The Lightless Hours

The darkness spread when they took the stone.

Not a customary, gentle blackness that came after the sun met the distant shore of the island, but a malicious, riotous night that stripped the light away in a fitful rage. The land had had something taken from it, and it would not stand idly by and allow such a slight.

The natives feared the darkness that spread; they feared the darkness so much that they threw the stone into the ocean and fled the sacred mountain in hopes to reverse the damage their curiosity and covetousness had caused. For the mountain they had raided was that of the Great Mother, Gaea, and what she had left behind in that holy place was something that was never to be touched. They had broken the only rule she had given them and in doing so, had unleashed a great unfathomable blight.

To the natives' dismay, giving up the stone did nothing to reverse the effects of their crime. As the days passed, the crops stopped producing. A great sickness they had never known began to spread when the water slowly transformed into thick, inky blotches, killing the fish for as far as the firelight let them see. The waters that were once so blue even the sky gazed down with envy were now completely sullied.

The once vibrant, plentiful land that had teemed with wildlife and was littered with trees that stretched their fingers into the heavens, and plants of every color and flowers of every scent, was now being judged as though it had committed a great injustice. The abyss was meting out its punishment, too.

Death came after.

Death.

Death.

Deathdeathdeath.

They prayed to the Great Mother for forgiveness and mercy, for surely she would hear them and do as only a mother could, but only darkness reigned. They’d burnt all the trees for light, used every bit of the rainwater they had collected and rashoned all they had left of their crops. Nothingness was their answer. Even the wind remained silent, not so much as a whisper to comfort their hollow frames. The natives had no fathomable choice but to accept their penance. It seemed they were resigned to their fate.

All of them but one.

Tye, of the tribe of Matthan, would not die without a fight.

He gathered his last drop of clean water, the bow and sheath of arrows his father had left him on his deathbed a few nights before, and a special treasure only he would find worth any value at all, and set out into the darkness.

He knew the path as clearly as if the sun were his right hand guide, for he had spent his childhood exploring the mountain. He lit a makeshift torch and the darkness hissed and spat, but yielded in-two to show him the trail he anticipated. He smiled to himself; he would not go quietly. Slowly but surely, he made his trek up.

Sweat beaded on his brow as what seemed like days passed and he wiped it away and pushed onward with renewed vigor, as if the salty trickles were his allies. The rocks proved otherwise. They were sharp and unbending, brutal in their trail. He could feel rather than see the blood leaking from the wounds they left behind. The mountain wanted to fight him too? So be it. He would not let the last of his people die. He would heal the land. He would.

Oh how he prayed this would be enough. He squeezed the treasure he’d tied around his neck tightly and thought of his mother. The mother he’d buried days before his father. His chest ached with a pain greater than hunger or thirst or even the jagged stones beneath his feet could evoke at the thought of the others he had buried even before them and so he pushed their images away. Though his muscles protested with all their might, he continued on for those left below him.

For his sister barely taking a breath, for his best friend, Beron, who went out day after day in search of any form of food for his son.

On and on, and on, and on he climbed, until finally the familiar door he’d visited all his youth came into sight. He wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but he knew his troubles were far from over. He passed the torch light across the markings. He knew what they meant.

“Mitera tou fotos,” he read aloud. “Mother of Light.” His voice sounded gravely to his own ears and he wondered how long it had been since he’d heard only his own voice in the darkness. He placed his hand against the stone. He’d always known as a child that it was forbidden to pass this door, but what more could possibly happen?

He unsheathed his father’s bow and ran a hand down the string. He closed his eyes and remembered back to the day he fashioned it. The tree he’d carved it from was long gone, not even a stump remained. Only his memory and the bow was left. He shook his head and gripped an arrow, placing it just the way his father taught him. With a firm hand, he wrapped the tip in a piece of cloth and pushed it into the midst of the torches flames.

He took a steadying breath and aimed the arrow just above the entrance where a small hole sat. With all the strength he had left, he pulled the string and aimed true. The arrow sunk into the hole with a resounding BOOM! The rocks beneath him began to tremble so violently that Tye couldn’t fight back. He fell to his knees and cried out. The mountain raged and raged, until he was certain he would never feel the stillness of the land beneath his feet again. But, to his surprise, the shaking stopped. After a moment, Tye looked back to the great stone door to see it now opened to him in welcome.

With trembling limbs, he forced himself to his feet and pushed forward, his torch barely a flicker in the endless black. Cool air greeted him like quiet, gentle fingers on the wind lulling him forward until he came to stand just in front of what looked to be an altar.

