The Awakening of the Gods (Forgotten Ones)

by M. H. Hawkins

  The old man finally let go of the barmaid’s hand, and she forced a smile and tried to maintain her composure, trying to restrain herself from wiping off her hand—to get rid of the dirt and sweat left by the creepy old man. “Thank you, sir.” She forced out the words and tried to act normal. But the old man had made her understandably uncomfortable, and her shaky voice showed it. “I… I’ll… I’ll be back, as soon as I can.” She tucked the coins into a sagging pocket on her left and smiled at the centurion.

  She was about to leave, trying to leave, but was interrupted again.

  “Oh,” the old man called out, “wait.” He held out another handful of coins, mostly silver but some gold. “Here. We need more roasted goat, when you get a moment, of course—for us and the rest of the patrons. Whatever coin is left, use for some flagons of wine, one per table, or as many as can be purchased, and keep the rest. For those… for that beautiful smile of yours.” He winced at her.

  The woman eyed the coins in her palm, completely shocked, then thanked the old man with exuberance; bubbly, smiling, and bowing repeatedly. “Thank you. Thank you so much, sir. And I’ll get that ale for you too, right away. And again-again, many thanks, sir.” And she bowed again and left.

  Dirty old man or not, his generosity was appreciated and much needed. Since Vesuvius erupted, Misenum had become an almost-ghost-town covered in volcanic ash and filled with poverty. A town buried in ash, reserved for lost souls… a town for those too poor and too frightened to leave and face the world. And the barmaid was stuck there.

  With more than a hint of lust in his eyes, the old man watched the bar wench leave while, out of the corner of his eye, he watched as the centurion continued averting his eyes from the beautiful woman.

  “Cute girl,” the old man said. “Low-bred… but cute.”

  The centurion was notably uncomfortable and tried to change the subject. “Yes, I suppose—so what is this strange tale you heard, tell me about it—and I don’t even want to know how you came across such wealth.”

  The old man sniggered. No, no, you do not. Dead men don’t need silver, or gold, for that matter, he thought, again grinning with that wicked grin of his. “Yes,” the old man said, scratching his beard. “Yes, my tale. Well, supposedly, Mount Vesuvius was a mountain of secrets—many secrets. Secrets from ancient times, from before men became civilized. And supposedly, the mountain held a great mirror of blackened glass—from the underworld, supposedly. And the mountain held many other secrets as well. Statues of glass—of forgotten gods. Creatures—monsters—frozen in time, frozen in glass and crusted with rubies and lapis and amethysts and everything else, supposedly—but the mirror… Supposedly the mirror is as tall as the colosseum, and curved—like a crescent moon. And now, this mirror, it lied deep within Vesuvius, beneath it, below the open floors of glass statues and the isles of frozen monsters. And the mirror—this mirror—is perfect. Made of a single, tempered sheet of curved black glass; the mirror was like a wall of polished onyx—flawless and as black as a starless night. And supposedly, it had the ability of telling you the truth, showing you what the world truly is—and what it was. And supposedly, throughout the ages, a few mortals have actually found and looked upon this mirror, this Black Mirror of Truth. And they saw it, the truth… and then they went mad.

  “Spartacus, the slave who led the uprising of the slaves—when was that? A century, a century-and-a-half ago? Anyways, he supposedly looked upon the mirror. After escaping from his Roman capturers, Spartacus and the other escaped slaves retreated to Mount Vesuvius and regrouped. Supposedly, Spartacus came across a nook, a crevice, in the mountain, and he entered it, the mountain. And then, that was it. And he was gone for three days—three days—inside the mountain before he finally reappeared.

  And all the while, his men were waiting for him, searching for their fearless leader—for three days. And they couldn’t find him. So, after three days searching, and with their food running out, Spartacus’s men made a hard decision… they decided to leave him, to disband… every escaped slave for himself. Who could blame them? They had to. They had no food, no water, no shelter. They had no choice but to leave. But… just then, just when they were about to descend the mountain, Spartacus reappears. Descending out of Vesuvius, they say that Spartacus looked like a god—taller than before, he was now-covered in chiseled muscles. Deep scars, like slashes, covered his back—but those he never spoke of. But Spartacus was a new man. He had suddenly acquired a golden gauntlet—that covered his left arm from his hand to his shoulder, and in his right hand, he was now holding an oversized gladius (a sword) made of polished black-steel.” The old man sighed and shook his head. Studying the table, he took a sip of his drink. “But you know, that’s the story.”

