SciFi and Fantasy Stories: Tears of the Holly

            All of his young life Faolain had been used to rising with the sun, but after nearly a month of going to sleep at the first cold gray of dawn and waking in twilight, he had come to see the night as his day.  He missed the sun, and the mere thought of it rising and setting without its light even touching him made his chest ache. There was, however, no other option if he wished to learn at the feet of a monster and he could find no other way to discover what he needed to know. 
            He shivered in the still, evening air and listened to the forest leaves whispering overhead though he could feel no wind. As those who had come to this place before him, he could almost taste the taint in the valley, like the blood-soaked ground of countless battlefields where men had died for nothing, or a graveyard for murdered innocence.  Another tremor coursed through him, but he suppressed it. This was a fear he could not afford.
            A faint movement of air was the only warning as a small, pale fist arched towards him. He darted aside, grabbing the cloth edge of a palm-sized, loosely-wrapped bundle that was nestled in his coat. It flared open, projecting a cloud of fine sand around his assailant.
            There was a sound of feet skidding to a halt in the leaves and loam and Faolain turned, ready to face the attacker.
            Keenan, his teacher, was standing there beneath the trees, barely visible in the faint moonlight that penetrated the canopy.  He looked up at Faolain with soft gray eyes gleaming in the face of a small boy, seemingly no more than eleven or maybe twelve.  The child-monster smiled as he shook the sand his student had covered him with from his bright rust-red hair.  
            “Neatly done.”
            Faolain smiled at the praise, so different from when he had first come seeking the soul-drinker’s skills. Keenan continued.
            “Do not wait to go for the kill, though. If you give your enemy even a breath after such a thing they will retreat and you will have to chase them. …Never chase. Why?
            “A vampire is far faster than a man.”
            “Yes, but that is not the reason. Not the whole reason.”
            “…They will recover by the time I catch them?”
            “They will lay in wait for you. They will start the fight on their own ground, making you come to them, rather than them coming to you. Your chances of living through this are slim at best. Do not give them extra advantages.”
            Faolain nodded. After learning from the little vampire for almost a month he was becoming better able to understand the turn of Keenan’s thought.   “So what is the matter I learn tonight?”
            “You know the rules. One night of sparring and one of lore.”
            Disappointment colored Faolain’s next words. His lessons in lore generally took place in Keenan’s den, and so he had hoped that, since this lesson was to be held in the woods, he was being gifted with an extra night of physical training. “What lore am I to learn in the woods?”
            “It is better to learn of your allies by meeting them than by merely hearing of them.”
            The young man’s eyes widened and he looked about him, half-expecting to see creatures of some kind moving in the darkness. The beasts and birds he had seen in this wood, twisted from living so long in a tainted place, were unsettling to look upon and he had no desire to know them better.
            Keenan’s fair, chiming laugh brought a blush to Faolain’s face, for he suspected he had been teased, again. The vampire’s sense of humor seemed, in Faolain’s opinion, to rely too much on confusing and startling his student.
            “Have I misunderstood you, Keenan?”
            The fair monster was grinning; his teeth, at present, looked blunt and human, though Faolain had seen them at other times to be sharp as a row of thorns and the color of rubies. “Yes and no. You already know one ally and that is the one I cannot show you, for the sun shows no mercy. More are the strong spices and herbs that, if we were not practicing, would replace the sand in that cloth wrapping of yours. The third set of allies surrounds you. They are the trees themselves, passive in their hatred of my kind, but hating no less for that.”
            Faolain smiled. “I see. And what can I learn of trees that I do not know?”

