by Неизвестный
It is happening again.
The tsaritsa screams in agony, and the tsar and I bolt from the room and dash down the corridor, bursting into her private chambers. I grip his elbow and rasp, “Stay away,” but he doesn’t listen and pushes me aside. He races to his wife’s bed, collapses upon her, weeping as no tsar should weep, for he loves her. Always he has loved Maria.
Again, here I am, the lord’s favorite, incapable of protecting him and his beloved wife. I’ll take my own sword and slit my throat, I will, for I’m worthy of nothing more.
The tsaritsa—the beautiful Maria, black-tressed, black-eyed, a Slavic hint to her cheeks, lithe and once full of joy—lies in a bed of blood. Eyes fluttering, in her last breath she names her newborn daughter, Tsarevna Yevdokia Alexeevna, and Tsar Alexis cries, “Yes, yes, yes! That will be her name! G’rhh buhccck…” and garbled syllables roll from his mouth. Through tears, the brown eyes, crazed, they glare at me, and I know what he’s thinking: Still, I have no son, no heir to the throne, nobody to lead All Great Russia in my wake. Fourteen children and still I have no heir.
I hover over the two of them, unsure what to do. The midwife will come too late. The tsarevna was born too early. In the bloody sheets is a larva—no, an infant—and it feebly writhes. Malformed, stunted limbs, growths like knobs upon her head and torso. Eyes multifaceted, diamond-like, unreal glow—something about those eyes bore into me and frighten me more than I would have thought possible. I know in this very moment, I knew for certain, that this tsarevna, now warbling and hissing, was not born of the tsar himself, but rather she was born of the thing in the hall.
Does the tsar guess that the tsarevna is not his?
As the larva, the tsarevna, twitches into death, the tsar weeps openly as if for his own flesh.
He hobbles from the bed. He doesn’t look at his wife. He doesn’t look at me. He stumbles like an old man back to his rooms, where I hear him chanting yet again in that ancient tongue.
Does he know?
Does she know?
“Tsaritsa Maria,” I whisper, clutching her cold hand. “Forgive me…” I must find the strength to ask her, I must. “Tsaritsa, who is the father?”
I brace myself, but she doesn’t answer. I drop her hand. There’s no life in it. The tsaritsa has died in childbirth like so many tsaritsas before her.
Producing not a single heir in twenty-one years with the tsar, she died trying for the fourteenth time. Her relatives, the Miloslavsky family, will fizzle from the court, their power gone.
I should have followed the thing into her room twelve months ago. I should have slayed it, beaten it off her, done something. I shouldn’t have been so weak. This was clearly my fault. The mighty Russian Empire is at risk because I failed to save the tsaritsa from the thing.
Six more months pass. Of the four sons who survive the tsaritsa, two die within that time, one of which is sixteen-year-old Alexis, named after his father. Tsar Alexis sinks into himself, ages considerably, spends more time alone in his chapel, praying in the ancient language of the Russian God.
He won’t eat.
“You need nourishment,” I say, pushing a plate of sweets toward him.
“G’rhh buhccck.”
“You must remain strong. Here, eat.” I push plates of succulent meats and ripe fruits toward him, night after night.
He ignores me and rasps strange syllables.
“And who is left?” he asks me one night as I eat and he starves himself. “My son Fedor—only ten, frail, an invalid, and near-insane?” He pauses. “I fear he has the curse of the tsars.”
“Ivan?” I suggest.
“My younger son is an imbecile, you know that. He can’t walk. He’s mentally and physically…” The tsar breaks off. He can’t continue, and I say nothing, figuring it’s best not to remind the tsar of the ugly truth that throughout the ages, his bloodline has produced imbecile after imbecile, enfeebled twit after enfeebled twit—many heirs stillborn or dead shortly after birth.
I consider telling him about the thing in the hall, but I don’t dare. If I’m beheaded, who will be left to protect the tsar and any future tsaritsa from the thing? I must remain at his side at all costs.
He never fully recovers. Gaunt, his hair thinning now, his flesh glazed with yellow, sorrow etched into the skin around his eyes and mouth.
