RAVENSLORD

Episode Two:

By Amanda R. Hamlin

              She had finally reached the scene where they met each other for the first time, the princess in her

fine silks and disdaining to put feet on the muddy ground of the barbarian camp, the leader, clad

in skins, smelling rank like an animal, as he appraised her with calloused and tattooed hands, as if

she were breeding livestock. The Princess was enraged by the insult and rough treatment but, at

the same time, she... Julia slammed the book shut. She didn't dare read on. Why risk arousing

desire that would only be flushed down the drain by yet another heroic? Or, worse, what if she

read the juiciest scene imaginable and still felt nothing? A cold sweat broke out on the back of her

neck at the thought. The book drooped on the edge of her lap, a cold finger marking her place

between the pages. She was paralyzed, too afraid to read on but angry and ashamed at her fear.

             Fortunately, she reached her stop soon, giving her a perfect excuse to put away the book.

The crisp air outside was refreshing after the stuffy interior of the bus but didn't set her thoughts

racing as it might once have done when she had imagined the wind whispering her destiny in her

ear. She walked as quickly as she could. With any luck, she would be home in record time, where

there was dinner and other tasks to occupy her mind.

                As she passed the old church on the corner, the bells began to toll, ringing brazen voices

reminding her of the summer vacation trips to Europe her family used to make when she was a

teenager and had felt wild and free and so very, very alive. Every hour, every half and quarter

hour, the bells would shake the narrow winding streets of the old cities, and she could believe they

had become lost in an older, more romantic age, where you could buy magic rings in the curio

shops and adventure waited around every turn. Once they had stayed in a tiny attic garret without

heat where, even in the summer, she had to huddle under down quilts to sleep and the owner of the

house delivered fresh eggs to them every morning. Julia could believe herself a poor, struggling

artist, eking out an existence up here in the windy garret atop the hill of the old castle town. One

wrong move, one spell of bad luck and she could become a beggar or a whore, but just to feel the

sun on her face was precious. To feed on creamy yellow sheep's cheese, fresh bread and ripe

peaches was a feast of sensual delight.

                But all that was gone forever now. It was only a year ago when the bells had tolled, passing

bells, funeral bells, even when, as now, they marked the passing of the old year. And now, she was

thirty, the matriarch of the family, and she felt old, old and wilted. No sap flowed in her. All was

dust. The grief was still a dull ache but, also, it was a mark of the passing of time, the passing

away, an autumn to be followed only by eternal and bitter winter. How could she be so old at

thirty? Both she and Garritt were, at least mostly, happy and successful in their careers. They had

more than enough money to meet their desires... Hell, most of her friends couldn't even hold down

a steady relationship, still stuck in the in the awkward and emotionally draining date search phase.

And here she was, already married to a man who, in so many ways, was a perfect fit for her. Oh

sure, the raiding thing got annoying sometimes but, it was still leagues ahead of being stood up at

a creepy bar. Her life was really about as good as could be and yet there was something, some

special spark or flare that was missing, like she'd been transported into The Wizard of Oz and saw

the world in black and white instead of color.

                 The bells rolled through her. Almost, she could feel her body vibrate to their tones as she

walked, letting them pass through her, remembering and feeling old. How long had it been? Only

a few short years since she had looked up at the blank windows of castle towers, at the spires of

cathedrals piercing the sky, and known that, for once, only time and not the distance of vast oceans

had separated her from her dreams. She had stood beneath the arches of stone, built by human

hands but, magically, soaring up to vanish in the shadows. As she drank in all the intricate carvings,

beasts and dragons, great battles, and brutal martyrs there was one scene that stayed in her mind

the most: the last judgment with its wild tangle of bodies mingled amid the flames, the people

praying for mercy and the demons ever more pleased to deny it. Considering that they were

religious images from a very pious age, it was rather scandalous and thrilling to see images of

naked women being groped on the wall of the church. Apparently, the fact that the groping was

being done by a demon with a beast's head, in a flaming pit, made it all okay. She had always

found the demons fascinating and, she now realized it was because they reminded her of the

Ravenlord, that malignant yet majestic being from her past. Perhaps, the ravens in the tree

yesterday had stirred her memory.

