by Joni Green
The bishop belched loudly. He rubbed his large stomach.
Perdix’s stomach growled. It had been many hours since he’d eaten the small piece of black bread and honey.
As Perdix finished loosening the last bit of rag from the body, he whistled softly.
“Look, Fye. The body is bones but the face is . . .”
“The face,” Fye said, “looks like it was never in the ground. And he is as handsome as I remember. Such a face was sculpted by the gods, Perdix. I feel like jumping his bones and riding in joy to the moon.”
“Do not even think such things, Fye. Tis a black omen,” whispered Perdix.
“You are right. Forgive me,” she said. “But you have to admit, he is beautiful even in death.”
“If you two magpies are finished, I would like to get this over with.”
The bishop had opened the Book of Spells and began reciting in Latin over the body. He refused to look at it, reading as quickly as he could to finish the spell.
“You must have paid him a pretty penny, Perdix,” Fye whispered. “Dyryke was buried in secret. No one knew the chalice was buried with him.”
“Aye. Between the two of you, I will die a pauper.”
Fye held no store in the robed man’s words. He was flabby and soft and obviously deaf to the wisdom of the Ancients. But never in a million sunsets could she have imagined what would happen next.
Chapter 8
It Is Finished
O Unsuspecting Prey,
You think that walls protect you.
I come to you in dreams to feast.
Insensible fools, Insensible fools, lost in oblivion.
You sleep.
*****
“Do you hear that Perdix?” the old witch whispered.
“I do. It is the cries of the Damned.”
“What’s he doing? Are you sure he’s reading right spell?” she asked.
“How would I know, Fye. He’s a learned man. I know many things, but I don’t know Latin.”
“Scite,” said Fye. “The fat fool will have the whole graveyard up and walking on our heads. We only want the one. Not the hoards. Do something, Perdix. Do it quickly. The bewitching hour is soon over. This is our only chance. The Ancients have told me so in a dream.”
Perdix looked left and right. It seemed the whole cemetery was about to awaken. The earth covering the bodies in the cemetery glowed red like a hot fire from the center of the earth had been stoked beneath the sod where each one lay in repose.
The bishop was racing through the spell.
“No! No! No!” Perdix screamed, plowing into the holy man and knocking the book from his hands.
Fye quickly swiped it up and hid it in the innumerable layers of rags she wore.
The bishop was sitting on his ample bottom, red-faced, and sputtering curses at Perdix.
“Are you mad?” he asked.
“Look around you, my Lord,” Perdix said.
The bishop cut his beady eyes across the graveyard.
“By God’s Grail. They are all stirring.”
“Gabriel’s horn could not do better,” said Perdix.
“I’m getting out of here,” said the bishop.
His sausage fingers grabbed the jeweled chalice he had dropped on the ground.
“I’ll take this with me,” he said, hugging the precious cup. “We’ll call your debt paid.”
“But you can’t leave now,” said Perdix. “The one we want still sleeps.”
“Let him sleep with the Dead forever.”
The chapel bell began to toll.
The bishop looked toward the lonesome sound.
“Stay here if you want, you fools. I don’t know why I ever let you talk me into this. You and your dirty little friend can kill yourselves out here if you like. As for me, I’d rather wake up safe and sound in my own bed than be found staked in this graveyard of purgatory.”
“But . . .” said Perdix.
“But nothing.”
The bishop disappeared into the blackness.
“What do we do now?” Perdix said. “Fye, what are you doing?”
Fye busied herself, cutting some of the silky black hair from the dead man’s head and burning it in the fire. She took off her the rags and the coarse tunic she wore against her body. She bent down on her knees and scraped some dirt from the grave, smearing it on the eyes and mouth and chin and forehead of the corpse.
Naked, she picked up the bishop’s book and held it high over her head. She walked around the grave seven times. Spitting in the fire pit, she lowered the book and lay on the ground, placing the sacred text on top of her face.
“When it is still and balanced atop,” she said, “take a hot coal from the fire and put it in the center of the book.”
“Fye,” he began.
“Do as I say, Perdix. That fat man is right. Time is running out.”
She reclined on her back. Her palms were facing skyward. Perdix found a stick and wedged a flat stone in the ‘Y’ of the branch. He reached into the glowing embers at the edge of the pit. Retrieving a hot coal, he placed it in the center of the book. It burned a small black hole clean through. He saw Fye’s palms clench into fists.
Just at the instant he was sure he’d killed his friend, she grabbed the book from her face and tossed it aside. Scrambling up, she smiled. A large circular black stain of charcoal marked the center of her forehead.
“I have what we need to know, dear friend, right here,” she said, pointing to her forehead. “We must hurry before the magic escapes us.”
Fye knelt down on her knees beside the bones. Solemnly, she began to intone a different spell in Latin. The air around her became electric. Perdix watched as the graves around them ceased to glow.
Rings from heaven shot down from the stars and encircled her. They pulsed and vibrated and gave off eerie sounds. Perdix cupped his ears.