  “Then what happened?” asked the centurion.

  The old man gulped down another mouthful of his ale and hurried to set down his cup, excited that the centurion was still interested in his stories. “Oh, what happened? Well, when Spartacus emerged, he settled his men, and having looked upon the mirror, he had a new fire in his eyes, and a renewed vigor, and a new purpose. So he took his men to the side, settled them down, extinguished their worries, and then he tells them that Romans are coming to Vesuvius, to surround them and slaughter them. And though Spartacus could not possible have known that, it was true nonetheless. After that, every Roman knows the story of how Spartacus escaped Vesuvius.”

  “Of course,” chimed in the centurion. “They gathered up bundles of vines and made ropes, and then they scaled down the side of the mountain. Everyone knows that. Then his rebellion continued… until he was killed.”

  “Yes,” said the old man, excited. “Yes, exactly, until he was killed. But what Spartacus saw… what he saw in the mirror, he kept to himself, mostly. In truth, he only told his closest confidants what it was that he saw in the mirror.”

  “What did he see?” the centurion asked, captivated with the old man’s odd tale, a story he had never heard before.

  “The Truth. Spartacus saw the truth—his truth.” The old man shrugged. “He saw the Roman Empire for what it was, how he saw it… as the monster that it was. Staring into the mirror, he saw the ranks of red and purple Roman soldiers melt into a herd of wild, ravenous beasts, monsters that would consume the world. He saw the senators as white-fanged demons gnashing at the populace of Rome and at each other. And after that, after looking into the mirror, Spartacus’s uprising became less about escaping Roman law and more about what he saw. Spartacus became obsessed with it—obsessed with what he saw in the mirror—and obsessed with what he had to do.”

  “And what was that? What did he have to do?”

  “Destroy Rome. He had to destroy the empire of monsters, to burn it to the ground, before the Romans condemned the world to the whims of cruel tyrants and monsters… all while they hid behind their false veils of purity and the illusion of democracy.” The old man paused and let his answer linger before continuing. “And then, years later, supposedly, Emperor Nero looked upon the mirror… and he saw the truth. He saw the death of Rome. He saw his own death. He saw the Roman gods dying, with Jupiter and Neptune and all the other gods drowning in a sea of fire—a lake of fire, actually, according to the stories. That wasn’t all.” The old man was now telling his story with increased vigor and was jabbing his finger at the wooden table to accentuate each of his points. “The stories say that Nero saw the Judean God. And this God, the Judean God, consume the old gods. And then Nero saw him split into three separate gods—all the same yet different—and spread across the world and further still. Supposedly. Then, of course, Nero went mad—poisoning his rivals, supposedly killing his wife then remarrying a different woman—a married woman nonetheless. But of course, he had to have that woman’s husband killed first, of course. So Nero did what he had to do. He had the husband kill himself… Oh! And by then, by the time that happens, Nero had truly lost his mind. Nero goes out and walks the streets of Rome, and he sees a man—a man that he likes, a man that h
e wants… so he has him seized. And then, he has the man… Oh, what was his name again?” The old man tapped the table and tried to remember. “Sporus!” he said, with a burst of energy and a rising finger. “Yes! Sporus, that’s it. Sporus was his name. So Nero goes out and has this Sporus turned into a damned eunuch—so that he can marry him. And then, just to make matters even worse, even stranger, Nero goes about to calling the man, the eunuch, by his dead wife’s name. Sabina. Sabina was her name.” The old man took a well-deserved drink of his ale. “And then, of course, Nero goes and over-expands the Empire, expanding into Britannia while twisting the Judean tribes until they’ve reached the point of bitter hatred.”

