by Cody W Urban
“Yet, I saw her!” Nicholas argued.
“You saw what you wished to see!” Lysander replied.
“Unhand me this instant!” demanded Nicholas who drew his blade. Lysander naturally reacted by drawing his in return and the two clashed swords. They hadn’t met blades since their sparring session at the Danube campaign about seven years ago, but then it was under friendly circumstances. Nicholas and Lysander now dueled for real. Neither wanted to see the other wounded but currently perceived it was the best course of action to ensure their opposing goals.
Lysander was rather impressed by how far Nicholas had progressed in his sword skills and was forced to use some of his best moves to counter Nicholas’s advances. Their blades struck in awkward maneuvers as each wanted to best the other, but stayed from fatal strokes in the name of their bond. All the while Pete tried to intervene, demanding they stop the foolishness. “Please! You want to bring peace yet fight your friend?” The plea didn’t work and so the lad quickly tried to reason with practical logic. “Silence lest your clamor should give away our position and beckon the bad guys!”
Nicholas stayed his strike and sighed. Not only was he dead tired, but Pete was correct. Nicholas wished fighting would end and he could set down his sword for good, neither did he wish to bring a host of enemies upon them. Nicholas dropped his sword and stepped back, forlorn. “As long as Vasilis is in power, I will have to fight. As long as Nysa is under his subjugation, my blade I will wield. Yet Lysander, my friend, I have no wish to fight you.”
Lysander stood and nodded, but before either could comprehend what happened, he punched Nicholas, knocking him out. Lysander then carried Nicholas on his horse and they all retired back to the church in Myra. Nicholas didn’t wake up until Lysander removed him from Sleipnir’s back and walked into his backroom. Nicholas kicked his bed and slumped down on it. Pete and Lysander gazed on him as they sat for a needed heart-to-heart.
“There was no need to hit me,” Nicholas grumbled.
“Yes, there was,” replied Lysander. “You never listen to me, Nicholas. I am not an underling to report to you. I see you are so consumed with a plot for revenge, you won’t listen to reason from anyone.”
“I saw her! Nysa is alive,” Nicholas protested.
“I told you... she’s-“ Lysander tried to say until Nicholas snapped back at him.
“Bite your tongue and bite it hard. So if public report is that she’s dead it does not make it true. Let us make an effort to rescue her so she and I could leave Lycia for good. After saving it from the hands of a dictator.”
“You are going to get yourself killed,” Lysander said. “More so; myself, or Pete.” Nicholas looked at typically silent Pete who turned his head away from meeting his gaze. “Here is an orphan who clings to you, yet his life may be in danger. You want to protect children—here is one! Either you take what you have, I take Deborah, and we all leave here, or I leave you to your doomed machinations.”
“I will not give up. I feel it. I know it. She is there—alive!” Nicholas said.
“Are you not hearing me? After all I’ve sacrificed for you, are you still not hearing me?”
“I feel you are not hearing me, Lysander,” Nicholas strained. “This is my mission and I shall not abandon it.”
With a heavy sigh, and as close to tears Lysander ever allowed himself to be, he said, “Then we are through.” Lysander rose intensely, turned, and then kicked over a chair. “If you will not abandon your mission to save the loved ones that are alive, then they are dead to you as well,” he said before storming out.
3
Oh rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing.
Nicholas shot an arrow into a tree with his newly mended bow. Then he shot another and another in angst. It was an outlet for his emotional frustrations incurred over the past two days since Lysander left him. Pete said little to Nicholas, even less than usual, and Nicholas spent those days recuperating from the beating he took by that new inexplicably powerful Krampus. But he couldn’t recuperate from feeling abandoned and misunderstood by his close companion. Maybe Lysander was right, but he refused to believe him. The only thing he grew to agree with was that he wasn’t in any condition to storm Vasilis’ tower that night and he was now making himself ready.
