Unfettered

by Terry Brooks

  “What is it then, priest?”

  Eyes rolling in panic, terror won. “A series of vellum pages and scrolls! Very old. Very fragile.”

  “Of course they are, fool,” Lazarus said, smiling triumphantly.

  The Cardinal’s fear filled the room like a stink. Charles hated the situation. He was unable to intervene without jeopardizing Cesare Farina’s life. No wizard spells or power from the Dark Thorn were faster than Lazarus; in the split second it would take to call his power and strike, Lazarus would have already sensed it and acted. If the vampire wanted to kill the Cardinal, there was nothing Charles could do about it.

  That wasn’t his only worry. There were questions raised now, questions that needed answering. The original text of the Bible. An unedited edition. The information was daunting in its reality. Why would the Bible be edited? What could the Church gain? What was it protecting? Other editions of the book had been altered but they were common knowledge. Thinking about his debate with the Cardinal Seer, what if the Apostles knew of the fey? Had originally written about them? What if the Word called the fey good? What truths did the Bible hide in its first edition? Mentions of lost relics and places of power? What control did the Church keep by its revision work?

  And most importantly, what did Lazarus hope to find?

  “If we agree to give you access to this Bible, what will you give in return?” Charles asked, ignoring the protestations of the Cardinal Archivist.

  “As I said, the lives of these Churchmen, to start,” Lazarus replied. “They are not the reason I came here, a mere means to an end. I will give you something more as well, something you as the unfettered knight want.”

  “What is that?” Berrytrill questioned.

  “My death.”

  “I can do that for you right now,” Charles said, gripping the Dark Thorn tighter for emphasis.

  “The badge of your duty through my heart, right?” Lazarus said, grinning the same humorless smile that began to grate on the Heliwr’s nerves. “Undoubtedly the same death you dealt my companions in the passageways below.”

  “That’s right,” the knight said.

  “Stakes do kill the progeny of my curse,” Lazarus said. “I would know. I have killed enough of them over the centuries when needed. No, as the first vampire, I am immune from such acts of wooden violence.” When Charles did not immediately respond, Lazarus learned forward. “Do not believe me, Heliwr?”

  “Hard to believe, given those of your kind I’ve killed.”

  Lazarus stood, still gripping the Cardinal Archivist close. He ripped open his shirt, baring his chest. In one fell kick, he shattered the ancient chair he had been sitting on. Wood shrapnel exploded. He bent to pick up a piece more than a foot long, its end sharpened to a murderous point.

  “Tell me, fairy, how do you kill a vampire?”

  “A stake to the heart,” Berrytrill said. “The best way.”

  “Exactly,” the vampire said. He handed the stake to Cesare Farina. “Kill me, Cardinal of these Secret Archives.”

  “I will not,” the Cardinal Archivist muttered, gone as pale as the vampire.

  Lazarus painfully squeezed the old man’s neck again.

  “Do it. Or you die.”

  The old man took the makeshift stake, his hand palsied. Charles could see the fear that threatened to overcome the Cardinal.

  “Do it!” Lazarus roared.

  In a jerky motion, Cesare Farina succumbed and brought the stake downward. The Cardinal’s aim was true. The stake penetrated deep into the vampire’s chest where his heart would be. Cesare Farina shakily let go of the stake. Lazarus snarled in pain but did not fall, his eyes dark like terrible midnight, maintaining his grip on his prisoner.

  The creature did not die. Instead, Lazarus pulled the broken piece of chair free.

  The flesh mended instantly as if nothing had happened.

  “I am not dead, Heliwr of the Yn Saith,” Lazarus said, breathing hard but made whole. “Explain it.”

  “I can’t,” Charles said, bewildered.

  “There is only one thing that can kill me,” Lazarus said. “And the knowledge can be confirmed in the only true Word.”

  “You did not know of this first Bible until recently,” Charles remarked, still unsure what had just happened. “Otherwise you would have tried to see it earlier. Why now? Who shared its existence with you? Who is aiding you?”

