by Josh Shiben
Dreams of Eschaton
Copyright © 2015 by Josh Shiben
All rights reserved
Even that one you’re thinking of right now
Special thanks to my beautiful wife Erin for encouraging me to dream, and to the legion of friends and family whose support (and tireless reviews) made this endeavor possible. Special thanks to Ellen for her amazing illustrations and Ryan for helping me put the whole beast together.
Prologue
The Fall of the Weders
It was midmorning and Heinrich was drunk. He’d somehow maintained a state of continuous activity for the past two nights, expertly wavering between drunken exhaustion and reckless excitement, but now he worried he may have reached the end of his reserves of energy. As the sacking seemed to be winding down, he decided the best course of action would be to keep drinking and delay the hangover as long as possible – he knew he could force himself to be alert a few more hours, and it wouldn’t do to be sick quite yet. A woman was sobbing quietly somewhere in the large room, but he ignored her and took another gulp of wine from the holy vessels. The women were always sobbing now - the air was filled by an almost constant chorus of wails. He had gotten used to the sound, the way one might get used to life beside a river or a heavily traveled road, and he briefly wondered if he would miss the background noise when he traveled home; if the stillness of the night would trouble him. Pushing the thought from his mind, he eased his large body from the smooth floors of the domed temple, making a note to compliment the next living priest he found on the quality of the Greek wine.
He wobbled unsteadily on his feet for a moment before aimlessly setting out in a direction that took him near the center of the ruined temple. Smashed sculptures and shredded books littered the floor, making his steps crackle and pop in a way that childishly delighted the massive man. As he moved across the central chamber of the enormous structure, he stepped over a body lying face down in a pool of dried blood. Torn robes of a priest marked the corpse as an Orthodox cleric, and a large gash exposed a section of the ribcage, where a crusader’s blade had plunged into the man’s back. Had he been fleeing? Pleading for mercy? It didn’t matter – they hadn’t traveled all the way to Byzantium to make peace. Heinrich grimaced, noticing the telltale bloat of decay beginning to settle into the body – someone would have to move these remains soon or they would start to smell. The fact was likely true for corpses all across the city.
Heinrich drew in a breath, his barrel-like lungs sucking deeply at the air. It tasted like garbage, but underneath the stench he could detect smoke and ash, with just a hint of the metallic odor of blood to it. Underneath that, he noticed that he could even still pick out the multitude of spices that had given the city its exotic scent he had first noticed upon arriving. The invader thought of smells layering upon of one another like cities built atop ruins. Spices and commerce had given way to violence and death, which in turn was succumbing to decay. He finished his drink in another large gulp and threw the vessel into the pile of garbage they had created next to the patriarchal throne.
Clémence was still awake there, lounging on the throne while loudly singing something in French. One or two of the French soldiers were still awake, and they sat near her feet singing along. Heinrich didn’t speak the language, but felt confident based on her accompanying gestures that he could guess at the translations. The woman had followed the crusaders all the way from Venice, and he wondered if there were acts in any of her songs he hadn’t seen by now. Von Krosigk sometimes frowned on whores, but Clémence was worth the man’s disdain. He’d miss her when it was time to go home.
Heinrich realized he had to piss, and aimed for the gash in the corpse’s back. He wondered how much was actually making it in, imagining the cleric’s body inflating like a swollen bladder full of stinking urine and rot, ready to burst when some Greek bastard tried to move it. He chuckled to himself as he finished up, and then staggered into a back room to look for something to defile – it was becoming harder and harder to locate anything unspoiled in the once proud city. The few tapestries and paintings hadn’t been smashed and torn apart now sat in the soldiers’ private stashes. The bare walls of the formerly glorious room spoke to the crusaders’ thoroughness.
The back room was small, bare and largely uninteresting - little more than an alcove tucked behind the throne room. It appeared as though the room had once been used for storage, although it sat empty now. Bored and tired, Heinrich absentmindedly stumbled through the room and leaned against a small stone shelf jutting from the wall. The shelf had once held a marble bust of some Byzantine great, but that had been smashed days ago. Now it was simply a convenient thing to lean against, and Heinrich was growing weary.
He felt the wall give a little. Not much, but enough to know that the wall was not what it seemed. Puzzled, Heinrich examined the structure for a better purchase, and finding none, he returned to his previous ledge. He grunted, leaning on the lever harder, and felt the wall give another inch. The brute strained against the ledge, pressing all of his weight into the wall, almost stumbling when it silently slid away on a hidden inward track. He found himself standing at an opening in the church into a secret mausoleum. The black entrance yawned at him, silent aside from the faint echo of dripping water. Heinrich drew his short sword and cautiously stepped through the newfound opening and into the darkness before him.
The door opened to a stone tunnel leading downward for some distance, apparently to an underground chamber or cavern. The air was cool, but carried with it a dank, stale scent from the bowels of the Earth. There were no breaks in the roughly hewn stones to his sides to allow any natural light to penetrate the walls; Heinrich strained his eyes, and even then could only see the faintest of glows coming from the end of the walkway. No decorations adorned the walls, only the harsh cyclopean stones – a stark contrast from the opulence of the church above. Curious, Heinrich lurched down the narrow passageway, carefully keeping his hand on the damp stone wall for balance in the dark.
When he finally reached the end of the tunnel, Heinrich found a large, dimly lit chamber, dominated by an elaborate shrine. Formed by equal parts rock and bone, it jutted from the floor like a skeletal hand from the grave. Tatters that were once yellow banners hung from the ceiling with a strange, incomprehensible language written upon it. In the center of the shrine rested a jet black statue, engraved with bizarre hieroglyphics, and a large, heavy tome. The book was bound in thick, ancient leather, worn smooth with time. Gold and silver arcs and spirals were inlaid along the spine, giving the thing an air of magnificence and grandeur in the otherwise bare chamber. He opened the text and leafed through, and pleased to find it dominated by pictures, tucked it and the strange statue into his satchel. Heinrich Weder would not leave Constantinople empty handed.