by Gwynn White
“Incoming!” a shout came from behind. She looked back, and to her horror, it was not arrows or even ballista raining down on the city of Kaffa. It was the corpses of the Tatar-Mongols. Dozens fell all around her, hurled against the stones of the streets and the houses, limbs torn to pieces, heads rolling away from their bodies.
One corpse fell at Petra’s feet. He was just a boy, no more than fifteen or sixteen, and yet he wore the uniform of a soldier. At impact, his body, swollen and lumpy from the ravages of the disease, burst open, his blood splattering the length of her skirt. She didn’t even know she was screaming until a man nearby shouted at her to quiet down.
Petra fled deeper into the city, her own footsteps echoing across the dead and smoky landscape as she fled into the maze, hoping to outrun her fear that she would never make it out of Kaffa alive.
As Petra neared the main gate to the citadel, she noticed it lay open, which surprised her until she realized a caravan of death carts had just been driven through. She saw the last of them heading off to another section of the outer city. She slipped through the gate without anyone noticing. There were few people here. Those that were lay scattered along the street, either dead or nearing death. She asked a Genoese woman sitting on a stoop singing a quiet song to herself whether she knew where to find the Immortal. At first the woman did not acknowledge Petra. She was sniffing at the metal pomander around her neck as she shook it. The tiny iron ball smelled strongly of the cinnamon and clove encaged inside. It was no wonder; the woman was surrounded by the putrid bodies of the dead and dying.
“Please, Signora,” Petra asked again. “I need to find this man. It is a matter of life and death.”
“Immortal death you seek…?” She looked confused for a moment, rubbing her tongue across her bare gums where her teeth should have been. “You find in cathedral,” she replied in halting speech, waving her hand in the direction of a massive building with a high steeple that appeared unmarred by damage or fire. She didn’t think the woman had understood her, but the church seemed a beacon to her in this sea of misery. She found herself heading toward it, unsure what she might find.
When Petra finally wound through the even narrower streets near the church, she noticed a mass of people sitting in the piazza surrounding the limestone building. Some were wailing with their faces to the sky. Others knelt in the mud, eyes closed, fists clenched in prayer.
She hadn’t stepped foot inside a church for many years. While she might not fear the God of the Catholics, she often wondered what their God would make of her. Many centuries past, she once honored the goddesses of her foremothers. But the Roman and Greek gods and goddesses had never answered her prayers. Yet, even despite this, she kept to some of her old ways when performing the Vellessentiae rituals. It was her way of honoring her mother’s sacrifice.
Shaking her musings from her mind, she found herself with her hand on the massive, carved door of the church. Would she find her lover in there? Or would it be a stranger?
The cathedral was dark. Lit only by votive candles in the nave alcoves far ahead, the building was cavernous and forbidding. The cold and the eerie sounds of moaning and whimpering raised the flesh on her arms. The scent of blood and death hung thick in the air. As she walked further in, her footsteps echoed on the stone at her feet, making her cringe. She wanted to call out to Lucius. Could he be here? Why would he ever come to a place like this?
“Lucius?” she said quietly, hoping he would come rushing from the shadows and fall into her arms. No answer echoed through the nave. Her voice had even silenced the moans of pain. As her sharp eyes adjusted to the light, she saw more detail as she moved through the center aisle. Bodies, dead and alive, lined the walls. The smell was stronger as she approached the transept.
Petra saw a man dragging something from one side of the transept to the other. The glint of a blade in his hand caught in the light of a single altar candle. She froze.
“Lucius?” she called again, loud enough for the man to hear.
“Wait your turn, woman,” the man’s raspy voice ground out, though not unkindly. He pointed with a blackened finger toward the North Transept and continued on toward the south end.
This man was not Lucius. That was for certain, though he did have Lucius’s height if not his lithe build. She debated whether or not to follow the man’s instruction. She could draw him if he threatened her, so she did not fear him. She decided to do as he bid her, hoping the man might help her find Lucius.