Fye began to sway. Her eyes were white orbs in their sockets. Her head tilted up, and she faced the low, full moon.
A ray of silver light shot down from the celestial orb into the ancient burial ground. It lit the bones of Dyryke. They rattled. Perdix heard their noises. The neck of the dead man buckled, and the lips of the corpse opened wide in a hideous silent scream.
The ground about the bones began to smoke. Grass and vines and all sorts of green plants sprung up from the blackened earth. They wove a cocoon around the corpse from head to toe. Perdix felt his breath involuntarily fill his chest. He gasped.
The full moon moaned above their heads. The plants withered and died before his eyes. Perdix heard sounds like steps on dried leaves as they fell away.
The bones were bones no longer. It was a body, full of flesh, and the jet black hair on Dyryke’s head glistened beside the glowing fire.
Fye finished the spell and collapsed into a heap of dirty rags that lay on the ground. A black cloud swept across the lower half of the moon. A blast of frigid air drove through the gravestones, whistling and whirring.
He heard the crow caw. The owl screeched. Swooping down from the black night’s sky, a gigantic bat flapped right by Perdix’s head and landed on the ground atop Dyryke’s still body. Perdix watched in horror as the creature covered itself with one gauzy wing, transforming into a vampire.
The vampire turned back, looking Perdix squarely in the eyes, smiled, and swooped toward Fye. He threw her down on the ground and bit her in the neck. She screamed and fought to no avail. Before Perdix could move, the vampire disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Perdix yelled to Fye and moved toward her, but the witch was too quick. In a flash, she dashed toward the body and disappeared inside his opened mouth and down his throat.
“Fye! Fye! What have I done?”
Chapter 9
Black Mourning Dove
Black. the mourning dove.
Coos at end of day.
Black dove of mourning.
After Death has had its say.
*****
Perdix heard the ai
r sweep into the dead man’s lungs.
The Breath of Life.
But was it all at Fye’s expense?
The alchemist was frantic. Fye had been a friend for many years. He sank to his knees and bowed his head against his chest.
“Afterling, do you know that weaklings are the one thing I despise?”
Perdix looked up into the glowing eyes of Dyryke. Did they burn with madness or an evil so depraved that demons cowered before him?
“Your Grace,” Perdix said softly.
“What is it that you want from me?” the towering man asked. But Dyryke’s long slender hand stayed the alchemist before he said one word. “Do not trouble yourself to say it aloud. I already know. It is written on your face and carved into your heart.”
Perdix heard a mirthless, throaty laugh.
“You have your wish,” Dyryke said. “I will make it so. Your beloved Princess will prevail. Go back to your beakers, your experiments, and your workbench. Leave it all to me. I pity you. Your time on earth is short. Leave me. I have no use for you.”
Perdix turned to go, but not before he heard a loud whoosh and felt the hot breath of the black mourning dove as it flew close by, barely missing his head by inches.
Chapter 10
Too Much Is Not Enough
It is a wretched night.
The ghouls, they go a’howling.
It is a wretched time
When Ichor goes a’prowling.
*****
I hear the maids outside my door.
Gilia. Gilia. Just go away and leave me in peace.
How sluggish I feel today.
So unlike myself.
It’s as if the wind has been sucked from my lungs.
My energy wanes.
I must sleep.
Was I out all night?
How quickly the purple shades of evening recede into the roses, pinks, and oranges of the new day.
I lick my lips.
The taste of blood is sweet upon them.
Dyryke promises that with time I will grow stronger. Stronger, perhaps, than even he. It is possible, he says. But we will have to wait and see.
Dyryke says I must go through with this wedding. I must, he says, for the good of Megara.
But we will wait and see.
I think of the people who live around my father’s castle. For all my life, I have looked down on all but a few. They are animals. Savages. Brutes. Dirty peasants. Horrible gruntlings. Trolls, the lot of them.
But more and more, I find my attitudes are changing. No, they are not quite so repulsive. Not so very much.
My mind recalls their dirty faces, their grimy hands, the filthy rags they wear as clothing, and a warm glow blooms inside my bosom.
A very warm glow.
So many of them.
My people.
Full of Life.
Going about their daily tasks, unaware that they haunt my waking hours.
Dirty faces. Grimy hands. Filthy rags. The squalid little rats they call their children.
The infinity of endless nights ahead.
I sigh.
So much blood.
Chapter 11
The Heart Once Stopped
The days and nights of wanderlust.
The nights and days.
Unhallowed thirst.
*****
“I hold the Trinity in my hands,” Perdix mumbled.
The alchemist was at his workbench.
“Trio of Universal Wisdom and Light.
Mercury. Sulfur. Salt.
You are here before me. Why in Jupiter’s realm can I not see the answer?”
He’d ransacked Fye’s house and found the sacred scroll.
Dry drops of ox blood o’er a dying fire.
Fill a quill and blow into the wind.
The heart once stopped
Will quiver faint and beat again.
It had to be here. Somewhere. He kept looking over the ancient text.
His eyes were bloodshot. His head pounded. How many days had it been since he’d lain down and slept?