To his annoyance however, as he kept launching arrows, Juno persisted on pawing at him and begging for attention. Pete usually played with her but he was too glum to even do that lately, and Juno wanted some playtime. “What is it, girl? Won’t you leave me be?” She made her habitual roo-ing playful growl and then pawed at him again until Nicholas conceded with a chuckle. He noticed her sad eyes and couldn’t keep with his annoyance any further. She had saved his life the other night more than once and she had been a faithful friend. As he felt lonesome for Lysander he was comforted in having this fuzzy cohort always by his side.
So he grabbed a knotted rag and tossed it. In a flash of bounding happiness, Juno chased it and would bring it back but seldom relinquish it. Nicholas was forced to pry it from her teeth before he could throw it again. After a few rounds of this he grew weary of her wolf-like stubbornness, though he could see she really enjoyed it. “Juno, you have to drop the rag!” he told her as he still had to pry it from her. Then he threw it a further distance. She ran after but stopped in her tracks and held still. Nicholas noticed but it wasn’t long until he saw Vasilis and a group of soldiers marching up toward him. Nicholas paused, frozen.
Vasilis said, “Good morrow.”
This is Vasilis: Of all epic Lycian heroes, Vasilis was likened to none of them. Yet he persisted to claim, as his father before him, that he was in direct lineage from Sarpedon who, like Hercules, was half god. Though spirituality and religious beliefs he knew not, it was a persona he feigned gladly toward those feeble-minded fools who assumed that supernatural entities ruled the universe. So, though he behaved un-heroically, he carried the austere up-turned nose as if divine blood coursed through his veins. Other people were puppets for his schemes and a means to an end. He looked at ends only that would empower him and satisfy his many cravings. It was that reasoning that brought him to kill his parents so to inherit their wealth before they had a chance to spend it. He worked to strike deals with the Lycian League and would pay off assassins to remove any on that council who would oppose his rule. He’s supplanted half the council in his lifetime already.
For a time, his only true virtue was his desire to be a father. Despite his twisted cruelty, he believed he would be a far better father than his father had ever been. And after winning his coveted prize in Nysa and impregnating her, his only noble aspiration was nearly realized. Alas, her baby was stillborn. Then he discovered she never truly loved him, and he hated her for that. He had her lover murdered up north to have her all to himself, but she never stopped loving that boy. He was so full of wrath toward Nysa that he figured if she wanted to die, he would punish her by giving her a slow death by decaying in his dungeon.
Now he had a greater scheme: to rule the known world. He had seen the Roman Empire be taken by a self-proclaimed Augustus who simply had enough power in armed forces to back him before, so it was possible. Now he had Krampus and legions of slowly brainwashed children who would grow to be his armed slaves, the children he always wished for and never had. He would march upon Rome and manifest his own world. Oh, how he craved such power and authority to become an immortal legend and to be deified as Emperor of the greatest empire the Earth has ever known.
Vasilis stepped up closer to Nicholas and examined him. Nicholas wasn’t ready for a fight now and was worried Vasilis would recognize him, but he didn’t seem to. Nicholas could barely control himself from trembling. The one he sought for so long now stood feet from him, flanked by soldiers, and Nicholas was nowhere near the mind-set necessary to take them on in combat. This was not how he imagined the brink of the final battle with his nemesis.
“I, Vasilis, Governor of Lycia, greet you,” he said in his
ostentatious manner. “I seek the Bishop.”
“You look upon him, sir,” Nicholas replied.
Vasilis studied him with arrogant eyes and Nicholas returned a deadpan stare. Nicholas noted how every inch of him was coifed in regal attire and fine jewelry bought at the expense of his citizens. His black hair now had gray around the ears, his eyes looked darker and sunken into his skull and his skin tone was more pale than most folks who dwelled along the Mediterranean. “Ah, well. I have come anon in search of unpaid taxes. Rumors have broadened about this unsanctioned establishment receiving a plethora of members, and yet a coin we have not seen; let alone the excess currency due.”
“We have ceased religious activities other than caring for the poor and receiving donations to do so,” Nicholas explained, his voice shaking only slightly as Nicholas conjured the gumption to stand tall to his foe. “As was instructed by Roman officials.”
