The next long awaited portion of 'The Man Whose Never Died'
Chapter 3 A few decades had passed for Dar by this time. One of the first things that Dar had been taught was the concept of mind over matter when it comes to manipulating the energy in the world around one's self. Dar had aged quite a bit before he finally discovered one power of his, which would do him good for the rest of his life. He had realized his control over his physical appearance. One day Dar was meditating on the Irish tundra when he suddenly had the thought of endless youth. His had started aching up from all of the walking he had done so far in this life. The elves were being kind to him, but even a few of them had grown confused over his aging. These faerie folk seemed to never age once they hit adulthood. Thus Dar had inadvertently started down the road of being an outcast.
So on this cold winter night, Dar was looking into his essence, searching for the answers to himself. His limbs had become to ache with the coming of the elder years. His hair was beginning to grey and the nights were colder. The teachings of one of the mages had been drilled into his head for the past decades. It was the theory of bending the world and everything in it, to your will.
Dar was deep in trance when he came across his life stream which in his mind's eye was of a darker tone. He was taught that everyone saw this differently. For Dar, he was watching a network of lightning like flashes. He looked further in and came across the fading fields that represented his physical wellness. Intrigued, the immortal focused on tweaking a small portion of his target. His body responded with a lessening of the aches, that he was only slightly aware of. This greatly interested him. He kept at it and woke up a few days later.
Dar climbed to his feet and took in a great breath of the frigid air. His body felt wonderful and so alive. His skin was back to the tone it had been almost half a century ago. It was that of a young man. Dar stretched every muscle that he could and relished in that knowledge that he was indeed back to his physical prime. Even his hair had regained the blackness that it once was full of. He wondered for a bit if the elves would appreciate his new found skill as much as he does. Dar braved the ice storm for the next day as he made his way back to the elven enclave. Upon approach some of the perimeter guards were keeping a weary distance from Dar, quite obviously. Some of the women were gasping, while the children were simply curious as to why their friend was young again. One of the warriors had sent on a message to the mightiest woman warrior of the clan, Morrgian. This was indeed the same Morrigan who would fall into history as a goddess and a mighty warrior in Irish Legend. The young again Dar was brought into her presence. A beautiful banshee watched his every movement, wishing she could find a reason to speak for him, even though he had no end in sight. Dar gulped and looked around at the elders, the high mage and his apprentices, the mightiest warriors of the clan, and the Morrigan herself speaking for the Lady Danu. There were others there, including a trio of apron clad men, who by first glance appeared to be smiths. Others were there too. Morrigan began the session with the question 'What are you?'. Dar looked confused and replied, 'what do you mean, who am I?" Morrigan frowned and continued, "I want to know what you are, you humaaaan." She purposely dragged it out, having some knowledge of the humans in other parts of the world. "You clearly are not a normal human. We found you near death in water that should have killed you before you even washed up, and now this, you have obviously reversed your body's age!" Dar could only shrug. "What am I supposed to say, I've lived for some time now, and not to mention the fact that your own people have taught me how to bend the world to my needs." He raised up his hands, the joints made strong again with his previous discovery, then he continued, "Is it so wrong that I have joined your own kind in being long-lived?" Some of the other members of the elven council looked between each other and then to their spokeswoman. She looked to them all and nodded in unspoken agreement. She turned to the now, young again, warrior, and put on an emotionless face. "Well it seems, that you are not akin to your fairskinned and dark skinned cousins that our travelers have come across, and you are not one of the drakes that have reemerged those decades ago it, unless you are an elf who is lying to us. You must be an abomination since you are none of those that I just mentioned." Dar looked down a bit, wondering what she was going to do to him for not being able to explain his own existence. "Look me in the eyes, human, or I will inflict your worse fears on you." The immortal looked at her face, a masque of fury and suspicion. He gulped and said, 'What am I supposed to say that will make you happy, that I am one of your naturelike spirits, that I am indeed a liar, and deceiving the lot of you. Your banshees cannot even cry for me, for I have not been able to leave this existence, and I can only imagine how long that will last for. Shall I just kneel down and be willing to face your decision.