            “What do you know of them already?”
            “I know how they grow, and I know what woods are used for what purposes, and how to work them and sometimes use their leaves and such.”
            “But you know nothing of them as themselves. You, like most humans, are less interested in the character of trees than of other things for they do little that catches your attention. They are not rocks, though, but living things with their own personalities and traits. When I was young, there were people that worshiped the trees and there were many tales told of them.”
            “And how are these tales of use to me in my hunt?”
            The little vampire swept a few stray wisps of red hair behind his ear. “I have already told you, but your wits are not fast enough to keep pace.  They are your allies. They hate my kindred and so will help you in whatever way they can. The more you know them, and the more you know of them, the better you will be able to understand their help when they give it. And then you will know how to seek their help.”
            With a sharp outlet of breath, Faolain nodded. He knew that Keenan considered him mad for even wishing to hunt vampires and so was not about to give him any cause to stop the training. “What is my first lesson, then?”
            Keenan drew his single-edged wooden sword, pale and strangely keen for the material it was shaped from and the use it had endured. “Your great-great-great-grandfather, my eldest brother, made this blade. Do you know how he did this?”
            The tale had come down to Faolian through his father’s telling. “He placed it in a trough of sanctified oils and prayed every day and night without fail for a year that it be blessed by the Firstborn.”
            “Aye, that is why the blade is sharp and is not tainted or destroyed when used. But there is something equally important before that: the wood from which the blade is shaped. It is specific.”
            “…You said to me before that any wood will suffice to kill a vampire, like poison in their blood, purifying their taint and killing them. No, you did also say that greenwood works better…”
            “For such use, yes, any wood will suffice, but some are more virulent than others.         

Hickory, for instance, is more deadly than oak and oak more deadly than chestnut. There is one, however that stands alone as the strangest, and yet most fearsome tree-enemy to our kind, and that is the holly.”
            “And why is this?”
            With a shrug, the small vampire turned and moved off into the woods, with Faolain trailing after him. “Who knows? Not I. All I know are stories, and whether they be wholly truth, or wholly fiction, or more likely the two mixed until one cannot unravel them, it is beyond me to tell.” He stopped near the foot of an old, twisted holly near the wood’s outer edge. The tree had been maimed and tortured from living too long in the valley, but grew tenaciously. Keenan took care not to come within an arm’s reach of the tree; it rustled angrily as they approached, though it was a still night.
            “And this is your ally, Faolain, Tristan’s son. Sit, and I will corrupt your poor mind with old tales.” 
            Faolain sat before the holly, the great gray moon, halfway to the full on his left, cast a dull silver light across the unwooded section of the vale. He could not shake the feeling that the holly behind him was bristling like an angry dog, but he attributed this to his own imagination fed by the little vampire’s words.
            Keenan also sat down, facing Tristan and the twisted tree, his eyes made dim through thoughts turned inward. After a few moments, he began with the practiced tale-spinning of a trained page.

            Long ago, it is said, before sunlight burned and Death herself named the soul-drinkers foes, the First Immortal, cruel as he was fair, ruled those he claimed with his hell-tainted blood. He was king and commander, father and master, and with his consort destroyed there were none to defy him. He and his ‘children’ spread over the land seeking mastery over their prey like mountain cats turned to shepherding.
            But even in that time the blood of the elves flowed with the life of the wild growing trees and so to the tongues of the vampire kin it was too vile to be borne and caused sickness. For this reason the soul-drinkers slaughtered elves of the mountains and woodlands and plains. To them there was no cause for creatures so useless to live on the land where their favored prey could thrive.
            Sadly swaying, the trees of the forests soaked up the blood of their elven children and with it they grew in hatred for soul-drinkers and brewed in their bones poisons for vengeance. 

Faolain, though now entranced by the little vampire’s lilting words, shuddered at the thought not only of the destruction of the elves, which were rare in these days, but of trees pulling the spilled blood into their roots. It reminded him too much of the forest behind him and the blood that had soaked into its floor through the ages. Still, Keenan’s voice, musical, and yet textured with a slight grain like rough silk, was a fetter holding attention absolute so that Faolain almost did not have the power to turn his mind elsewhere. Keenan had told him many a time to never let his enemy speak lest he be charmed, but as a lore-teacher there was no better tool to keep a student’s thoughts from wandering.

            This hatred remained for long years unknown as so few heed the thoughts and emotions of trees. The vampires hunted, relentless and cruel, and the elven nations crumbled as they fled from pursuit. In their desperation they scattered to search for some ally to save them from death by immortal hate.  
            One she-elf, Sparrow called, alone and filled with fear, came through this vale in search of help. Here it was that she found a great city of men, crafted high in black marble, surrounded by hollies as tall as oaks.  In that time the holly, tree of purity, had leaves of crisp green without spine or sharp edge, and berries like clusters of pearls. Its leaves were as sweet as melon and its berries a spice to rival cloves and as both remained throughout cold winter the tree was revered as a giver of life.
            Sparrow came into the city, feeble and thin with her green hair trailing like a tattered cloak behind her. As she passed, the hearts of all who saw her were turned to pity at her rags and dark, grieving eyes. They pitied then as one safe and secure pities the traveler of a rugged road, for the horrors she fled from had not touched their land to teach them hardship and evil times.
            The road of the city led her spiraling inward to the temple, high and ringed with torches. At its sight her heart surged again to hope, for she knew these men to be servants of the Firstborn, enemies of the Vile and so the soul-drinkers, though they had yet to know it.

