cold—he radiated cold—like the night itself. Just as she, despite her best intentions, radiated fear.

Gods above, she prayed, just get me home. I’ll be more careful in the future, I swear it. Just get me home tonight. It seemed to her he smiled. “You’re afraid, child.” She didn’t dare respond. Just let me get through tonight. Please.

“Of what? The darkness? The night itself?”

She knew she shouldn’t speak of such things, but she couldn’t hold back; his voice compelled response. “The creatures that hunt in it,” she whispered.

“Ah.” He laughed softly. “And for good reason. They do value your kind, child, that feed on the living. But these—” and he touched the wards embroidered on her sleeve, the warding clasps that held back her hair “—don’t they bind enough fae to guard you?”

Enough to keep away demons, she thought. Or so it should have been. But now, suddenly, she wasn’t sure.

He put his hand beneath her chin, turning her gently to face him. Where his fingers touched her flesh there was cold, but not merely a human chill; it burned her, as a spark of fire might, and left her skin tingling as it faded. She felt strangely disassociated from the world around her, as if all of it was a dream. All of it except for him.

“Do I read you correctly?” he asked. “Have you never seen the night before?”

“It’s dangerous,” she whispered.

“And very beautiful.”

His eyes were pools of silver, molten, that drew her in. She shivered. “My parents thought it best.”

“Never been outside, when sun and Core had set. Never! I wasn’t aware the fear had reached such an extreme here. Even now . . . you don’t look. You won’t see.”

“See what?” she managed.

“The night. The beauty of it. The power. The so-called dark fae, a force so fragile that even the moonlight weakens it—and so strong in the darkness that death itself falls back before it. The tides of night, each with its own color and music. An entire world, child!—filled with things that can’t exist when the light in the heavens is too strong.”

“Things which the sun destroys.”

He smiled, but his eyes remained cold. “Just so.”

“I’ve never been allowed.”

“Then look now,” he whispered. “And see.”

She did—in his eyes, which had gone from pale gray to black, and from black to dizzying emptiness. Stars swirled about her, in a dance so complex that no human science could have explained it—but she felt the rhythms of it echo in her soul, in the pattern of mud beneath her feet, in the agitated pounding of her heart. All the same dance, earth and stars alike. This is Earth science, she thought with wonder. The Old Knowledge. Tendrils of fae seeped from the darkness to wind themselves about her, delicate strands of velvet purple that were drawn to her warmth like moths to flame. She shivered as they brushed against her, sensing the wild power within them. All about her the land was alive, with a thousand dark hues that the night had made its own: fragile fae, as he had said, nearly invisible in the moonlight—but strong in the shadows, and hauntingly beautiful. She tried to move toward it, to come closer to a tangle of those delicate, almost unseeable threads, but his hand on her arm stopped her, and a single word bound her. Dangerous, he cautioned; language without sound. For you.

“Yes,” she whispered. “But oh, please . . .”

Music filled the cool night air, and she shut her eyes in order to savor it. A music unlike any other she had ever heard, delicate as the fae itself, formless as the night that bound it. Jeweled notes that entered her not through her ears, as human music might, but through her hair and her skin and even her clothing; music that she took into her lungs with every breath, breathing out her own silver notes to add to their harmony. Is this what the night is? she wondered. Truly?

She felt, rather than saw, a faint smile cross his face. “For those who know how to look.”

I want to stay here.

He laughed, softly. You can’t.

Why? she demanded.

Child of the sunlight! Heir to life and all that it implies. There’s beauty in that world, too, although of a cruder sort. Are you really ready to give all that up? To give up the light? Forever?

The darkness withdrew into two obsidian pinpoints, surrounded by fields of cracked ice. His eyes. The dark fae was alive in there, too, and a music that was far more ominous—and darkly seductive. She nearly cried out, for wanting it.

“Quiet, child.” His voice was nearly human again.

“The cost of that’s too high, for you. But I know the temptation well.”

“It’s gone . . .”

“It’ll never be gone for you. Not entirely. Look.”

And though the night was dark again, and silent, slit was aware of something more. A tremor of deepest put pie, at the edges of her vision. Faint echoes of a music that came and went with the breeze. “So beautiful.”

“You avoided it.”

“I was afraid.”

“Of the darkness? Of its creatures? Such beings aren’t kept at bay by a simple closed door, child, or by lamplight. If they want to know of you, they do, and if they want to have you, they certainly will. Your charmed wards are enough to keep lesser demons at bay, and against the greater ones mere lamplight and human company won’t help you at all. So what’s the point in locking yourself away from half the wonders of the world?”

“None,” she breathed, and she knew it to be the truth

He took her arm and applied gentle pressure, forward. It took her a moment to realize what he meant by it and even then the gesture seemed strange. Too human. for this extrahuman night. In silence she let him walk her toward her home, his footsteps utterly silent beside her own. What else did she expect? All about them shadows danced, alien shapes given life by the moonlight. She shivered with pleasure, watching them. Was this her forever now, this marvelous vision? Would it stay when he was gone—his gift to her, in this unearthly night?

At last, eons later, they came to the last rise before her house. And stood on it, silently, gazing upon the all-too-human abode. There, in the light, the music would fade. The fae would be gone. Bright sanity, in all its dull glory, would reign supreme.

His nostrils flared as he studied the small house, as if testing the breeze that came from it. “They’re afraid,” he observed.

“They expected me home before dark.”

“They had good reason to fear.” He said it quietly, but she sensed the threat behind his words. “You know that.”

She looked into his eyes and saw in them such a mixture of coldness and power that she turned away, trembling. It was worth it, she thought. Worth it to see the night like that. To have such vision, if only once. Then the touch of his finger, cold against her skin, brought her back to face him.