  The old man chuckled. “And since we seem to share a mutual interest in Judean text, I have no problem telling you that they have already began writing stories about our old, dead Emperor Nero. The Beast, they call him. The Antichrist. They whisper his name, labeling it with a number—a mark, they call it.” The old man sighed then grinned.

  “Still,” the old man huffed and held up a silver coin. “Despite all the atrocities that Nero committed, he did lower the weight of the denarius. This. This used to be made completely out of silver, almost entirely made of silver. But now, now it’s only about nine-tenth silver, smelted and diluted with pewter. And it may not seem like a big deal, but by devaluing the currency, Nero was able to stimulate the Roman economy, at a time when it needed it the most—after the great fire, fifteen-sixteen years back. Though he could have done more—economically speaking at least, his efforts did invigorate the Roman economy sufficiently enough for the empire to rebuild, and it gave Rome something it needed badly, something it needed more than soldiers, more than loyalty. It gave the empire time, so that it could endure.”

  “Strange.” The old man examined the silver coin and the crude imprint of Nero still embedded on one side of it. “So strange that such a small thing, a crudely-stamped piece of metal, can wield such power, the same power of a sharpened blade or a sharpened tongue. Silver… too much and people become locusts. Too little, they become savage berserkers. And between those two extremes lies the Roman Empire.”

  The centurion huffed. “The glory of Rome hinging not on ideas, nor justice, nor unity… but contingent upon the strength of millions of tiny silver coins.”

  “Yes,” said the old man, “quite strange. Still… an empire with a stagnant economy is no empire at all. Just ask the Greeks—and the Persians. Yet, somehow… Nero knew that a strong economy is as essential to life as air and blood.”

  “Nero,” the old man snorted. “Nero, the monster that saved the Roman Empire… only to send it down the path of tyranny and become an even bigger monster himself.” Glancing up at the centurion, the old man shrugged and put away his silver coin. “The irony.”

  Though the last part was bit confusing, the centurion was able to follow most of what the old man was saying. Strangely enough, the longer the old man spoke, the more energized he seemed to become. The more twisted the subject matter, the more the old man’s eyes twinkled.

  “Oh!” The old man waved an excited finger in the air again. “And you know Mount Olympus, home of the old Greek gods? You know that when the Greeks saw lightning shoot from the sky they thought that it came from Zeus. But those in the Far East, when they saw Mount Olympus, they saw something different, something very different. They saw—they reported—stories about storm dragons.”

  “Storm dragons?”

  “Yes,” said the old man. “Storm dragons. Two dragons that ruled the sky, hiding above the heavy, gray clouds filled with rain and lightning. Covered in large black scales, they were said to have caged-lightning for eyes… And in the stories, they say that they—these storm dragons—were quite the marvelous beasts. They were only stories, but they say that Mount Olympus was not home to the gods, but instead, it was home to two storm dragons. One male, one female. Supposedly a long time ago, the storm dragons dwelled atop Mount Olympus, and they were content there… for a while. Then the great flood came, the one from all the legends. After that, they say the male storm dragon grew sad and depressed—sad about the death of humanity, sorrowful about the cruelty of the gods. And he died from sadness.”

  “And the female?”

  “The female?” The old man chuckled, happy and surprised that the centurion was still interested in his stories. “Her story is… her story is complicated—longer, with a sadder ending—but first you need to know about the male’s story.” The old man paused, looking at the centurion, waiting for permission to continue.

  The centurion laughed. “You have intrigued me. Go on, old man.” Then he waved his hand in the air, trying to get the barmaid’s attention. “More wine, more ale for my friend, when you get a moment—but quickly.” Again the barmaid happily engaged the centurion, but he again averted her eyes and her interest. “Go on, my friend.”