When he returned, she took a better look at him. He had long hair of gold, but it was knotted with grime, and his beard was unkempt and long. Dried blood as well as all manner of cuts and bruises marred what she knew had once been a beautiful face. The Great Mortality had touched this man’s body, the clearest evidence being his black-skinned fingers and nose. He looked as if he should have died already, and yet, here he was walking toward her with a sure step and determined eyes.
“What is it you seek, woman?” he asked gruffly, though his eyes belied his shock at her beauty and good health. “You seek death even as the Pestilence passes you by?”
“I seek the Immortal.”
The man laughed, as blood seeped from his mouth to run a new river into his beard.
“God would not even suffer an immortal to live through this misery. Perhaps I am the one he punishes most of all.”
Petra held up her hand to him. “You? You are the Immortal of Kaffa?”
“The fools who know no better call me such. Only fools or the desperate come to this church of the dead, woman. Which are you?”
“I am a true immortal, Signore,” she confessed, though she had never uttered those words in the presence of another human in the whole of her long history. “I seek another of my kind. Do you know the man named Lucius Valerii?”
The man stood speechless for several long moments, while the blood from his dagger dripped to the stones beneath his bare and blackened feet.
“I have never heard the name. I am Sandro Vincenzo, and I hail from Genoa.”
Her hope fell at her feet, into the blood running between the stones. Her journey had been for nothing.
“The Immortal,” he muttered to himself. “I will perish with the rest of these poor, deluded souls, and I will not even feel the moment of my death. If that is immortality, I don’t want it.”
“What do you mean, Signore? I know intimately of death. You will feel it when it comes.”
“I was born without pain, Signora, and I will die as unfeeling as I came.”
“You speak the truth? Your body feels no pain?” she asked.
He nodded, his bitterness evident in his mocking eyes.
“It does not.”
“And your mind?”
He mused for a moment. “Only regret. And only then for one regret alone. For all others… I feel nothing.”
Petra stepped back from him, studying him from crown of head to blackened toes. Could she save him? A man who felt no pain would make a singularly useful guard and warrior against Clarius when the time came. He could even help her save Lucius during the punishment ritual Clarius had demanded.
“Do you wish to live?” she asked.
“No,” he said without a hint of emotion. “I wish this Pestilence to wash away my regret so there is nothing left of me.”
“Why stay here in the dark, then? Why not go out and face the Great Mortality—or even the Mongols—with honor and courage?”
“Because it is in the dark that these people wish me to hasten their deaths. They call me the Immortal, but I should have been dead long ago. I linger on to end the suffering of the children.”
Petra looked on in horror as she realized the dead in the nave were mere children. The dagger Sandro held was the instrument of their execution.
“In a house of God?” she whispered. “Have you gone mad?”
He looked at her quizzically. “It is their families who bring them here to me. They cannot bear to watch the slow death of the Great Mortality
. So I give them what they seek before they themselves succumb. They call it a mercy. I call it passing the time.”
“You must come with me, Sandro. Into the light—and back into life. You must come away from this darkness.”
“I desire the dark. And I have one more life to bring into the eternal light, so if you will pardon me…” He stepped away from her, walking toward the North Transept once more, to a girl who lay in a silent corner, her eyes closed to the shadows surrounding her.
“No, you must not,” Petra said, her voice low but insistent.
“This girl is not unknown to me. She is my goddaughter and the only child of my greatest friend. I will not let her suffer any longer.”
“No,” Petra whispered, her heart moved by the girl, who might have been an angel if not for the Pestilence wracking her body. She walked toward them both, as Sandro lifted the girl in his arms, his dark fingers gently touching the fevered, red skin of her cheek.
“Anna, your father bid me save you from any more pain. Do you wish to fly to the angels now? To see your father and mother again?”
The girl could no longer speak. Even her nod was barely perceptible. Petra had seen such sickness before. It would not be long. Sandro brought the dagger to the girl’s neck, but no emotion touched his eyes or stayed his hand.