The holly rustled angrily while the rest of the forest remained in the near silence of windless night. The sound brought Faolain out of his trance enough to interrupt with a startled question.
            “There were paladins here?”
            “Aye, though the traces of them are now difficult to find. This was many centuries ago, before my time and before even the time of my Mistress.”
            With a sharp blink of his eyes, the child vampire continued his tale.        

            With courage rekindled she set foot on the stair, but a howl of rage from spilled from the temple door. A young man with eyes like a rabid dog, his arms bound to his sides to restrain him, leaped down the stairs to the startled Sparrow.
            ‘Demon of the green hair, go! Go before you make the trees weep blood!’ he struggled to free himself and would surely have thrown her down the stairs had not Brothers of the temple raced forward to take hold of him. His eyes were that of something feral caged and he screamed as he was pulled away. ‘Leave, Demon! You will not kill us!’
            ‘We beg your pardon, elfmaid,’ spoke a Brother nearby, his head bowed deeply. ‘This man was once a great warrior, an avatar of the Firstborn and paladin of high honor, but three days past, from what cause we do not know, he fell into madness. Please do not be angry. Our High Father will greet you, if you will enter.’
            Sparrow, though shaken, walked boldly up into the temple and entered there. Like the city that surrounded it, the walls were of black marble, though cut in such a fashion as to be neither heavy nor dark and it was lit with many lamps that shone from the polished stone.  One great lamp, wrought of crystal and iron, stood before all others in the center of the temple and before it a man knelt praying. He turned to the she-elf, his eyes filled with sadness.
            ‘You have seen my son. …Forgive him his actions, for his madness turns every man, woman and child in his sight to a demon and we do not yet know what has destroyed his mind. Forgive me as well. I can see that you come to us for help and you are first met with such a welcome. Forgive us all.’
            ‘There is nothing to forgive, High Father. I came here to beg for your aid, so it is I that should ask your pardon.  You do not know me, nor have you had dealings or help from my kin that you should assist us. The only reason you have to hear me is that the evil which now pursues us to our graves is spreading, and in time will spread even to this place and your freedom will become nothing but memory. You will become livestock to be kept for their feasts.’ 

Faolain shivered, but this time his concentration on the tale did not falter.

Sparrow’s words cast deep shadows in the mind of the High Priest and he called for his advisors. For many days they debated amongst themselves and spoke with Sparrow of this new threat, of which they had only heard rumors and whispers, as of any superstition. At the close of the fifth day it was decided and the paladins stated that it was their sacred duty to resist the onslaught of the vampires, not merely for the lives of the elves, but in the name of the Firstborn they served.
            So it was that the elves came to the city, bringing whatever they could, and though their numbers were few, they added what strength they had to the human warriors. The city was fortified and blessed and the people prayed to their guardian trees and to the Firstborn for protection.
            In those days, as I have said, sunlight was no great deterrent, and the tireless soul-drinkers could travel day and night. Within less than a month they came upon the city in force, disorganized like a cloud of hunting spiders over an ant nest. They knew no reason to fear. The Father of the vampires came forward and demanded surrender unconditional, and when he was refused he merely smiled.
            The battle itself was too grim, and I will not poison your mind to detail it. The Firstborn aided their servants well, wounding the soul-drinkers as no other power at that time could, but even as they struck their enemies down, the monsters rose again, only enraged,  and continued to advance, and rend, and kill.  The speed and might of the demons was even more potent in the blood of the vampires then and the Firstborn’s touch in their earthly followers was not enough to purify it.

Faolain was pale, and he felt chilled, either from the night air, the vampire’s tone, or the tale itself; possibly all three. He had seen a vampire’s kill before. He had seen his own mother attacked when he was small, and even though her life had been spared, the sight of red claws tearing her was one that would never leave him.       