  “Yes, yes… So… the storm dragons, yes. So the waters from the great flood had ceased falling from the heavens, but they were still high. And that was when the great storm dragon grew sad. He’d seen so much—so much death, so much destruction. Eventually he just couldn’t take it anymore. It all became too much for him to handle, too much for his heart. And so, as his despair grew, the weather grew wild, reckless, reflecting his pain. As his sadness grew, and the storm dragon grew increasingly solemn, and the weather grew angrier. Soon, with each crack of thunder, he howled in pain while lightning shot out of its mouth, exploding into the flood waters. And supposedly, his wailing was so loud that it rattled the ears of the few surviving mortals that were spread across the world. And supposedly, the lightning storms had become so violent that—despite the earth being covered in water—the golden bolts of lightning—the ones that had grown in his belly and exploded out of his mouth—drilled through the flood waters and cracked open the earth beneath it, carving massive cracks across the entire world.

  “And for… forty-fifty days, the storm dragon wailed. And as much as she tried, his paramour could not calm him. So while he wailed in pain, she wept sheets of rain—tears—that rained down on the world, raising the floor waters even more.”

  The old man sighed. “Eventually the flood waters subsided, and they came home, back to Mount Olympus, and he finally died. And the lightning… they say that the lightning is the storm dragon’s soul…. His soul reaching down from the heavens and shedding light down on the world when it needs it the most, when the nights are the darkest, to remind the world of its sorrow, and of the cruelty of the gods, and corruption of man… or so they say.”

  “And the female?” asked the centurion.

  “The female?” the old man said absently, his eyes drifting around the busy tavern. “Oh, the female, the female storm dragon. Yes. Supposedly she flew across the world, to the ends of it. And the lightning flickered from her eyes and from beneath her pitch-black scales and from beneath her massive, leathery wings that were cloaked in clouds that were black as ink. She soared across the sky and over the ocean, but she could never fly far enough from the pain. Still she tried, fleeing from the pain of her deceased mate, as far as she could. Eventually she couldn’t fly any more. And then, exhausted and with nothing to live for, she came crashing down from the heavens. And legend has it that she crashed into a lake, some body of water, on some foreign land near the edge of the world. And there… there is where her soul is buried, where it resides, hibernating within the lake… waiting to be awakened… to end the savagery that ruined her mate, the savagery that ruined the world.”

  The centurion nodded sadly before letting out a blusterous laugh. “A fantastical story, old man. Sad and fantastical. You are quite the storyteller.”

  “Such a compliment. Thank you. And I have many…” The old man’s words faded out as he noticed something odd. The tavern had quieted and was almost a complete silence. So engaged in the conversation, both men had hardly noticed that their loud surroundings had simmered to a whisper. And as the tavern patrons grew eerily quiet—even more so, the sense of
paranoia filled the air, becoming as thick as the smell of charred goat that currently filled it.

  Soon the sound of sizzling, roasting goat was the only noise stirring within the tavern, and the tavern’s patrons were all staring at the same thing, fixated on the same exact thing, a doorway.

  Standing beneath a wooden doorframe and in front of the hanging sheet—used to keep out the residual ash from Vesuvius’s eruption, there was a man. The hood of his cloak covered his face in crimson-lined shadows while the rest of his cloak whipped around his waist and shins in waves of shimmering black sheen. The cloak was clasped to his armored shoulders, attached to the same emblem that was embroidered across his chestplate—a carefully carved dragon heads. Made of pure, polished gold, its eyes were encrusted with carefully cut rubies. The man’s elegant, glossy cloak did little to hide his armor and, in fact, made him look even more imposing.

  From head to toe, the man was strangely free of ash. The hood of his cloak shifted as the bottom of it settled, its crimson underside folding under its own black sheen of drapery.

  The mysterious man took a moment to study the room, and the hood of his cloak shifted back and forth. From the tavern lighting, from beneath the man’s hood, his shadow-painted eyes almost seemed to sparkle, like glowing sapphires. The man brushed his elegant, swaying cloak aside, effectively revealing more of his armor. Blood-red and trimmed in midnight-black—the colors of onyx and polished apples, it was thick and glinting from the flickering flames of the tavern’s fireplace and the nearby candles. The notched plates of armor—the plates that covered his elbows, knees, and parts of his gauntlets—were golden and flawless beyond believe. On his left hip, a white and gold engraved scabbard rested. Holding a long sword that, from the cut of the hilt, was as elegant as the rest of him.