A year passes and finally he tells me that he’s ready to leave the Kremlin, and we arrange for a meal in my home the following night. I set my wife, Mary, to work immediately, and she enlists the aid of our ward, Nataly Naryshkina.
And the meal is splendid. The tsar is in wonderful spirits as Nataly serves vodka, caviar, and smoked fish. Mary and I have raised her well, and at nineteen she’s intelligent yet modest, beautiful with black hair and eyes. Her father would be proud to see how she waits upon the tsar, but Kyril lives too far from Moscow to know what has become of his daughter. I’m proud of her as if she’s my own.
Surrounded by my paintings and cabinets, my clocks with their bells, my icons and porcelains, the tsar drinks and eats more than I’ve seen him consume since his wife died. He laughs at my minor jokes. And at the end of the evening, he tells me, “I will marry your Nataly, Artemon Matveev.”
Stunned and elated, I kneel at his feet, and I weep and bless him, wail that we’re not good enough, that I haven’t a sufficient dowry for a tsaritsa. Along with my joy comes terror, for should Nataly become the tsar’s wife, her family will become the most powerful members of the court, and the Miloslavskys will want her dead, will want me dead along with Mary.
But the tsar’s will is always done, and shortly thereafter he marries my Nataly and my rank
She’s good for him. I’ve not seen the tsar this happy, not even with his beloved Maria. His skin is flushed. His eyes sparkle. He ignores affairs of state to take his young wife to the theater—something he had forbidden to all Russians before he was with Nataly. Many months pass—perhaps it is a year, perhaps two.
And then one night in his chambers, I see it again—the trick of the light, the tremble of his hand as he places his queen by my pawn.
“I cannot take the queen,” I whisper, my eyes downcast, my own hands trembling on my lap.
A cup shatters on the table, and my head jerks up. Tsar Alexis looks at me like cornered prey, wild and terrified. His sable cloak is soaked in vodka. His right hand shakes violently.
“Leave,” he gasps, wrenching himself from the table and limping toward his chapel.
“Tsar…” I catch myself from continuing.
He doesn’t turn around. He can have me killed for this impropriety, but somehow I don’t care, for I must warn him, but …
“Leave, old friend,” his voice cracks, “or beware. The safety of your wife…”
Incense licks me as I bow and exit, and I shut the door as the baritone rises. “H’ee-l’geb f’ai throdog uaaah, Yog-Sothoth.”
Madness. Pawn takes queen. King lets pawn take queen. Madness.
My tsar is going mad. Perhaps insanity is the key to holiness and God. Perhaps starving the body feeds the soul. Perhaps God rewards the soul, for isn’t this what religion tells us? But what of the insanity? Is it perhaps a transcendence of the soul onto a holier plane?
I shift my attention to the chessboard. As usual, I can win the game by taking his queen with my pawn, but this time I move a different pawn, exposing my own king to the tsar’s queen. I make the move for him. His queen conquers all.
“J’getbujeel hemrqpuoquat shree’g’hul.” The prayers are more garbled now, the baritone lower and more rapid.
The door squeezes shut behind me. The trail of incense wafts into the hall. My hand instinctively grasps the hilt of my sword. The blade is solid and strong.
And the serpent comes.
Weaker, it is thin like a strand of metal and moving slowly. Intoxicating spice wafts from its every facet. The tongue on my neck. The breath like snow. I whirl. Damn accursed thing! My blade whips out and slashes it. A fetid smell rises
—that of rot and death. The thing shrieks so high my ears hurt—a stream of syllables in the ancient Russian tongue. Then it slips from me, my flesh cold with slime, and the hall whines and forms a tunnel with the serpent’s tail at the far end, where the tsaritsa sleeps. Nataly, my former ward. I feel responsible for her, as if she’s my own flesh and blood.
I race after the thing and into Nataly’s chambers. I will kill it. I will protect the tsar and his tsaritsa. This time, I won’t fail.
Eyes, soft and black as sable fur. Hair, a gloss of midnight. Skin trembling. She screams and clutches for me. She calls my name, begs me to help her. She calls me batushka, father. I have no children of my own. I have no heir, just as the tsar has no heir. I understand his sorrow.