He did not know.
The muscles in his back burned like hot irons had been dropped inside his tunic. The candle burned low in the stand. The wind wailed outside. A storm was coming up. He glanced around to the tiny window at his back.
The shadows of dusk were fast approaching.
Something touched his foot.
A rat, he thought. He kept reading.
It tapped his shoe again.
Again.
Harder this time.
“Fadoodle. You rodents must go somewhere else to play your games. Can’t you see I have so much work to do?”
The nudge was even harder.
Peering under the table, Perdix saw no animals. Only the Book of Spells lay at his feet. He had brought it back to his chambers.
But he’d had no use for it. Unlike Fye, his knowledge was hard-earned and self-taught. He had no direct line to the Ancients.
“I wonder how she talked to them,” he muttered.
He put the book on the table alongside the scroll. The black hole in the center of the bishop’s book gave off a smoky smell. Like Fye. She smelled of many things, including smoke.
“Oh, Fye. Had I not insisted. Had I not asked for your assistance. You were right. You were right. I was a foolish old man in love with her and the idea of saving her. I am a foolish, old man. A foolish, old man. Forgive me, Fye. Forgive. It is all my fault. My fault.”
The scarred work table began to shake. The workbench tumbled backward, and Perdix fell on his back to the floor. He got on his knees, grabbed the table’s edge, and peeked up over it.
The charred circle in the center of the Book of Spells glowed red like an ember. An acrid curl of yellowish-green smoke rose to the ceiling. There was an audible whooshing noise and a blue flame popped out of the center of the black hole, burning hot and bright like a beacon.
How strange, Perdix thought. The center burns hot, and yet the book itself is not engulfed and turned to ashes.
He gingerly touched a corner of the book. It was icy cold.
“I must get the bishop. I must,” he muttered.
Turning to leave the room, he stopped in his tracks.
The bishop would do no good. He’d screwed up the spell that night in the graveyard. On purpose? An accident? Perdix shook his head to clear his thoughts. He did not know. What must he do?
“Oh, Fye,” he yelled. “If I only had you here to guide me and steer me toward a true answer.”
Yes! That’s it.
He whipped around and grabbed the book, prostrated himself on the floor and placed it on his face. His fingers curled into two tight fists. His knuckles were white. The long, dirty fingernails gored his palms, and blood from his hands streamed onto the stone floor.
When he awoke, it was morning. A blackbird hopped on the windowsill. In his beak, he held a long white feather. Perdix groaned and rolled over on his side. The Book of Spells fell beside him. Sunrays lit the dust motes, and for an instant, the old man watched them dance reels before his eyes.
The blackbird moved to the edge of the sill. Its beak positioned inside the room, it dropped the feather, and Perdix watched it float to the floor beside him.
“Give me strength,” he said.
As he stood to his feet, he felt the pricks of a thousand white feather quills drag across the lining of his stomach wall.
Chapter 12
Child’s Play
To feast.
A glutton.
Gore smeared on my face.
To feel this life force vital in my veins.
A wicked paradise, indeed.
I wish to never, ever leave.
*****
It should have been child’s play, Perdix thought. He’d copied Fye’s method, and it should have worked. He even had the charcoal tattoo on his forehead to prove it.
But something was not right.
He gathered the herbs from his shelf, g
rabbed a frog’s head from the bowl of dried animal parts, added and poured, chanted and intoned. The gooey mixture over the flame sizzled and turned into a light gray scaly lump.
Perdix threw the mess out the small window behind his back.
It was time to start over.
“What am I missing? What in Mercury’s heaven am I leaving out?” he muttered.
Wiping the bowl clean with his sleeve, Perdix decided he needed some fresh air. It was time to go hunting, and he gathered his walking stick and a small leather bag.
He walked through the castle gate, speaking to no one. Nobody noticed the frail, bent man. They were all busy with chores or gossiping.
Perdix did not have to travel far.
Just outside the castle walls were a stream and a meadow. Several cows grazed on the emerald grass. Perdix retrieved a scraper from his leather pouch.
It had rained recently. The ground was soft.
“Ahh,” he said, spying the mushrooms growing in and around the cow dung. “Perfect.”
He filled his bag with many specimens and hurried back to his workbench inside the castle walls.
Chapter 13
The Blood Plague
An orgy of blood.
Tis too divine to contemplate.
*****
“I am busy. Go away.”
The knocks on his door persisted.
“Please, Master. Please. It is Xhahari. Terrible things are happening in the village.”
“Come in. My door is always open to you.”
Xhahari was the seventh son of the king’s sister. The boy, a favorite of Perdix, was smart and eager to learn, and unlike Urien, Xhahari’s cousin on the King’s side, humble to a fault.
When he entered the alchemist’s room, he stopped.
“What?” Perdix asked. “What is so important that you interrupt my work?”
“Is something wrong, Master? You do not look well.”
“Forget that,” said the old alchemist. “Why do you bother me?”
“I finished my studies early,” said the youth.
“And why is that unusual? You are always twenty-five steps ahead of your teachers.”