At the demon’s ball
Gothic
Natalie Yacobson
Translator Наталья Николаевна Лилиенталь
© Natalie Yacobson, 2020
© Наталья Николаевна Лилиенталь, translation, 2020
ISBN 978-5-0051-3438-7
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
SHADOWS BALL
Devilish dreams
In them you are everywhere
Sunny rose
In this eerie darkness.
Eternal spell
Here above the edge of darkness
You are my curse,
Angel of beauty.
Everything around is here forever
Darkness and this blood
You alone are mortal
but only you are my love.
The bright light of lightning for a moment illuminated the castle on the hill. The building was beautiful, majestic, full of dark magic and secrets. How much terrible was in it, how many nightmares that settled there, turned its fabulous beauty into the embodiment of evil.
Running down a narrow stone staircase, Emily once again found herself in a huge hall, plunged into deep darkness. Only the light of lightning and the flickering of the candle threw reflections of a mysterious light on her beautiful face. It seemed that the very night, patronizing this world of nightmares, was laughing at her violent fear and eerie fright. She quickly looked around. There was only anxiety in her heart. The look, darting from side to side in a fit of fear, did not notice anything. But the danger was somewhere nearby. Every rustle made her flinch, like a doe, feeling the pursuit of those who hunt for her life. A sound sounded behind her, and she turned around, alarmed, but behind there was nothing but one ominous darkness and a frantic tremor of her own heart, transmitted to her, making the fluffy skirts of her white ball gown and long curly strands of her blonde hair that stood out from her delicate hairstyle.
She was afraid that they would return again, appear right out of this void, like ghosts, to destroy her once and for all. She thought she deserved their revenge. After all, he gave her this black gift, and she put him to death for the second time. Like instant flashes of lightning, pictures from the recent past flashed in her memory. Now they seemed to her just a dream. However, they were reality itself, as were the glare of flashing lightning. They disappeared like lightning, leaving nothing behind but an oppressive silence, preparing a new burst of dark light. The picture of how she enters the hall, sparkling with her beauty in the bright light of candles and the celebration of the ball, will never disappear from her memory. The crowd parted before her, he came up to her, and she danced with him. She is frightened by his fiery eyes, and then she desperately tries to escape from the circle of the dead or the fiends of hell themselves. It seems impossible for her to escape her own death. Until now, there was a roll of horror itself in her ears, her insane cry of pain and fear. She broke free of their crowd and ran away, but horror flashed in her blue eyes as he blocked her exit from the hall. Then, in a fit of fear, she grabbed that sparkling dagger and plunged it into his heart. Until now, his scarlet blood glowed with pain in her eyes.
Suddenly, in the wild whisper of a thunderstorm in the very silence sounded:
– Emily, Emily, Emily!
Emily looked around anxiously, tears now glistening in her frightened eyes, but why, could she admit it to herself.
Suddenly a dark figure appeared behind her, and clawed paws touched her bare shoulders. She turned around, no one again. Maybe the danger was left behind, or maybe it was already sneaking up on her.
Suddenly, all the candles around them burst into bright fire, filling the huge hall with warm light.
“Emily,” came from behind her, and she turned around. Her fear instantly passed when she saw such a familiar and beautiful face of a young man standing in front of her.
“I can’t bear it any longer,” she said, and her frightened voice echoed with a sonorous echo in the silence of the huge hall, “I don’t want to live in this gloomy fairy tale anymore.
“You don’t want to see the truth, Emily,” he tried to argue.
– No, not me, you don’t see it, – burst out from the beauty, – yes, you saved my life, but you took me to hell on earth. You snatched me out of the hands of my dreams, like a monster from a fairy tale, you threw me into a world of secrets, and now you doubt whether you acted wisely or just in you, at last, pity woke up. But creatures like you are incapable of experiencing either love or pity.
– You’re wrong, Emily, – he objected, – I tried to overcome the darkness, I wanted to give you the happiness that this world denied you.
“No, I will no longer stay here in this blue hell,” she said more than emphatically this time. – I want to save my life, my soul. Today I am leaving with or without you.
Her accusing voice rang out loudly in the dead silence. He, unwillingly, turned away from her. His eyes, filled with blood and fire, became insidious and sinister, a noble and beautiful face was distorted by a grimace. Pain pierced his body, and the all-conquering thirst for blood took possession of him, but the pain of his heart, where the love for the bright angel lived, was even stronger.
– What’s the matter? – burst out from Emily.
