Chapter 15
The Darkening Of Deacon

hen Deacon returned home he was grateful the house was dark and silent in sleep. Éomus and his mother had retired, and he went directly to his own bed. There he lay motionless on his back, conscious only of the great ache in his chest. There was no help for it. This pain was not due to injured vanity but the knowledge that the woman in whom he had placed all his hopes was lost to him forever. Soon his thoughts and emotions became numbed through excessive pain, and finally he succumbed to sleep.

That night in his bed Deacon struggled as though entangled in a hateful dream. It was the same dream that had come upon him often enough. Fighting his way through a vine-entangled wood, with hanging thorn trees, he groped his way toward his mother. The vines had caught her, twining about her wrists and ankles, clinging to her neck, climbing up even to her lips, they cluttered and choked her throat, so that she could not breath. She would be taken from him. He tried to get to her, but try as he would, the tangled mass held him. He fought desperately, wildly. He could not get to her. Finally he broke loose and emerged. Sharp thorns scratched and cut him, even as he tore them from her.

Deacon struggled into consciousness. His thoughts went immediately to his mother, accompanied by an indescribable urgency to go to her. Though he never believed he had inherited his mother’s gift of foresight, this dream had impressed on him feelings of dread so strong he couldn’t ignore them.

Deacon came to an abrupt stop outside of his mother’s chamber doors, trying to decide whether he should disturb them. He had almost talked himself out of his concerned state of mind, but the dread still possessed him. Finally he tapped softly on the door. He was surprised when it opened immediately. Éomus with the gravest expression ushered him in, and he saw his mother lying on the recliner.

Deacon approached her hesitantly. She looked frightening—her face strained and ghastly, with eyes that rolled about without recognition and were never once brought to focus. Her mouth, slightly opened, seemed to gasp feebly for breath, her lips a ghastly hue. Deacon knelt down on one knee, taking her hand.

“Mother, I’m here,” said the young man in a choking voice, but she was unconscious of his presence. Momentarily her gaze passed over Deacon, but the sight of him did not rouse or comfort her. Their connection was already broken. Gripped with a numb fear, he could only rub the back of her hand aimlessly. He was helpless to revive her, and he feared what was happening to her body. It seemed she was invaded by some cruel, corrosive evil that was destroying her internally. It was out of his control. Something he could not fight against was taking her away. A helpless terror was rising in him. He glanced back over his shoulder at Éomus, but grief gripped his throat and he was unable to speak.

“The healer has been sent for,” Éomus said, knowing what Deacon’s eyes were asking for.

Deacon was only vaguely aware of Éomus standing at his side. Everything around him had dissolved from his vision and become blurry. There was only her. He clutched at her hand frantically and placed it on his lips. “Do not leave me here alone.” He spoke through clenched teeth, so fiercely it would have been taken for anger if not for the break in his voice and the suffering in his eyes.

The healer was not long in arriving. He did not go to Daenara, but stood at a little distance, watching with a grieved expression that frightened and frustrated Deacon.

“Why do you stand there!” he cried over his shoulder. “Help her!”

The healer exchanged concerned glances with Éomus, then settled his gaze heavily on the disconsolate young man, still clasping his mother’s hand, but standing now to face them, a fierceness in his bearing. It seemed a painfully long pause before the healer spoke, and Deacon grew anxious and perplexed at his delay.

“It has come time now,” the healer said slowly, with all the regret one would feel in such a position, “that we no longer prolong her life, but her death.”

Deacon at once took his meaning, and looking from under dark brows, said, dangerously calmly, “That is not your choice to make.” He trembled visibly now. “Do not let her die.”

Éomus and the healer remained fixed, with no sign of yielding. Releasing his mother, Deacon took several impassioned steps toward them. “I have practised your ways. I have done everything you have ever asked of me.” Angry tears flew into his eyes. “Now help her!”

For a moment the room was deathly quiet but for the sound of the rasped and laboured breathing of the dying woman. Anger suddenly gave way to grief, and in utter desperation, Deacon turned to Éomus. “Don’t let her die,” he pleaded. Éomus was torn with an evident conflict within himself. “Éomus,” said Deacon, an agonized appeal. “Help her. Please.”

There was a collapse in his voice, and all the pride had left his features, replaced with a look of such bitter grief it cut Éomus deeply. He looked down at the strong hand that clasped his arm and said to Deacon, “Wait outside for the moment, and I will help your mother.” His voice was so low it was barely audible. Deacon was rendered stunned momentarily; then feeling some sense of relief, he nodded. A look akin to admiration was in his expression as he looked to Éomus with thankfulness.