The diamond-cut eyes glow, hollow and without soul. The serpent’s tongue trails up her neck, hooks beneath her nightdress, and rips it off. She leaps and the thing pins her down. Her arms cover her breasts, and the thing jerks them off. Her face turns wildly toward me, shrieking “Batushka!” and “сэкономите моего ребенка!”
Father! Spare my child!
My sword slashes at the thing, and it recoils from Nataly then falls upon her again. It’s weaker than before—not as large and potent.
As I raise my blade over its neck, ready to slay it and fling it off my daughter, my Nataly, something grabs my shoulders and I jerk back. It’s the tsar. His grasp is weak but still it’s my tsar, and by habit I cease what I’m doing and throw myself at his feet.
Several guards appear at the door—disturbed, confused expressions on their faces.
He points at me. “Kill him! Take him away and kill him!”
Nataly is crying. I peek and with great relief see that the thing is gone, dissipated as before into thin air. Only a faint whiff of incense remains.
I don’t struggle as the guards lift me from my position at the tsar’s feet. I accept my fate. I’ve spared the tsar from making the wrong move again—the ancient move that always lets this thing inseminate the tsaritsas and spawn stillborn heirs, enfeebled royals, insanity. He doesn’t understand, of course, but she knows. Nataly knows. As he wraps her in blankets, she begs him to let me go. And he cannot deny her, this beautiful girl who has brought him such joy, and so he dismisses the guards then glares at me and jerks his head toward the door.
I stand outside Nataly’s private chambers. I hear them inside, the tsar and his tsaritsa. The comforting words, the sobs, the professions of love. I hear her panting in the throes of orgasm. I hear her cries of ecstasy. And then abruptly, all is silent.
Perhaps this time the tsar has fathered the child. Perhaps this time the heir will live and be strong and maybe become our next great lord, tsar and grand duke of all Great and Little and White Russia. Maybe, he will actually be sane.
Mexico, 1753:
Smoking Mirror
Will Murray
Fray Murrieta had no fear of the Devil, nor any wavering of his faith in Holy Jesus until he met the Aztec Indian named Yahuahqui. His faith was as strong in Mexico, as it had been in Seville, Spain, the place of his birth.
It was the year of 1753, and Fray Murrietta’s task was to convert the heathen, harvesting their immortal souls for Jesus. Some were more readily converted than others, but the baptismal water flowed by the river once every week.
It was while on his way to the river, seeking souls for Christ, that Fray Murrietta encountered the man named Yahuahqui. Yahuahqui wore an immodest loincloth and not much else. An ochre stripe was painted across his face, and he limped due to a clubfoot. He carried a long reed tube that had been hollowed into a blowgun.
Fray Murrietta paused to watch. He had heard that the Indian men hunted small game with blowguns, using hard clay pellets to stun birds and poisoned thorns fletched with feathers to kill larger animals.
Fray Murrietta privately doubted these stories, but he wanted to see for himself.
Hiding behind a sprawling maguey plant, the friar observed the Aztec moving stealthily through the forest, which was moist and humid in the morning sun.
A sound came to his ears. A birdcall. It was a beautiful sound.
The Aztec hunter paused, searched the canopy of green with his dark eyes, and suddenly brought the blowgun to his cruel lips. Puffing his cheeks out once produced a short, sharp explosion of breath.
The sound of the hard clay pellet knocking the bird from its perch was very distinct.
A yellow bird fell, landing softly.
The Aztec ran up to capture the thing. It was stunned. It did not bestir its wings, but its tiny feet kicked spasmodically.
Picking it up, the Indian began to place the bird into the coarsely woven pouch he carried.
At that point, Fray Murrietta stepped out of concealment. Raising one hand in a gesture of peace, the Franciscan friar addressed the man.
“Hola! I am Fray Murrietta. What is your name, good Indian?”
The Aztec knew a little Spanish. He stared at the friar for a long time before reacting, his obsidian eyes steady like black beads that reflected no light.
“Yahuahqui,” he replied in a heavy voice that lacked any tonal value. “I am very interested in your blowgun, Yahaunhqui. What did you use to bring down that bird?”
The Aztec reached into the same pouch that had swallowed the bird and brought out a fired clay pellet—very small and round, as if created by the Almighty Himself.