Even her voice, so beautiful and so beloved by him, could not stop his torment, but he could defeat the power of darkness that possessed his mind.
She looked at him, but what was happening to him. His long brown hair fell in a silky veil over his shoulders, he was as pale as death itself, and even his beauty could not hide the anguish that distorted his face. He cried out, clutching his hand.
“I’m sorry, Emily,” he whispered. – I am no longer eternal.
He raised his dagger and thrust it into himself. His body fell to the marble floor, but she involuntarily ran up to him, what was in her soul turned out to be stronger than fear, love remained invincible, and she bowed before him, he was still alive.
“I’m sorry, Emily,” he repeated.
“No,” she dropped to her knees next to him, and her blue eyes were full of tears.
“Don’t die,” she whispered, running her hand through his silk-soft hair and looking with a painful gaze at his young and handsome face, which already had the imprint of death.
He was dying, but his trembling hand passed over her beautiful face.
“Don’t cry, Emily,” he whispered, “my death is not worth your tears, take this and run. Rather, run away from here, you can leave, just don’t look them in the eyes, the power of death is hidden in them.
He put a golden cross in her trembling hand, the gold shone in the light of the witch’s night.
“I release you from our curse, my love, Emily,” he said, and her name echoed with some magic sound in the magical silence at the moment of his death. She involuntarily cried, but it was already useless, it was pointless to hug the cold corpse to her, and that beautiful face that she once loved so much, she had to save her life, although his death itself called her with him.
She ran out of the bright room, where once the joy of the ball shone, but now only peace and silence reigned. In the darkness of eternal darkness and evil, her bright beauty shone, the beauty of a beautiful angel. Suddenly she froze in place. In the gap of the stone stairs, he stood, the one who had already been dead twice and had risen in his devilish beauty. She looked into his fiery eyes. The chain of gold cross slipped out of her hand and hit the stone floor, and she, unwillingly, approached him, but his cold gaze did not express anything except the pain hidden in him.
“Forgive me, my fair angel,” he whispered, and the sharp teeth of the vampire dug into the neck of the fair-haired beauty. So they fell on the cold steps of the stone staircase, beauty and vampire, and the night itself took them into its arms, embraced by the gloomy, but incomprehensible and magical witchcraft that eternally reigned here.
THERE WHERE LOVE DIED
The bitter dream
Runs away with life
The heart drowns
In a whirlwind of witchcraft
Death of sad love
Where darkness is light
Fills with mystery
Everything where there is no life.
All where life has crashed
There is only fate again
Surrendered to darkness
But not you, love.
Happiness escapes
Into the quivering darkness
But it saves
A free dream.
That dream forever
In the heart of beauty
It contains all the darkness of the river
Love will not be killed.
Below, the sea was quietly rustling. High on the coastal rocks stood a dark and gloomy ominous castle in the gloomy beauty of its grandeur. A bright lightning, which for a moment cut in half the black sky above the castle, illuminated all its beauty, it was an invincible fortress on an impregnable rock, and only lightning dared to look at its mighty walls. All mortals were afraid even to go into the shadow cast by a high rock, because they knew that devilish evil dwelt in this bloody hell, and there is nothing worse in the world than to face it, as happened with the beautiful Maerlin. People were afraid to approach the rock and the castle where bloody death lurked, and darkness prevailed over the light, where bloodthirsty vampires lurked in the darkness of the night, and he reigned, their terrible master. On this night, as always, eternal darkness reigned, and in it were visible the sharp white fangs of the nightmarish monster, covered with hot human blood.
The black bat, screaming, flew away from the castle. An inhuman scream escaped from the beast’s mouth, but even more terrible was the cry of its dying victim.
In the high tower of the castle, as if preparing to throw herself down, at the very edge of it stood a beautiful girl with pearly blond hair. Her face seemed like the face of a marble statue: cold, insensitive, lifeless, but still retaining the pain of a dead heart. The clawed paw of the monster lay on the shoulder of the beauty, and for a moment her face, clouded with thought, lit up with even greater sadness and pain.
– Why did you do this? – She whispered as if every sound caused her unbearable pain. – Why did you ruin my life?
The wind whipped furiously into her face, showering with drops of rain, threatening at any moment to throw the beauty from the tower of the castle into the raging sea. She did not notice this, for her everything had lost its meaning, and her heart did not care whether to live or die. The monster’s clawed paw, moving on her shoulder, gave her back the pain of life.