" She marched right up to him, her warriors might being used as she just grips his cheek bone and jaw tightly with one hand, a vice-like caress of his masculine human features, she stared through his dark eyes, looking for his soul. She spoke in a hushed tone, "for that, foolish man, I am banishing you to the underworld, where you will spend centuries with the dark fey, unless they tire of you first." She turned and walked away, leaving the stunned man with a sore cheek and jaw. Dar did not understand what had provoked such hatred against him, he wondered if he ever would. He looked on after the council as the world blurred away. He watched it go, all of the light fading first, then everything freezing as if coming to a standstill. Then everything went dark. All he could hear was his own breathing. Suddenly everything came back into focus. Dar was still sitting on his rear end, only he was facing a wall of stone. The air was heavy with humidity. There was also a breeze passing through the cave he was in. Dar rubbed his cheek and got up to his feet. He looked around, wondering where the faint light was coming from. The young man decided to follow it. The telltale flickering of light led him through a tunnel, of naturally carved stone. It was like there was someone leading the way, but there were no footsteps to be heard, or whisperings of a voice. 'Where was he?' was the thought that kept playing through his mind. Once or twice Dar heard a giggle coming from nearby. He was beginning to feel a little nervous, thankfully he was not claustrophobic. Dar stepped into a stream and slipped in up to his waist. It was ice cold, but he figured he could handle it after spending decades on the frozen tundra and the rest of his life so far, prior to that upon the frozen plains of the glacial Midwest.
The light bobbed downstream of him, what seemed to be a cage holding a candle was seen. Dar's eyes followed the figure from the hand holding the loop at the top, until the arm disappeared into darkness again. 'What in the frozen waste is going on', he thought. He was pulled under suddenly, the mysterious light bobbing along ahead of him following the same path he was. Several moments later the stream shot out of an opening in the strata, launching the twisting and turning form of the young man into the air. He viewed a forest in the cavern below, as he went for the plunge into the lake. Hitting the water knocked the air out of him, and left him getting yanked to the bottom of the pool. The depths glowed with the luminescent light of strange plants growing here. Once he realized he was at the bottom of the pool, Dar fought with all he could muster to drag himself up through the water towards the surface. After what seemed like forever, he broke the surface and took in a deep gasp of air. The water in here was not as bad as the stream which continued to burst out of the cave wall 40 feet up from the floor. After floating for a bit, refilling his lungs with air, Dar decided to look around at his new surroundings. The water seemed clear, filled with the glowing fauna. There were various lichens upon the walls, also providing a soft light, a mixture of greens and blues, with the occasional yellow. The chamber he was in seemed to be huge. He knew he was in what seemed to be a corner with the lake stretching out before him. Along the shore which was sand and gravel, stood what appeared to be a forest. Lights danced among the trees. And there was a women standing upon a rocky ledge. She was holding the lantern that had led him to this point. Her skin seemed pale in the light, and she was garbed in red and black fineries. She raised her other hand, the fingers gesturing for him to come closer. He sat there, treading water to keep afloat, thinking about whether he should go to her or not. She started to turn away, silent as a whisper in the night. The young man, curiosity getting the better of him, started swimming toward shore. As soon as he got to his feet, she decided to once again vanish on him. He looked in her direction, looking to see more of her, and was left wondering as all that he saw was the lantern floating away. Dar followed the light into the forest, which would of felt so very out of place, if it hadn't been for the fact that he had never spent much time in woods of any sort. There were only small copses of wood scattered about the land above, seeing the ground was still near frigid. Seeing this dark forest of gnarly and knotted trees in front of him was something new altogether. Dar shook himself off a bit, and frowned that his clothing was soaked through. He then shrugged figuring he would just have to let his clothes air dry. It was then that he realized that the air was little on the warm side. Dar chuckled at his own obliviousness and stripped down to his waist. He left the discarded furs on a dry boulder and walked to the edge of the woods. The shadows seem to grow darker and darker, until all that was left was the occasional glow from the luminescent lichens scattered here and there. He heard laughter from nearby. He turned towards it and caught sight of a shadow. It was only behind the nearest tree. Quietly, Dar stepped peered around the trunk, searching for whoever was there. There was nobody, just faint motes of light in the air. Wearing a puzzled expression, he stepped around the tree fully and looked around. He noticed a pair of eyes, blazing red in the light, peering at him from about 15 feet away. Dar grinned seeing the eyes vanish into the shadows. Now he knew how to track it. Dar silently came around the old oak, and stood there silently. There was an elfin child of dark skin and pale hair, peering around the other side of the tree looking for him. The young child, or so it seemed, was peering around looking for the amusing stranger, the man certainly knew how to be quiet. He turned back to face his companion hiding a couple of trees away and nearly jumped a foot into the air. There was the man's face so near his own. "I see you little one", whispered Dar with a smile. The little one wanted to flee but was paralyzed with shock. How could this person from the over world so easily surprise him?