                   She remembered years ago when she had loved the Ravenlord. He had been her first object

of desire, even when she was a young teenager, before she had her first period. When all the other

girls had swooned over movies stars or the latest boy bands, papering their walls with posters and

never missing the latest DVD or album release, she had spent her days longing dreamily for this

creature, part bird, part god, and all man, who would seize her in his talons and carry her away.

There were no pictures of the Ravenlord for her to hang in her room, so she made her own, filling

an entire sketch book with drawings of his dark hair and savage eyes. And she had something

none of the other girls had. She had also drawn pictures of herself in the sketch book as well, of

him carrying her through the sky, soaring over rugged mountains, the two of them beside a

waterfall in the wilderness, him taking her in his arms and kissing her while the wind blew through

their hair, equally long, so that it twined wildly together. And, as she had grown older, she had

drawn other things as well, things she now blushed to recall.

She could no longer even remember where she had first encountered the Ravenlord.

Probably something in a song or a book had first sparked the idea in her mind. But she knew he

had swiftly acquired all the qualities she had dreamed of. He was brooding, ruthless, majestic,

iron willed. Her shy, fourteen-year-old self, had no need to worry about trying to draw a lover to

her. The Ravenlord would simply take whatever he wanted, though, in most cases, his commanding

presence would dissolve the resistance of any woman. Cold and brutal, he had no concern for the

feelings of humanity and yet, his very strangeness and danger made them irresistibly drawn to him:

Messenger of Winter, Messenger of Darkness, Messenger of Death. Julia watched, almost

enviously as her younger self rapturously panted out his long list of titles: Evil Sorcerer, Grim

Reaper, Dark Lord, Master of the Underworld.

                  It had been years since she had felt such intensity of longing. The endless grind of her job

had left her weary and prosaic. There was no time or energy for engaging in fantasy and, with

little opportunity to read the right kind of books, there was nothing to fire the imagination. Garritt

was even worse, though she could hardly blame him, as his job was still more demanding. It had

been months since they had gone to bed together, not that she missed it since, on the rare occasions

when they did, their coupling was, likewise, perfunctory and prosaic.

                When she got home, she went immediately to the hall mirror, dodging the incoming missile

of Sylvannus, who then came bounding along at her heels. Squinting into the reflective glass, Julia

searched for something, she wasn't sure what, some sign she was still the same person she had

been years before. In truth, there was little to remind her of her high school self, with her

immaculately made-up face and sleek, sophisticated clothes. It wasn't that Julia didn't like the way

she looked. She thought her style made her sexy, urban, and worldly. But it didn't make her feel

wild or free or young. She no longer looked like the bride of the Ravenlord. Was it any wonder

she didn't feel like it either? An expensive leather jacket and high heels weren't for making love

out in the forest under the moon.

                Almost dreamily, she put out her hand to open the door of her closet, reaching far into the

back. There, under the plastic dust bags, hung the dresses she had collected as a teenager, that she

had worn in college when she first met Garritt. There were so many, peasant shirts with gathered

sleeves, full skirts that twirled when she moved, even some corsets with alluring lacing and bones

to make her rapturously breathless. And then there were the accessories to match, the rings and

necklaces of dragons and Celtic knots, plus a few circlets, one set with a real opal that Garrett had

given her for an early anniversary. But it had been ages since she had worn any of it.

                And in the final bag...Julia caught her breath. This dress was her prized possession.

Professionally tailored, okay made as a gift by a friend going into fashion design, it was a perfect

replica of the style of dresses in sword and sorcery movies. Jet black, it rippled to the floor, nipped

in at the waist by laces, the fabric specially chosen so it would cling like a second skin. The skirt

was full, with yards and yards of fabric that pooled about her feet and trailed into a short train

behind her, and she remembered the heavy, silken flow of the material against her legs, while the

sleeves hung, swinging like great dark wings. She had never told her friend what had inspired her

design, at the time she had not even fully remembered, but, unquestionably, this was a gown meant

for the consort of the Ravenlord.