  The eyes of the vampire narrowed briefly in indecision. “A witch,” Lazarus said finally. “She is extraordinarily powerful for her kind, not like those who populate many of the towns and cities of Annwn. She has lived almost as long as I have.”

  Charles did not like that. Witches did not offer help without gaining something.

  There was more to this than the knight knew.

  “No,” Charles said. “You have come here for more than information.”

  “I trust witches even less than you do,” Lazarus said. “Centuries of unexpectedly entering their company have taught me that.”

  “Witches give and then collect. What have you promised?”

  “Nothing yet. She too wishes my death.”

  Charles had to admit that could be a possibility. A vampire as powerful as Lazarus would make a formidable enemy in a world that was not that large. Even though the breadth of Annwn was controlled by despot Philip Plantagenet at the behest of his father, King Henry II, the removal of the vampire would be a boon to any witch desiring to carve out her own niche without the meddling of one such as Lazarus.

  “I see you are leery of me, Charles Ardall,” Lazarus said. “You have my word I have not come with sinister means or purpose. I do not plan to harm anyone in Rome this day or those after. Look before you. I could have easily killed these men if I so desired. Look at your earlier point about choice. If I intended to be an assassin, I would not have come to this underground library. My word is given.”

  “Bulldingle. A false word, no doubt,” Berrytrill snorted.

  “My word matters, at least to me, fairy,” the vampire growled.

  Silence filled the room. The eyes of Lazarus met those of Charles. The Heliwr could sense no lie in them. The purpose that drove the vampire made him all too willing to give up to gain what he required.

  “Let the archive interns go free now,” Charles said.

  “I will do that, as a gesture of good will.”

  The two young men suddenly came awake, their eyes blinking as if from a long sleep. Then terror at what had been done hit them. When the vampire nodded in their direction, the two students fled the room, the whoosh of sterile air through the closing door following after as the Swiss Guards grabbed them and escorted them away.

  “Are you a learned man, Heliwr?” Lazarus asked.

  “I’ve done my share of reading.”

  “Then this will interest you. Lead the way, priest. Or that neck will be mine and I will turn you into the very thing you despise, to spend eternity in Hell alongside me.”

  Grown paler, Cesare Farina turned and walked toward the back of the room. Charles and Berrytrill followed. Working their way around a labyrinth of shelves, the Cardinal brought them to the far side of the room where a desk older and heavier than any Charles had seen before sat pushed against a wall. Over it, a tapestry depicting Old St. Peter’s Basilica hung. Various folders and paperwork sat on the desk, the bureaucratic aspect of the Cardinal Archivist’s work for the Vatican.

  “It is here,” Lazarus whispered. “The Word. I can feel it.”

  “The desk must be moved,” the Cardinal said.

  “Then move it, priest.”

  “It takes at least seven men to—”

  Lazarus did not wait. He grabbed the corner of the desk and flung it into the interior of the room. Paper and pens went chaotically flying.

  “Open the door now!”

  Cesare Farina did not wait. He gently moved the tapestry aside and placed his aged hands on the stone of the wall. The Cardinal closed his eyes and began to whisper words i
n a language Charles did not know. Long moments passed. Then a soft white light began to expand from his fingertips, growing in intensity even as it spread outward. It glowed faintly, forming the lines of a door. Then a soundless explosion of light became a dim entryway. Lazarus entered, dragging the Cardinal Archivist with him.

  Charles gave Berrytrill a curious look before following.

  Stale air smelling of parchment met the Heliwr even as tiny orbs of bluish light blossomed in the corners of the room, magic coming alive to illuminate deep shelves lining the walls. Scrolls, parchments, and books sat upon them, carefully organized. That was not all. Power felt only in the world’s more ancient places thrummed within Charles. He shivered from the feeling, having only experienced it a few times during his travels. An entity or object of great influence existed in the confines of the room.

  “I will make this easy on you, priest,” Lazarus said, his pale skin tinged blue beneath the orbs. “You know this book. Better than anyone alive due to your position. Show me the book of John.”