Sparrow fought in the temple itself, the rearguard to defend the few very old and very young who had not fled the city before the battle. There she fell, beneath the crystal lamp as it was shattered above her. The vampires could not even drink the blood of most of their kills, and so instead let it seep into the ground, and when the sun rose it found the invaders reigning in victory over the red-stained city.
            Some say the sky wept at the sight, but I think the sky does not weep for the fallen…Whatever the cause, natural or not, there came heavy rains that washed the blood deep into the soil and to the roots of the holly trees.
            The vampire father looked upon the remains of the great city and loved it for its craftsmanship and beauty. He took it as his capital and from that time onwards he dwelt in the tainted sanctuary and his servants brought him prey, for he no longer wished to hunt for his own. The bones of the fallen men and elves were piled along the sides of the streets and were used to decorate the walls of the houses and the temple.
            Elves were all but gone from the land, and to this day are seldom, if ever, seen or heard, and the paladinic nation is gone even from memory, save the memory of the vampires themselves, which I now pass to you.

            Keenan cocked and eyebrow with a strange, cold smirk at his student as if to say “and you had better remember it, too, or else.” He paused, for a breath, as if the story had ended, but just as Faolain began to stir from his position, the vampire continued.

            Slowly, and unnoticed, a change began to come over the guardian hollies, left standing to see the blood of their caretakers spilled. Grieved, as the trees of the forests had been for the elves, they took the blood into themselves and fed from it, growing now filled with rage. First their leaves became pinched and grew claws. Like the rose, the hookvine and the locust, they were no longer trusting plants.
            In time the pearl-white berries took on a ruddy hue, then they darkened until they were as red as human blood.
            Still the vampires paid them no heed, for many living things are tainted from the long presence of demonic creatures. And so it was that the roots of the hollies grew and reached out to the temple, working their way up through the foundations.       

            The seeming child smiled, a light in his eyes as of one who wishes he could have seen the vengeful trees at work.

            Then one day, as the vampire father lay asleep on his couch, the holly roots forced their way up with a speed and strength rarely seen in trees, and they entwined him.
            Waking, he struggled and fought with his demonic might, but as he broke and wounded the roots, their sap and life began to eat him away. He called for aid, but when his servants reached him his life was spilling out onto the floor. He was pierced with many roots and his bones were dragged down into the earth beneath. So ended the father of my race.      

            Keenan smiled with grim satisfaction.

            His servants fared no better. They left the temple and attacked the great hollies, but learned as they rent the wood that they were burned and the roots rose again from the ground and pulled them down to their destruction. Those that lived fled and scattered, now with no leader to bind them as one.
            The city faded in silence, worn away by time and its winds and rains, but the seeds of the hollies were carried by the birds, by sparrows, across the land.
            None of the hollies you will find have the power of those great trees, but they remain to this day my people’s deepest foes among trees and their wood is more poisonous than any other.          

            As his voice ceased its entrancing tone, he touched the hilt of the wooden blade at his side. “Maili, my brother’s sword, allows me to wield it as I am Keagan’s blood kin and I gladly turn it against my own kind. Other hollies are not so forgiving of me.”
            With a swift movement, he reached out near the tree behind Faolain. The young man gasped to see the tree itself lean forward and attempt to claw at Keenan’s hand with its limbs. The small vampire drew back, blood from scratches on his arms remaining even though the wounds inflicted healed quickly.
            “So you see, now you know the holly better. You know you can come to it in times of need and it will aid you in any way it can against the enemy you seek. More than that, you know why it hates… Why all trees hate. You know the grief they have taken from the murder of those they loved. You fight for them as much as you fight for your own race. Never forget that.”
            Faolain stared at the holly, then, half frightened, reached out to brush its leaves. They pricked him softly, as any thorned tree, but nothing more.
            “Keenan… you said that the story… that it was vampire lore. That means your Mistress taught it to you after she turned you. But why?”
            The vampire shrugged. “A cautionary tale about the price to be paid for arrogance and the ignoring of details, and also because it was our history and would make me wary of the trees.”
            “Why are there hollies still alive in these woods, though?”
            “Only the ones at the wood’s edge were left there to deter others of our kind that would encroach on her land. …All the others in the woods are no older than you and I planted them.” Keenan smiled impishly.
            Faolain looked down at him. “Father said that he never understood you. It is like you are more than one person.”
            “I am.  Now, before the sun chases me back to my den, shall I begin to teach you more of the oak or of the pine?”