               Back then, the sight of the dress had made Garritt want to rip it off of her, but it was too

valuable for that, so she was shoved against the nearest wall, the vast skirts gathered about her

hips, feeling like a war bride. Now, she cradled the material against her, remembering how, once,

simply wearing the dress could make her inflamed almost beyond thinking. And now, even within

the plastic wrappings, the smell of her dorm room still clinging faintly to the fabric, she felt

nothing, so that her life seemed like the walls of a prison closing in around her. The dress hanging

limply from her arms like a fully vampirized corpse, she slumped over against the closed door and

sobbed, tears trickling down her face and the convulsions of her body so close and yet so far from

what this garment had inspired in the past.

               She had meant to try the dress on, to look at herself in the mirror and see if that might,

possibly wake something. But now she lacked the heart. Instead, still holding the gown in her

arms she shuffled over to the window and stood there, staring dumbly at the dying leaves of the

tree outside as her tears dried and became cold again.

This was how he had always come to her in the beginnings, in her old dorm room, when

everything was new and fresh and intense, him grabbing her from behind to surprise her and make

her squeal. Later, in their first apartment, when the frequency had decreased, it had become a sort

of charm. She would stand with her back to the door, looking out the window, waiting and hoping

that this would be a form of sympathetic magic to draw him to her. When she heard his steps in

the hallway, she would hold her breath and then they would pass, and her tears would start to fall

in helpless rage and frustration. Then there were the times when he would come into the room and

she seemed about to die of joy, her heart frozen by the reincarnation of hope. And then his hands

would come around her, gentle, loving, the hands of a husband, not a conqueror, and all the feeling

inside of her would wither and die, the tears bled into dust, which was fortunate so Garritt would

not see them fall while he made love to her.

              And over the years this disappointment, this frustration and hurt over and over again, had

hardened into something deeper. She had, she now realized, stopped allowing herself to feel. The

desire had withdrawn behind a heavy shield to escape the pain and, there it had withered, shriveling

like an unused limb, and now, for all she knew, it had atrophied into nothingness. She sat, staring

blankly at the wall, not moving. There was no point anymore. Without passion, without romance,

there was nothing. Julia, who had been born for fluorescents and metallics, could not live in a

black and white world. She wished that time would stop so she need never again concern herself

with feelings or her lack thereof.

                But, then, her eyes, focusing in a brief, painful moment of lucidity, happened to fall on the

alarm clock on the bedside table. Garritt would be home any minute and explaining the situation

to him was the last thing she wanted to do so she forced herself to her feet, put the dress away and

went to warm up dinner. But even this couldn't stop her mind from racing back over and over the

same agonizing ground, like Sylvannus dementedly chasing her own tail. When had she so

completely lost her feeling? It hadn't happened all at once but had gone a little bit, year after year,

like silt gradually chocking a river, which is why she hadn't noticed, every realistic, adult decision

she had made adding more detritus to the pile. Fair maidens didn't need to get up in the morning

to go catch the bus for work or worry about paying the gas bill on time. In her teens, she had been

racked by sexual frustration to the point of utter distraction, where she could not sleep or study

and was almost prepared to claw her flesh to pieces, if only it would stop the mad craving inside

her. She had never thought she would wish for those days again but now, part of her admitted that

even being in constant burning torment, was, in some ways, better than being dead inside.

           “Why don't you go to sex therapy?” Velma had asked about a year ago. But she couldn't

do it. How could she begin to explain to her friend, much less to the therapist, that what she really

wanted was to be buffed by wings, torn by talons, born to the ground by more than moral weight...

--end of episode two—

Copyright: Amanda R. Hamlin.

Cover art by Eric Hamlin

To view his portfolio, go to: https://www.instagram.com/hamlin.eric

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Also read other short story by Amanda Hamlin at:

All That is Gold at URL: http://allthatisgoldwriting.blogspot.com/p/httpsdrive.html

12/7/24