“Have your people not taken enough from me?” A female voice boomed throughout the room. “Did you come to see what else you could steal? Well I’ll tell you now, Tye of Matthan, there is nothing left but death for you ungrateful people.”

Her words hit like a blow, but he had not come all this way to concede. His fingers found the knot he’d tied around his neck, the tiny rope holding the most precious thing he possessed. He brought it to his lips and kissed the piece. This time, what he wiped from his face was not sweat, but tears.

“Great Gaea, I know my people have wronged you. I know we are being punished for what was taken, but I have come to make it right in the only way I can.” Tye placed the treasure atop a pillar that he knew had once held something dear to the goddess. “This is my greatest treasure. I pray that you will accept it and release my people from this curse.”

A great wind blew, savage and fierce, but it did not hurt him. One moment, what he’d placed there was right before him, and the next moment, it was gone. At once the wind stopped. A thick quiet encompassed the air around him, so heavy that he nearly covered his ears just from the weight of it. He was fading. His knees trembled with renewed vengeance, as if they knew just how weak he was in that moment.

“Do you know what it was that your people took?” The voice, this time, seemed to have calmed.

Tye opened his mouth to speak, but his voice failed. His legs gave out and he dropped to his knees again, tiny pebbles digging into his skin. All he could do was hope that his offering was enough. For it was all he had left.

“The stone was nothing.”

Shock rolled off of him in waves. “W-what?” He croaked, nearly inaudible. But the Great Mother heard him and, like a new babe, he felt himself encircled by smooth, comforting arms.

“The stone was a test and one that your people failed. I gave you everything. Beauty and abundance, crops and crystal clear waters teeming with endless fish. I gave you trees to build homes with and weapons and clothes, and the knowledge to do it all. I gave you life to the fullest, yet you repay me with treacherous actions. So I took away your light, and your water, and your food and trees that provided you with so much. Do you know why I did all of this?”

He was too weak to answer, simply peered blindly into the darkness.

“I did it in hopes that there was one of you that had honor. When no one came, when they threw the stone into the waters, I feared I had failed you all. But here you are. Here you are.”

Light exploded like a cluster of stars erupting into flames. He squeezed his eyes shut but it was no use. Wind roared and voices surrounded him over and over, around and around. He wasn't sure what was happening until strength began to seep back into his limbs. His legs stopped aching, his feet as though cool water had washed away every cut and scrape. The faint hunger pains he had grown accustomed to even seemed to vanish.

With slow, very slow movements, he peaked one eye open, then the other. He blinked back nearly unfamiliar sunlight streaming down against his face from the blue, blue sky. He wept again, the tears rolling in salty rivers down his cheeks.

“The light-” he began.

“-is restored. And the water and the crops. The trees, the fish, the plants and all is as it was. Because you sacrificed yourself for your people.”

He dropped to his knees on his own, hands pressed so tightly together he thought they might break. “I thank you, Great Mother, for all you have done.”

He didn't hear her steps before she knelt down in front of him. Her hair cascaded in deep chestnut curls, framing her pale, glowing face. There was no anger in her emerald eyes, but he still found it hard to look for more than a glance. She took his face in hers before gently tying something around his neck.

“Thank you for showing me that there is still love and courage left in my creations. Go now, all is as it was before.”

All was as it was before?

His head shot up in tearful surprise, but she was already gone. His heart pounded loudly in his ears as he made his way as quickly as he could back to his people. The site he found when he made it to the bottom of the mountain nearly killed him. There, just ahead, his father stood with his mother in a tight embrace. Below them, his little sister held their legs and cried.

Screams of joy were echoing all around him. His people were alive. Alive!

Tye ran. He ran like the wind had given him wings.

“Mother, father. How?”

His mother had no words, just held him and sobbed, but his father placed a strong hand on his shoulder. “You happened, my son. My brave, brave son.”

“Tye?”

The voice he heard next nearly broke him. When he turned, there stood his wife. And in her arms was his newborn daughter. “Amala. My sweet Amala.”

When he made it to her he wrapped his arms gently around them both and just held them.

“You saved us. You saved us all. How?”

Tye remembered the goddess giving him something. He touched his fingers to a familiar string around his neck. When he pulled it off, Amala cried some more. For in his hand was the stone heart Amala had made when they had buried their daughter, her tiny fingers etched on one side, and tied against the other was a lock of Amala’s own hair Tye had kept when he had buried her, too.

He ran a hand over her cheek and with a thankful, teary- eye grin, he told her.

“I gave her what was left of my heart.”