“You have forgotten what forces live in your soul,” said a deaf and lifeless voice behind her.
“I know that,” she whispered, “but I don’t want to be what I have become and what you have become. You brought all the horror of the depths of hell to the surface of the earth in your guise, you are a monster, you are evil, you are a vampire, like many of your own creatures”.
The girl involuntarily shuddered when the monster ran its long claws over her beautiful face and gently stroked her golden hair in the light of the thunderstorm.
“But you are always beautiful, immortal beauty,” it whispered, “sad, lonely, beautiful, who has lost her love. Your beauty lives in the hearts of people, my princess, but your heart is even more black and cruel than mine, and darkness lives in it longer than in me.
“You grow stronger every day, every minute, bloody demon, king of vampires, and you crave even more.”
“It’s fate itself.”
“Yes, this is your destiny,” came her voice, and a sharp dagger flashed in her hand with a flash of lightning.
“Die forever,” the girl whispered and plunged the dagger right into the heart of the monster. A wild scream escaped him, and blood gushed from a huge wound, but he was immortal. Slowly he pulled the dagger from the bleeding wound and flung it aside. The demon’s eyes glittered with fire, and his mad laughter echoed across the gloomy sky.
“You cannot kill me, Emily,” he hissed maliciously to the beauty retreating in fear, “no one can kill me. Today, on this sacred night, you gave me new strength, and the blood from your heart will make me invincible. Remember, no matter what happens, I am forever the lord of vampires, the lord of death, the bloody demon, and you will regret that you disowned me.
“Never,” she shouted, “never”.
She pushed him away from her and dashed out of the castle, down the stone stairs. Every step she took was accompanied by the frantic laughter of a bloody demon. But now the last step of the staircase was already behind, and she ran out of the castle into the stormy night. Sharp thorns dug into her flesh, and blood gushed from her scratched palms. A cry of pain and despair escaped her. As soon as Emily ran out of the castle, a terrible black bird flew into the sky, it was even darker than the night itself. Emily looked around with a wary gaze. The monster’s laughter and threat were still ringing in her ears:
– You see, you cannot get away from me and from your own heart, you are my destiny”.
The beauty’s eyes widened in horror. In front of her, by a stone staircase, lay the bloody body of a young girl, a recent victim of a violent vampire.
In the dark dungeon of the castle, where the gloomy halls turned into gloomy caves, another, even more ominous darkness reigned. The light from the distant fire barely scattered her. A beautiful girl was standing by the fire in the back of the cave. Her hair, pale red like fire itself, seemed black in the darkness of the night, light clothes were waved in its violent gusts by the wind of darkness and fire, her slender body trembled every moment, as if in dying convulsions. She looked like a corpse, but she herself was death, resurrected by evil from the darkness of the grave. The fire witch, the victim of the vampire king, the forest sorceress, who sees in the flame of fire all the secrets of death and life, but on that night she herself was a lifeless death. Her unseeing eyes looked at the flames, and it was reflected in them in a fierce green fire. Her hand clenched in a mute witching gesture, and slurred words escaped from her lifeless lips. The flame flared up with renewed vigor, and a gloomy man slowly emerged from the darkness of the distant caves. His footsteps echoed through the caves, over the stone floors, over the cold walls, over every stone, and over the entire huge cave where the girl was, in an eerie threatening sound. It was as if she did not hear the steps and did not know about the presence of a strange person, on whose cold and white face some kind of cruel and evil expression was frozen. He looked like a statue, with a white mask of anger instead of a face and fiery eyes full of inhuman cruelty. He himself looked like an eerie statue made of stone, insensitive, cold and evil, deprived of the last drop of the joy of life and living only by the evil of his stone heart. His pale lips twisted in a devilish grin whispered:
“Rise from death!”
His ominous voice echoed like a fatal and terrible echo through the witch’s darkness:
“Let the darkness leave you, you no longer belong to the kingdom of darkness, come here, resurrect your heart, your soul in this fire, let it reveal everything to you. Rise from death.”
She shuddered all over at the bewitching command of his words. Now she no longer seemed dead, a drop of life settled in a dying corpse, but she was given to her by the forces of darkness. Now the flames of fire had for a moment infused the spark of their life into her. The beauty’s weak lips parted as if preparing to utter the fateful words. Until now, lifeless, thin hands clenched into fists on a high stone by the fire, and silent eyes stared at the flame with a cold and incinerating gaze.