Fray Murrietta accepted it, noticing its hardness, and returned it with a tight smile.
“Have you heard of Jesus?” he asked casually.
The Aztec grunted. It was difficult to guess the meaning of that rude sound.
“He is the Son of God,” explained Fray Murrietta. “He worked miracles in a land very far from here, healing the sick and comforting the afflicted.”
Yahuahqui the Aztec listened with a blank coppery face. Very little comprehension registered on his square countenance.
Fray Murrietta had picked up a good deal of the Nahuatl tongue. He switched to that language and continued with his story.
“Jesus died to release all men from the bondage of sin. Did you know that, Yahuahqui?”
The Aztec set one end of his long blowgun—it was nearly six feet in length—on the ground and leaned on it as he listened.
At this sign of an attentive audience, the friar launched into a long exhortation on the life and work of the Christ, emphasizing the sacrifice of the cross for the purpose of redeeming a sinful mankind.
A glowing, interested spark flickered deep within the Aztec’s obsidian eyes, and an hour passed as Fray Murrietta filled the man ears with the Gospel and all its wonders and revelations.
When he had recounted the story of the death and resurrection and transfiguration of Jesus of Nazareth, Fray Murrietta paused to see what affect this story had upon the Indian hunter.
“He was here,” the man grunted after absorbing it all. “What did you to say, good Indian?”
“Your Jesus. He was here. Long ago.” And Yahuahqui the Aztec went into a long account of a bearded man with pale skin whom he called Quetzalcoatl, who arrived on the Mexican shores riding a raft of serpents, accompanied by several servants, who helped him spread the knowledge of God and many other important things, such as how to properly plant corn.
“Quetzalcoatl?” said Fray Murrietta.
“It means bright-feathered serpent. For serpents are very wise.”
Fray Murrietta recoiled. “Serpents are of the Devil!”
“Not Quetzalcoatl. He is toetl. What you call holy. He is of God. When he died, he went up into the heaven, where he became the morning star. His light shines down upon us even to this day.”
Now Fray Murrietta was a very learned man. He believed implicitly in the Gospel, and while he had never personally witnessed any miracles, his fellow holy men had sworn that they had, and the young friar believed them.
Almost against his better judgment, Fray Murrietta said, “Tell me of Quetzalcoatl, that I may judge the validi
ty of your claim.”
Yahuahqui sat down and waved for Fray Murrietta to sit also. This time, it was the friar’s ears that were filed with wondrous tales.
At the end of it, the young monk frowned thoughtfully.
“It is as if Jesus, after His death and resurrection, came across the seas to spread the Holy Scripture in this land,” he said slowly.
“Do you doubt it?” asked Yahuahqui.
“I…” Fray Murrietta did not reply. This might be heresy. He did not wish to fall into wrong thinking. But the story this man told had a silver ring of truth to it. What if—?
Finally, the friar offered, “I would like to baptize you.”
“I do not know what that is,” the Indian admitted.
“I will take you to the river and dunk your head briefly, which will wash away all your sins in the name of Jesus.”
The Aztec hesitated.
“I am a follower of Quetzalcoatl,” he said flatly.
“If Jesus and Quetzalcoatl are one,” pressed the friar, “it will not be important which one you believe.”
Still the Aztec wavered uncertainly.
“You hesitate,” Fray Murrietta said swiftly. “Only the minions of Satan shrink from the holy rite of baptism.”
Yahuahqui considered. “Tell me of Satan.”
So Fray Murrietta launched into a long discourse on the history and nature of the fallen angel who became known as the Lucifer.
“You are speaking of Mictlantecuhtli,” said Yahuahqui.
“Tell me of your Mictlantecuhtli,” invited Murrietta, genuinely intrigued.
“Mictlantecuhtli is the ruler of Mictlan, the underworld. His name means ‘lord of the underworld.’ His head is a skull, but with living eyes, and he wears a necklace of human eyeballs.”
“I would hear more,” invited the friar.
Again, Fray Murrietta listened to the tales of a Dark Lord who might have been Satan incarnate, operating in the New World long before the Old World had ever heard of him.