“Stop!” Petra screamed, her voice echoing around the cathedral’s cavernous dome.
Sandro withdrew the blade and looked up at her, surprise and confusion battling within his eyes.
Petra fell to her knees at his side. “Let me save you.” Then she looked at the girl. “Let me save her.”
“There is no salvation from the Pestilence.”
“There is. I alone can offer it. But I am not in the business of redemption, Sandro. Survival is my life's work. I am giving you an eternity in exchange for service to me. Take it, and redeem yourself.”
“I am not the man you were looking for. Why would you offer such a gift to a dying stranger? To one who could never repay?”
“You will repay for more years than you can possibly count. I offer you the gift of your name. And a place at my side. You must say the word, Sandro. You must say, ‘I accept.’”
He moved to speak, and then he let the girl fall away from him as blood poured from his mouth. He choked and his stomach heaved as he bent over. No pain touched his expression, but she saw in the involuntary movements of his body that he was gripped in the clutches of death.
“Say it! Say the words.”
But he could not. He collapsed onto the stones and choked on his own blood as the girl lay beside him, watching with horror.
She leaned down to whisper into his ear as his breathing slowed. “I will say it for you. Tonight, you will become an immortal. You and Anna. You will be beholden to me for all time. But first you will drink of true death before you will find your resurrection in me.”
Petra unstoppered the phial at her neck and poured half its contents into Sandro’s mouth.
“I rename you Cassian Ferro. You may be made of iron, but your soul is as hollow as a shell. I will fill you up with time, time to erase your regret.”
Then she took the girl’s head in her hands, whispered to her of grace and beauty and a release from the pain, and then poured death into her mouth. “And, you, sweet girl, I will name you Nencia Dolcetta. Sleep now in sweet repose, and when you wake, I will take you far from here.”
When it was done, Petra collapsed against the stone wall of the cathedral beside them, horrified by what she had witnessed.
“Lucius, my love, come back to me,” she whispered into the dark as her new immortals shook with the death rattle that would soon lead them back into the light.
24
The Mongols
August 13, 1346
Petra awoke to the sound of faraway screams and the burning stench of smoke. She opened her eyes to a shock of daylight streaming through the rubble of stone and glass surrounding her. For a moment, she had no memory of where she was or why she lay unable to move on a cold stone floor.
Her first thought was Lucius. Where was he? Why wasn’t he here to steal her away home? Then the truth hit her in the thousand images floating before her. Lucius was nowhere to be found. She had just killed Cassian and Nencia. The Mongols must have snuck in or breached a gate and firebombed the church sometime in the night, trapping them all inside.
She had not fed Cassian or the girl her blood before the ballista hit the church. They remained dead on the stone floor near her, lying just out of reach. She had never attempted to resurrect anyone so many hours after death—not even her test rats.
Raising her head to see further into the gloom, she saw at once how dire her circumstances were. The smoke was emanating from the bodies of the dead burned beyond all recognition. She was trapped under a slab of limestone the size of a death cart. Cassian and Nencia looked to be undamaged from the fallen rubble, but they might as well be on the other side of the world. One of the bodies near them still smoldered, and the smell of burnt flesh made Petra recoil and lower herself down to the putrid stones again.
Through the holes in the rubble, she was able to peer down through the church’s nave. Only the roof above the apse and transepts had caved in. The way back toward the door was blessedly clear of debris. Petra felt around the stone trapping her to the floor, wondering if she had the strength to lift it. She had far superior strength to humans, but that didn’t mean she had the strength of the gods in her limbs. There was nothing for it but to try.
More shouts and screams erupted in the piazza beyond the far door. Petra added her own voice to the cacophony as she pushed against the stone holding her captive. Her muscles screamed along with her as she strained against the burden. She held her breath and pushed even harder, slowly clearing a space for her legs to slip out from under the stone. They seemed to be pinned but she was able to pull them free. When she let go of the stone, it slammed down with a boom that would have woken the old gods if they still slumbered after all this time.