“All right,” was Deacon’s breathless reply. With great reluctance to leave her, he obeyed, casting a mistrustful and angered glance toward the healer as he left.

Dragging in long, restorative breaths, Deacon walked down a little way from the house, pacing like a caged wolf, suffering the torment of inaction. Though it felt an eternity, he had not long been here before being approached by a young elven healer. The gravity of his expression alerted Deacon before words were even spoken. He set off at a dead run, tearing up the pearlescent stairs to his mother. Pale eyes were turned on him the moment he entered, elven healers gathered round the bed, all looking toward him with grave expressions. He stood panting and stunned. He was too late. His mother lay lifeless.

Caught in a grief too complex to articulate, Éomus could only look to Deacon with commiserating eyes, filled with infinite sadness. He thought now, upon seeing Deacon’s face—knowing he was too late—that perhaps he had made a mistake in sending him out, but he knew also that Deacon would have interfered.

Deacon did not go over to his mother but stood motionless, vaguely conscious of hands being laid on him consolingly and voices expressing their sorrow. His face remained closed and set. No tears came to his relief, and without uttering a single word, he turned and left the room.

In the grove where the elves gathered to mourn Daenara, Deacon was not to be seen. From the shadows where he stood, he could hear the elves singing, a strange blending of exultation and sadness. Their accents were pure and perfect, like crystal touched by moonlight. The powerful notes of their harmonizing reverberated throughout Deacon’s being and continued steadily to build in intensity with each painful throb, until an acute pain rose from the farthest recess of his soul and gripped his throat so tight he could not draw an easy breath.

It became almost impossible to contain the swell of emotions, expanding, till he felt his heart would rupture inside of him. His eyes strained painfully under the pressure of tears denied their release. He felt as though something vital had been taken from him, never to be returned. The elfmaidens’ crystal voices thrilled along the cords to his heart and lacerated it with their perfect pitch. With a bleeding heart, Deacon stole silently into the night.

Much later, Éomus became deeply concerned for Deacon. He had not seen him in many hours and ventured out into the woods to find him. There he was, leaning with his shoulder against a tree, his arms clasped round his body, head down-bent. He looked as if he had been standing in that same position a long time, and Éomus thought he never looked more alone and never more estranged. He did not lift his face at Éomus’s approach. Finally he spoke in a mixture of question and accusation.

“It was never your intention to save her,” he said, his voice strangled in his throat. “Was it?” He raised his eyes to meet Éomus with an unswavering enmity.

It was a moment before Éomus could find his voice. “It was her time,” he answered.

Nodding silently, Deacon dropped his chin again, pressing his lips shut. Tears gathered in his eyes, and he turned his head sharply to hide them. The release of emotion in company hurt him as it hurts a man. He suddenly looked up. “Damn you.” He choked with rage. “Damn you and the rest of your kind.”

Éomus stood disconsolate, not daring to approach Deacon, who had returned to his former posture against the tree, only not with a desolate misery in his bearing, but a fierce animosity, a stiffness in the neck and shoulders of a man on the brink of violence.

“It was not a falsehood when I said I would help her,” said Éomus. “She did not die suffering.”

Deacon understood now Éomus had used magic to either ease her suffering or perhaps to end her misery swiftly. Either way he cursed himself for leaving her alone with the traitors.

There was a long interval of unbroken silence, before Éomus said, “I will leave you now and let you seek counsel.”

“I care nothing for your deities,” Deacon muttered. An injustice still burned within him. “Tell me. How is it that you can worship them so blindly when they will permit a man who could not be more loathsome, more contemptible, to live and breathe, while my mother lays cold in the earth?”

Éomus knitted his brow and said bleakly, “Our minds are finite, and our understanding has limits.”

Deacon sneered at that unsatisfactory answer and again looked away.

“This world has many failings,” said Éomus. “But take comfort that it is a temporal existence and preparation for what is to come.” He paused a moment, feeling he was failing Deacon. He could not bring him comfort. “The future will hold joys for you, now unseen and unknown. Do not let the tears in your eyes blind you to them.” Deacon shifted slightly at his words but would not not look up. “You may go see her yet. We’ll not say our last goodbye till your family is here to take part.”

“I will not be here,” said Deacon.

For a considerable time neither spoke. Then Éomus said, in grievously low tones, “You will for the rest of your life mourn her earthly presence. But would you, if the power were in your hands, take her from the joyous regions in which she now resides and have her return?”

Éomus waited, looking at Deacon helplessly. Deacon remained silent. He would not look at him. Éomus left with reluctance. One’s courage is tested to its utmost limits when left alone in grief, but he felt there was nothing more he could say at present.