  Cesare Farina pulled two cotton gloves from his pocket and put them on. He then slowly moved to one of the walls, eyes betraying the anger he felt at the situation, and carefully removed a series of loose pages from a shelf. The Cardinal took his time, unwilling to damage the ancient text, careful in every movement. He extricated one page in particular and placed it upon a metal and glass table that sat in the center of the room, designed specifically so as not to contaminate the documents.

  “Be gentle, please,” the Cardinal Archivist said, producing another set of gloves for the vampire. “If I am to make a guess, what you wish to see is halfway down the page.”

  Lazarus did not take the offered gloves. He instead carefully touched the page as a lover would his love, as if by doing so lent him an intimacy with the object. He began at the top, eyes skimming, looking for something in particular.

  Charles leaned in to look but it was in a language he did not know.

  “I cannot read it,” Berrytrill observed, hovering over it.

  “Not many can,” Cesare Farina said.

  “I have been alive a long time, fairy,” Lazarus said, still skimming. “When you have been alive as long as I have, you learn many languages that exist to eventually die. Of course, this is my native language.”

  Charles watched the vampire closely. Something still nagged at the knight. Long moments passed. Lazarus continued with his reading, almost as if he had forgotten the others in the room. The Cardinal Archivist stood nearby, his fear replaced by worry for the priceless document the vampire pored over.

  Then Lazarus stopped, his eyes doing a reread of a particular passage.

  He closed his eyes, a satisfied smile crossing his lips.

  “It is true,” Lazarus breathed. “I am set free.”

  “Set free of what?” Berrytrill asked.

  “There is much in this life that those such as yourself may never know, little fairy,” Lazarus said. “You live a finite life. As does your Heliwr there. Life holds meaning when it is short. Given a disease that robs a man of his life in a matter of years, that man will travel, see the world, eat and drink things he never would have considered before. He drinks life like a fine wine and becomes more than he was. He dies but he dies happy, knowing he has fulfilled as much of life as he possibly can.

  “That does not exist for me,” Lazarus continued. “Life steals from me even as I live forever. I am an abomination. A mistake by the Word.”

  “What do you now seek to end that mistake?” Charles questioned.

  “The weapon bathed in the blood of Jesus Christ.”

  “And what’s that?” Berrytrill asked.

  “The Holy Lance,” the Cardinal Archivist answered.

  “The priest has the right of it. The Spear of Longinus. It punctured the side of the Christ,” Lazarus said, nodding as if to validate what he had just discovered. “Whether the Word intended it or not, the spear has been endowed with power upon coming in contact with the Christ’s blood. It states it simply here while it has been omitted in all Bibles since the Church took control of its message. Just as the Cup of Christ has the power to grant life—and that particular aspect of the Word’s story has also been stripped out—the spear can undo that life. I require the spear. Nothing more. And the witch who augured its place in this world is certain it is being housed here, in the Vatican.”

  “How can you be sure the Holy Lance will kill you, Lazarus?” Charles asked.

  “There are no assurances in life, Heliwr,” the vampire admitted. “But it is one of the last options that I possess.”

  “How do I know this is not a trick to steal the relic? What assurance do we have?”

  “As I have said, you have my word.”

  “You would die—quietly and cleanly—and that is all?”

  “It is,” Lazarus said. “I only wish to die on consecrated ground. I have no designs to kill you, this Cardinal Archivist, or anyone else for that matter, in so long as I am destroyed and released from this perpetual bondage.” He paused. “But if you do not give me what I desire, I will see the entirety of Rome made vampire.”

  “You threaten Rome now?” Berrytrill asked.

  “If it prompts you to action, yes.”

  Charles stared hard at the vampire, thinking. There was desperation to the creature that could not be denied. He wanted to die. The knight had seen frantic hopelessness in people before, and Lazarus possessed it. But there was a danger in letting the creature near such a powerful relic. The Holy Lance had a storied past, filled with coronations and war, with legend recounting that whoever held it controlled the fate of humanity—for good or ill. To the knight’s memory, it had vanished centuries earlier and had never been located, its whereabouts even a secret from Merle.