“Ah, belike you have feeble hearing of your own words, for you yourself have admitted to accepting donations, though under the guise of charity,” Vasilis said, maintaining his pompous attitude.
“What brings you here, sir?” Nicholas asked, trying to change the subject. “For surely one so esteemed as yourself would have a host of able servants to come pressure me for funds.”
“Verily I am bound toward Myra from Xanthos,” he replied. “For the occasion warrants my personal attention. This location lay on my route and my advisors inform me that taxes are still due, taxes upon said donations.”
“You have the audacity to tax tithes that support the forgotten citizens of your nation?” Nicholas replied, more hastily than he expected. At that moment the soldiers readied their weapons as Vasilis snapped from a haughty smirk to a malevolent sneer.
“I am ruler here, and have dispensation to do as I will!” he growled. “Think you not that based upon the spiritual nature of your deeds that Government ought have no hand in it. Verily, religion in general is an anachronism needing liquidation the world over!” Vasilis faced Nicholas eye to eye with a fierce sneer that set Juno into furious defense and she snapped at his hand.
Vasilis stepped back perturbed when Nicholas grabbed her by the nape and hushed her saying, “No, Juno.”
Nicholas looked up at Vasilis who now didn’t meet his gaze and looked off behind him. “Methinks the ruckus has summoned a swain to your aid,” he said under his breath.
Nicholas looked back at the front door of the church and saw Pete looking out with a concerned expression. “Father? Is all well?”
“No worries, Pete.” Nicholas replied. “Return inside.” Nicholas then looked back at Vasilis who had the unmistakable eyes of lust for Pete as he walked back into the church. Nicholas felt disgusted by this expression and continued his protest. “Sir, the people have little left after what the Empire taxes of them, and still from their generosity they fund shelters for the poor and-“
Vasilis waved his hand in abject disgust. “Save the debate. Report has reached my ear that this reprobate ruby rider has been spied riding about this location,” he said returning to his austere demeanor and stepping back, looking down his nose, and keeping his statement ambiguous. “If you, like the numb-minded masses, deem this one man can save you, then you are a buffoon. My men shall return in two weeks. If you do not have—let us say—twenty pounds of gold coins in taxes, it shan't go well for you and yours, indeed. Would be a pity to fordo your exertions, Bishop.”
The volcano of rage bubbled forth like a pot on the fire, but Nicholas held a lid over that pot with all he could. He was afraid, unready, ill prepared, and it killed him to act as the nice cleric. Vasilis turned and walked with great strides toward a carriage, but stopped with a slight chortle. “And if you want news of your beloved tomato-clad miscreant, head into Myra. Surely quite the juncture indeed you shall behold!”
Nicholas retired to his backroom, slumped on a stool, and somberly whittled little carved horses and other animals to soothe his mind. How he wished he was back in the keep of his Elvish friends attending to the choir of angelic voices. How he wished he had never picked up the infernal lump of coal. He felt his mission was failing. For all the good he had accomplished, when presented with his enemy face to face, he still couldn’t do anything. He pondered hard if he could relive that situation, what he would have done differently. He wasn’t wont to wearing his sword when in the guise of the Bishop—the two didn’t go together. If it was at his side, maybe then he could have fought the guards and dispatched Vasilis, ending the conflict right then and there. Just maybe.
4
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.
The song of the angels was the only tune playing on its own in Nicholas’s mind for the rest of the day as he lay in his cot like a ripening vegetable. He wasn’t sure what brought the melody to his thoughts so strongly, but he had some outlandish sense that destiny was approaching and about to knock on his door. His prophetic notions were only partially right and were nowhere close to being good tidings when he heard the front door of the church slam open and then the voice of, no, not the angelic Elves he longed to see, but Deborah. “Nicholas!” she cried out. “Oh, dear Nicholas! Where are you?”
