Apex Magazine Issue 51 by Lynne M. Thomas

Author:Lynne M. Thomas
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 2013-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

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I could tell you about what happened next: the stairwell that led us down to a forest of silver, and a forest of diamonds, and a forest of gold. I could tell you about the strange things we saw there, and how we stumbled in a wondrous unison, somehow balletic, all the way through those well–groomed woods until we reached a shore where twelve boats knocked against a dock that stretched out into the water. But all of that is just precursor to what drew us further into that underground world where, in the distance, a castle stood upon an island, illuminated as if by a self–producing glow. Music poured from its high–arched windows like it was the very water that flowed up to the shore to crash upon the sand before us.

It was only then, when the water–music crashed to foam in front of us, that we noticed the young men—our underground princes—waiting in the boats to ferry us across. They were all decked out in tight pants of dark crimson leather and white shirts that opened all the way down to their navels, with gray cloaks thrown over their shoulders like smoke. Their hair, ashen–colored from this distance, curled around their ears. I couldn’t help myself. The first thing I did when I saw them was to trace the bare skin at their necks down to their waistlines with my eyes and to swallow hard. The music swarmed around their bodies like sparks, bursting, snapping, and my feet began to twitch involuntarily, my hips to sway like the boats on the water.

Each of us climbed aboard one of the twelve boats and sat at the opposite end from our underground princes, our hands folded in our laps like we were going to still make an attempt at a sense of decorum; and though it probably only took a few minutes to cross that narrow strip of water to the island, I thought I might rend my dress from my body in anticipation of our arrival. I was like a vampire, those creatures of myth I’d read about in the novels I’d read in my father’s library. I smelled blood on the air. It was really only the musical notes coming from inside the castle that made me so unnaturally thirsty, but I wanted to lap those notes up like a vampire laps up blood all the same.

Our spooky princes took our hands and walked us away from our boats up the wide stone steps to the front gate of the castle, where the music grew louder and our steps grew lighter, it seemed, the further in we went, as if we had begun to walk on air. We passed through sconce–lit passageways, their fires flickering gold–leaf upon our faces, until suddenly one of the princes stopped at a door that thrummed so hard, it seemed ready to fly off its hinges; and when he opened it, out burst an ear–shattering sound like I had never heard before.

Light—pieces of light—broke into my eyes.

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