Some of the shouts outside quieted as Petra pulled herself over to Cassian and Nencia. She took hold of the dagger strapped to her thigh and slit her wrist. She pressed on the wound to force the blood to flow, and then she parted the girl’s mouth and fed her as much as she dared, hoping the extra amount would be enough to wake her from death. She did the same with Cassian.
As she gave him life, she studied his features. How he had survived this long, she had no idea. His body was riddled with new and old injuries: an open gash and darkening bruise crisscrossing his forearm, reddish skin surrounding a nasty gash above his left eye, toes as black as his fingers, and horrible burn scars covering his right hand. She pulled back his blood-soaked, half-torn shirt and found a strange, circular scar above his breast as well as three sword and knife wounds on his shoulder and midsection.
“In this, at least, Cassian, I can help you,” she whispered. “You will soon have skin as velvety as a child’s.” She smoothed the matted hair away from his face. “But you alone will have to heal the wounds of your mind.”
Petra regretted not having drawn him. She wanted to know more about this stranger. She wanted to see the memories of a man who could feel no pain. She wished she had that gift. If she had, she would not still fear the bite of Clarius’s fangs.
When she felt he’d had enough, she ripped a thin strip of cloth from her skirt and knotted it around her wrist to staunch the flow.
A loud bang resounded through the nave. Voices echoed from the narthex, voices in the Mongolian tongue she had heard uttered outside this city’s very walls. The Mongols had, indeed, breached Kaffa’s walls.
Petra looked down at Cassian and Nencia, realizing their deaths would keep them safe. From her limited experience turning immortals, she figured they would wake when their bodies desired it—if they ever woke at all. It could be a single hour or a day, for all she knew. She, however, was far from safe. Glancing around quickly, she realized there was no exit, save the way she
had come. It appeared three Tatar-Mongols now stood between her and escape.
She pulled herself deeper into the shadows beneath a large statue of the Virgin Maria and slipped her dagger as well as Cassian’s beneath her skirts on either side of her. Then she waited, attempting in vain to calm her breathing. While she might have skill with a blade, it had been many months since she’d practiced with Lucius, and she had never faced three foes alone before.
As they approached, she heard them kicking rubble aside and shouting at one another. When they entered the transept, she closed her eyes and decided to play dead. She kept her hands on the knives and practiced shallow breathing.
The men’s voices were tinged with confusion. Perhaps they couldn’t understand how the bodies had been set afire or why those who hadn’t been burned had had their throats slit. As the men drew closer, she tried to forget that the dagger she held had butchered so many innocent children of Kaffa.
Petra tried to visualize where the Mongols were located by their voices. One man was approaching the corner where she lay prone against the far wall. The two others slowly approached from behind him. A fair amount of light was streaming in through the window. Could it be shining a light on her?
The first man kicked at Nencia, whose body was pressed up against hers. When he bent down to examine the fine cloth Petra wore, his fingers pulling at the embroidered edge of her sleeve hem, she wasted no time in sticking Cassian’s dagger deep into his eye and brain. He did not even cry out but collapsed over the top of her. She didn’t bother to push his stinking body off. She used him as a shield as the next man attempted to stab her with his scimitar. He ended up sticking the man in the kidney. While he was busy extricating his sword from his friend, Petra pulled the blade from the man’s eye and jumped to her feet, both of her knives at the ready.
The third Mongol rushed to flank her, but she didn’t let him get that far. She flipped her dagger one-handed and spun-threw it from the blade, hitting him directly in the heart. The man cried out but she turned her attention to the nearest man, as his sword swung in mid-thrust directly toward her. The point penetrated her heart, but she jumped back to lessen the damage. Still, the pain shot through her chest, as blood seeped from the wound. She spun away, fell to her knees and threw her remaining dagger. She had aimed for his heart but a shudder of pain skewed her throw. It landed deep into his stomach with a sickening thud. She collapsed onto her side amid the ashes of the burned bodies floating around her, succumbing to the waves of pain as she clutched at the wound to staunch the flow.