  A previous Pope had obviously discovered it, authenticated it, and kept its power secreted away within the Vatican.

  And now the witch had sent Lazarus to find it.

  “If the spear is here, why did your witch not simply tell you the precise location of the spear, Lazarus?” Charles asked finally. “Surely she could have if she could divine where the Bible was located for you. Why involve the Cardinal Archivist and the book he protects at all?”

  “I wished that, Heliwr,” the vampire confessed. “But she would not share that knowledge, not for any reason I could give.”

  “Why not?”

  “In her words,” Lazarus said, disgust on his face. “Letting the wolf loose among the sheep is far more interesting.” The vampire darkened. “My coming to these Secret Archives did have a benefit though. I now know the Spear of Longinus is the best hope of ending my curse.”

  Charles weighed the dilemma. Lazarus was a formidable opponent, a creature of great power. Given the spear, he could prove insurmountable. Charles possessed the Dark Thorn and other magical abilities but were they enough to defeat the vampire if it decided to turn against him? He did not know. And given Merle’s prophetic worries earlier, Charles was even less certain of the situation’s outcome.

  “You cannot be seriously considering this, Charles Ardall!” Cardinal Farina argued, as if reading the Heliwr’s mind.

  “It is my role to consider all options,” the Heliwr said.

  “I do not have the authority!” the Cardinal erupted. “I know not where the Holy Lance is in any case!”

  “But I do.”

  Everyone in the room turned.

  With a look of absolute disapproval, Pope Urban IX stood flanked by guards at the entrance to the hidden room, Beck Almgren just behind. The pontiff was a middle-aged man, one of the youngest to come to the highest position within Catholicism, and while Charles had not met him, he knew Urban to be headstrong and rash in his beliefs and how he conducted them. The Pope looked at each of the room’s occupants, conviction burning in his eyes, before his gaze settled on Lazarus.

  Disgust fought at the corners of his mouth. “What has entered my home?”

  Charles cursed inwardly. The cap
tain had notified the Pope. And put one of the world’s most powerful men in harm’s way.

  “Your Holiness,” Cesare Farina said bowing.

  “I will see this done, Cardinal Archivist,” Pope Urban said. “I have heard enough. The creature before us is evil, an evil that brings darkness on the world. I doubt God or His Son would create such a being. Lucifer has done this in some way. But it is God’s will that has brought him here and if he wishes to be destroyed, so be it. God will pass judgment on his soul, and the world will be free of an enemy of the Word.”

  Lazarus said nothing but nodded to the Pope.

  “But my Grace,” the Cardinal Archivist began. “It is my duty to protect you. Should you be this involved? I have to say this might be a ploy, and you should leav—”

  “I will see this done. Myself,” the Pope declared. He gave Charles a look that challenged argument. “Heliwr, do you believe this abomination? Can the Spear of Destiny destroy it? Can such a one be killed in this manner?”

  “Lazarus believes it to be so,” Charles said, unsure of how the pontiff would affect the situation now that he was involved. “Cesare Farina and I both witnessed a stake enter his heart, to no avail. He lives. So I don’t know if he can be killed. But I think it likely if the Holy Lance possesses the power legend accounts.”

  “What does your wizard believe?”

  “Merle is ignorant to what has transpired in these Secret Archives.”

  Pope Urban chuckled meanly. “I doubt that.”

  “Now that you are here, this is a choice you must make,” Charles pointed out.

  “And if I hadn’t been?” Urban said, lightning in his eyes. “No, don’t answer. You are mantled in your demon wizard’s wayward wishes. God is not so easily fooled. He put me here. I will make the choice. This is not your home after all.”

  “Where is the spear?” Lazarus broke in.

  “It is safe, protected,” the Pope said, eyes narrowing upon the vampire. “I will retrieve it. But first, creature of Hell, you will remove yourself from these archives. I will not tolerate your taint here, among such importance.” Urban turned to his Cardinal Archivist. “Cesare Farina, return the parchment page to its safe placement, please, and close the room.”