Spark in darkness 86 - Darren is home

[sparkindarkness]

I need to write again. It's been too damn long and I keep putting it off - so here we go, I am DETEREMINED to get Spark in Darkness back on track

Continued from here: http://sparkindarkness.livejournal.com/158404.html

I think I need to do some PWP as well. Yes, yes I do

And Darren needs to kill Tuatha. Just because.



I was not happy. I’d already managed to reduce two Tuatha to tears. If my family failed to keep these lunatics away from me I was going to reduce them to ash. The unicorn had stampeded away as soon as I got out of the car, Ahrimadan setting off in hot pursuit. I think he intends to eat it. The commotion had attracted a wonderful crowd of my beloved relatives who are treating me like some dangerous wild animal. And there was a growing number of Crowleys following me like sycophantic rats after some kind of evil pied piper. I’d kill one but knowing Crowleys they’d probably sell the remaining organs then follow me around to see if they could learn how I did it. The Servants of the Outer Dark had their own members dogging my path staring at me with worshipful gazes. It was like being followed by a pack of monochrome emo puppies. And the Knights of Camelot were circling warily, like vultures over a carcass or birds circling their nest when a cat comes near.

Rick was still half dazed, alternating between not being able to sense the spirits and being overwhelmed by the ridiculous layers enchantment through the building. Nikolai had taken him off to try and fix the problem. I had given him 90 minutes, after which I will start killing things.

My power pulsed and I glared at the circling knights. “If you finish that circle you are drawing around me, I’ll feel obliged to break it. You don’t want me to do that, children.” The knights stuttered in their attempt at subtle casting and drew back. As they should, how had times changed that a vassal family would presume to bind a Camaalis?

I snorted at my own thoughts. Barely landed in the country and already the old thinking returns to me. I stormed into the main building, stomping past antique furnishings and exquisite decor. The wealth of Camaalis felt like a mockery to me, a trumpeting of their power, a declaration of victory. All the time I spent fleeing from them and here I return to the old halls.

I nearly staggered on the stairs, grabbing the ancient oak banister to physically force myself to stop. I had been walking back to my old rooms, the rooms I’d grown up in. My body had fallen back into patters I had left behind years ago. Years away from the country and the habits of home come back.

I thought about my rooms. Despite the years they could be unchanged - there were more vacant rooms in the Camaalis homes than there were occupied. I could return to them and it will be as if I had never left, as if I were home and had never left those rooms. The past seemed to loom above me.

I turned and walked quickly to the library. Not running, just walking fast. There was a limit to what anyone could endure.

The Camaalis library was a site to behold and even forced me to pause and look in wonder from the doorway. I had passed the public shelves, the shelves that any visitor to the house may find and they rose in serried tiers above until you could scarcely see if there were people on the upper gilded galleries. I had passed the magic shelves where any Vassal family may search, flares of power and magic danced around as a untold thousands of spells aided in searching and preserving the vast trove of knowledge.

But they both paled before the Camaalis shelves, shelves unknown to any outside the family. The walls crackled with magic, raising the hair on my arms. The library was far bigger than the whole building together - several times larger in fact. It could be accessed from any Camaalis home throughout the country - and beyond - all leading to this vast complex that defied physics and reason. The ceiling was so high that it seemed clouds should gather, rows of shelves stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see. It was impossible to navigate, impossible even to imagine the size and scale of it. Desks, computers and vast piles of blank paper in a hundred shades with an equal number of inks made brief islands in the vast ranks of ornate shelves. A rich, warm light filled every corner of it, managing to give all the rooms the perfect, slightly dim light that gave a sense of intimate privacy in the vast space while providing perfect reading light in every corner and every position.

There were more books than it seemed possible to exist, bound in leather and paper and wood and bone and metal, bound in substances most people wouldn‘t even have a name for. Handwritten and typed, on papers all the colour of the rainbow and in inks distilled every way imaginable and several ways that weren‘t, but books - and more modern, mundane ways of data storage - were only a part of the treasures within. Rune stones and crystals and potions stored memories direct from the recorder. There were artefacts that provided total immersion in the past, even allowed you to ride in the mind of a historic figure, enchanted items that could show other realms, other times, that could paint thought and emotion and possibilities and potentials. Magic that gave knowledge without reading, powers that raised the minds to different levels of thought, items that passed on learning from one generation to the next in ways that transcended language and understanding all gathered together in a truly miraculous collection. Deep within the library was the Camaalis museum, heavily guarded by wards that made the formidable defences on the library seem paltry. There artefacts of historical value were gathered along side millennia of our most potent magic items, too rare, too powerful, too delicate or too dangerous to be kept anywhere else. That collection alone would make the Concord sweat to get their hands on - and would probably make a mundane historian faint.

I sat down heavily. No-one but Camaalis had been in these chambers for centuries upon centuries. No-one but Camaalis could. From these rooms we had faced invasions, daemons, even gods. In these rooms was our history, the diaries and grimoires of every clan member who had ever lived, going back to times when written language was a rarity. In some ways this room was everything it meant to be Camaalis. The sense of... home completely washed over me.

Tears burned my eyes, this place shouldn’t be home. It had no right to be home. I spent my whole childhood hating it, screaming in the corners and sobbing piteously in the halls. I spent my whole adult life running from it, hiding from it, trying to tear it out of me. It had no right to hold me like this! I did not belong here, I’d never belonged here! I’d never been welcome here. I despised every stone of the place, I hated everyone who walked the halls, everyone one of these precious books meant nothing to me!

I leaped to my feet, smashing the chair and the table to splinters, not knowing or caring if I used magic or simple force. It didn’t matter, I couldn’t lie to myself. I collapsed to my knees in sudden exhaustion, breath coming in pants. I had been happy in America. Truly happy for as long as I could remember. living with Rick in his flat, I’d greeted each new day with joy. I had actually woke with a smile. That should have been home. That had the right.

“Whoa, this place is fucking HUGE!” I heard Rick’s voiced echo through the silent halls.

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[tanarill.livejournal.com]

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