Chapter 72: Erla – The War
Everything you lose, darkness fills the void. If bleeds you like a pig on a hook, then it fills you with something stronger than blood.
War had taken away Erla’s family, but it gave her Olivier. War had fed on Olivier’s wife, but it gave him Erla in return. They breathed darkness together, it ran under their skin, but sometimes Erla thought that Olivier couldn’t see, couldn’t hear War whispering under the fallen leaves.
That must be the reason why he sought young blood, Thaila’s blood. Erla would have killed Thaila, but Erla didn’t have darkness of her own. War could take and replace, Erla could only take. If Olivier was like her, Erla could have killed Thaila and he would gorge in darkness, but sometimes Erla thought that he couldn’t see.
There was only one thing greater than War, greater than darkness, greater than anything Erla had lost. Olivier. There was only one fear. To lose Oliver. He would be a giant in darkness, if only he closed his eyes to all those ephemeram things and saw a life in War, with Erla in darkness. Forget that squalid happiness, come with me to where darkness devour the shadows.’
Olivier clung to Thaila and, if Erla took her from him, Olivier wouldn’t come to Erla to fill in the void. Someone else had to take Thaila from Olivier. Erla begged the War to take the baker woman away. Pierre and the lady in crutches took Thaila, but they were not the answer Erla had been waiting for. It wasn’t War who sent them. On the contrary, they sweeped away its darkness.
Erla had horrible dreams ever since Pierre came to Tuen. She woke up in the middle of the night, afraid of the dark. For that was not the darkness that fed her. That dark belonged to the night and wolves hunted at night. Erla didn’t like dreaming of Pierre. She prefered to dream of the dragon, even though the dragon was also poisoned.
Sometimes, in her dreams, the red dragon was all darkness inside, then he rebelled and became fire once again. Darkness crept back up, une scale at a time, drenched the white plumes, making them heavy with invisible black oil.
‘Dragon,’ called the eagle in Erla’s last dream. The weak, haggard eagle.
The dragon asked for her help, but the eagle was spent.
‘I am dying,’ the eagle said. ‘You are part of my death. But, dragon, you came back. That day on the road, I saw you. You were darkness, then you were magic again.’
‘It was Pierre,’ said the dragon. ‘He spoke my name.’
‘Then it has begun,’ said the eagle. ‘My story has begun.’
Erla’s throat was swollen when she woke up; neither air nor darkness passed. Erla shouted without air or voice. War did not answer. It was Olivier who heard her mute desperation. Sometimes Erla doubted that he saw the darkness, that he heard the War, but he always heard Erla.
Olivier wasn’t prepared to accept more than a daughter’s love from Erla. Thaila was there to prove it. Pierre at least took Thaila away. Pierre, the lady on crutches, those men licked by dragon fire, then Maurice and Gaul turned their backs on Olivier. Where was War?
The wrong currents were moving Tuen, shackling Olivier. Why did War waste so much time with the dragon and ignored Pierre? Because it’s not afraid, thought Erla, sitting on the narrow cot in Tuen’s prison cell. War doesn’t do anything because it’s not afraid.
The woman in crutches and the half-burnt man came to interrogate Erla. They were nothing. War paid them no heed, for they were too small. Poor you, said Erla. Poor you! Thrashing about in the shallow and War didn’t even seem them.
Then she was quiet because the prison door opened, throwing light on the walls and a very dark shadow on the floor. The woman on crutches and the half-burnt man turned aside to let Pierre through.
‘You will see when Olivier comes back,’ said Erla. ‘You will die easier than Maurice, Prince of Pigs.’ Then she sowed her lips closed with an invisible line. War might not be scared, but she was. That red skinned man knew the dragon’s name, and the black in his eyes was the same as a wolf’s eyes.
Besides, beyond the wall, Erla felt the purple eyes of the woman who changed colour. Now white, now black, now elven, always mystery.
Pierre asked no questions. He looked at Erla for a few moments, then left, followed by the woman on crutches and the half-burnt man. There was another set of steps, but whoever it was, didn’t come into Erla’s line of vision.