Nicholas climbed from the cot, his muscles gone stiff from lack of movement, and shouted, “I am hither!” as he made his way down the hall. When the two finally came in sight of each other Deborah tried all she could to speak but could only wail. She finally rested her teary eyes upon Nicholas’s shoulder and sobbed. He patted her head in solace and asked, “Deborah, what is the matter?”
“Lysander, ‘twas Lysander,” she said sniffing and wiping her eyes. “Have you been to town?”
“Not today,” he replied. She hoped he had word of the events taking place there, but he didn’t; meaning she would have to sum it up for him. Conjuring the words became a feat she was ill prepared to accomplish.
“Alas! For he… he…” she stammered.
“He, what?” Nicholas asked in a more serious tone. It had been two days since he had last seen Lysander and just by the tone of her voice he was regretting not heeding Vasilis’ suggestion to go into Myra. Deborah could only sob a bit more. It wasn’t for a minute or two until she could collect her emotions and regain a needed composure to tell her tale.
******
She explained that around noon Governor Vasilis made a display in the city center of Myra. Vasilis, surrounded by guards, stood on a platform in front of two gallows where two men, veiled under a black sack, stood with nooses about their necks. In an authoritative tone, Vasilis addressed an assembly of Lycian citizens. It was an assembly that Lysander and Deborah had recently joined in curiosity.
“Hear ye!” declared Vasilis. “The troublemaking Scarlet Rider is not, as some may be likened to believe, a hero. Nay, he is but an insurrectionist! I discern he shan't willingly come forward and face penalty for his crimes, thus I decree: one man at random shall be put to death each day that he remains hidden from my sight! Verily if any of you hold his identity, you are guilty of the cracking noose under which a single person shall greet death.”
Vasilis stepped back, revealing the gallows behind to the audience and a gasping murmur rose amid the onlookers. Lysander gazed amazed at the episode, dismayed at where the endeavors he and Nicholas had sought after had lead to.
“No one? Not one shall step hither and confess? None shall admit they conceal his identity?” In an instant, Vasilis kicked a stool out from under one of the two anonymous individuals and the person fell to his death. Lysander turned and shielded Deborah’s sight, guarding his eyes as well since the cracking neck made Lysander nauseous. He had seen the carnage of warfare, heard many times the splitting of bones, and still the grim sight of an innocent life taken at the hands of this tyrant flipped Lysander’s world upside down. He didn’t know the person, or did he? All Lysander knew was that Nicholas had changed him. He may have never felt this way before had he witnessed such an atrocity. The host around him gaspe
d in fright, mothers covered their children’s eyes, and some cried out in disgust.
“Stay your boisterous denunciations, citizens of Lycia,” Vasilis called out, hushing the protests. “I am not responsible for that death—the Rider is. And any of you who withhold his whereabouts bear guilt upon your skulls!” The crying continued, and when some people began to raise their voices the soldiers pointed the tips of their swords and spears at them and there was instant silence. “Your admonition I share! And I regret to notify you all that last execution was for yesterday. This man for is today!”
Vasilis made ready to execute the next with a malevolent grimace when all of the sudden Lysander’s voice shouted, “Halt! I am he!” His declaration was followed by more gasps of shock and awe. Deborah grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
“What madness has come over you?” she asked desperately.
“Tell Nicholas what happened here,” he said in a hushed tone and then he turned to walk through the crowd. The mob parted as Lysander proudly stepped forward.
“I am the Scarlet Rider,” he said as he marched toward Vasilis. “My crime has been generosity. My assault has been undoing your evil deeds. And if the work I have done has not been in vain, the people of Myra shall support me!”
Lysander looked around and saw everyone shying away from him. He felt as though he swallowed a stone. Not a single person could even look him in the eye.
Vasilis glared at Lysander for a moment and then smirked. “You see,” he said, “the people identify who rules. They practice propriety, a characteristic not yet engrained in your being. A lesson you shall learn in my keep.” He then turned toward his soldiers and said, “Lock him away!”
5
Who toil along the climbing way,