The smiling long lived human put a hand gently on the boy's shoulder, watching with amazement the movements of the red eyes of the young man. It was obvious the little one was afraid of him now that he had been caught at his game. He backed away and folded his arms across his bare chest, cold water running in rivulets down the well-toned torso, a slight scruff of hair being all there was on the chest, running down to the waistline of the trousers. "Can you understand me?" Dar asked the young one. The red eyes locked onto Dar's and stayed there for a bit, deciding if he should reply. His heart was finally slowing back down to normal, and he had to blink as one of the motes of light floated by. Dar watched as the redness of those pupils faded some to a blue as the light came by. The boy nodded, barely into his sixth decade. He was still in his adolescence. He figured out the accent that the man was putting into the language and nodded again. "I can understand you, what are you doing here in the deep below?" He gulped and wondered suddenly why he wanted to say so much to this foreigner. Dar looked at him, listening to his slightly altered dialect of elven and rubbed cheek in a tired manner. "All I know is Morrigan and her lot has sent me here, for not being like them." The boy gazed at him in newfound awe, excitedly getting out, "you pissed them off, I want to hear about this!" And so described as accurately as he could to the youngster and the others who showed up after a bit, what had happened. They all sat there watching with rapt attention, as this stranger told his tell. He finished off with his arrival here in this underground world. The children looked to each other, and then back to him. One of them raised a hand with a question, "Can you show us some magic?" The others nodded in agreement, wanting to see some of the surface magic. The woman stepped into a clearing nearby, none of the dark elves paying her any attention, nor was the native warrior in front of them. She held the lantern in one hand, the candle still burning. She smiled as she listened to the laughter and smiles of the little ones. She had been waiting for this warrior to come down from above. She had a few things she wanted to teach this creature in preparation for its long future ahead. Yes, she knew of these things, and she knew that this human of sorts, would lose the will to live, and that which made him human, only to regain it all in time. The seer could see these things. It was both a gift and a curse to see the future of others, especially when one could not see their own end. She vanished leaving behind a patch of fox fire that soon scattered in different directions joining those flickering motes of light. Dar decided he would should the crowd what he knew of shadow magick. With them paying close attention, he crafted a shadow dancer with swipes of the dim darkness. The figure swayed back and forth in the light, appearing as a dark hypnotically gyrating presence, replicating itself into more and more images. Soon they formed a circle through the woods, singing a song taught to him by his original family. It was one of peace and joy. A wall of darkness formed around the line blotting out all light. Each shadowy form took on a slight glow. It was then that the power started getting out of hand. A voice inside of Dar's head was egging him on to misuse this power. He sneered at the idea, wanting it to go away, and all the shadows dropped. The Elves stopped and looked at him curiously, seeing the heat of the emotions in his face. A older elf came forward and looked into Dar's eyes carefully. The young looking man returned the gaze, a little bit of his soul being revealed in the lock of eyes. The near black skinned elf nodded, a smile forming on his lips. "I'd say you can use some rest dear friend. You shall be welcomed here."
Working on it....