by T. M. Lakomy
The rider approached Mikhail doubtfully with the pompous monk who was the leader of the pursuit tailing after him and huffing with exertion. Mikhail waited patiently with the rising sun behind him, the throes of his fevers having briefly ceased.
When the rider was near enough, he called out gruffly, “Mikhail! We thought you lost to some enchantment that had befallen the monastery. Many dreadful things can happen when you live so close to the edge of the wild woods!” The jocular tone belonged to Oswald. When he was a foot away from Mikhail he shook his head, mystified, taking in his altered countenance.
“I came because Erin summoned me. He told me that the queen was punishing you. Her displeasure was something I had anticipated all but too late. Then I heard how the church was abusing you, so I hastened to come. But it looks like what befell you in those woods shall prove far stranger to my ears than anything I’ve seen with you yet, my friend.” Oswald held his hat against his chest, and reverence shone from his face. The monk, who had it in his mind to chastise and arrest Mikhail, had cowered away after he beheld his shining, elven-blessed face. He had then retreated with the other monks into the safety of the monastery walls.
“Yes indeed, many things have happened that I cannot tell you of,” said Mikhail, “but stay with me till the end. Have me buried in the woods where there is a clearing, and there shall be my repose. Do not let them dispose of me in some indecent fashion out of petty revenge, though the body is meaningless to the sojourns of the soul,” Mikhail spoke calmly, grasping his friend by the shoulder. But Oswald could not conceal his alarm.
“Do not fear for me,” Mikhail continued. “I have found deliverance from this cursed earth, and I shall soon depart it. Be my friend for the last time and wait, for soon I shall pass and everything I had will be passed on to you.”
Oswald nodded gravely and lowered his eyes. “Then there is much to talk about. But you look like someone who has been touched by the fay,” he said, distraught, meeting his comrade’s face.
“I have been, indeed. Come, let us talk, for I do not have much longer,” Mikhail insisted gently.
“You have actually seen the fay? Then you have indeed gone mad,” Oswald said, steadfastly averting his eyes. “This world has need for the likes of you, for nothing good shall emerge from the queen’s plans. We are few and our days numbered, and when you pass, the last bastion of strength we had shall dissipate.”
Mikhail lifted his eyes to the sun in contemplation. “Then we have this day together, you and I,” he said softly. “You shall record what you must and promise me to keep it hidden. Pass it on, for much of what I will tell you shall come to pass, but much can be averted.” Mikhail led the way to the woods smiling as Oswald looked at him strangely.
“And who made you all-seeing?” Oswald asked.
Mikhail looked at Oswald intently, seeing for the first time the thoughts beneath his gruff facade.
“I have the sight of those near death who have drunk of the wine of foreknowledge that the elves drink. Come with me, let us discourse together ere the day dies, and I with it.”
Oswald frowned, rubbing his eyes vigorously, then following him into the woods.
30
THE AUTHORS OF HUMAN HISTORY
I felt the tremble in the folds of the firmament, the crease of filmy wings
The sunray that eluded the leaping tears of the faraway angelic kings
I felt the light passing through shadow, its reach as light as a flower’s breath
Inexorably evanescent, as striking as the finality of death
“I WANT EVERY ONE OF THEM WHO HAS EVER CAST ME DOWN WITH their gaze to perish and pay for it. Every last one of these hypocritical men who paid me lip service but who secretly mocked me, especially those cursed Templars!”
The acid tone reverberated throughout the hall, bereft of its habitual femininity and benevolence. The queen was lounging on a long couch of red and white velvet. Her luxurious bright hair was loose, and her head rested in the lap of Prince Erik of Saxony, whose taciturn manners merely aggravated her further. He consoled her silently, passing his fingers through her hair almost absentmindedly.
“You are not listening to me Erik!” came the queen’s indignant reproach. She lifted her head imperiously, her petulant eyes brimming over with tears. Her lip trembled, and she turned her face away, her hair cascading like a curtain behind her shoulders revealing large sapphire earrings.
Erik contained his exasperated sneer as she rose to her feet haughtily and began pacing up and down her chambers. Erik was lightly clad in a garment of black silk trimmed with gold, and he toyed with his beard idly, watching the queen shoot daggers at him with his eyes half-closed. The dye in her hair had renewed the youthfulness she had lost, and the rouge upon her cheeks accentuated her cheekbones, which were beginning to fill in with her pregnancy. Her full figure remained slim and hourglass, and her swaying hips mesmerized Erik, while he ignored her incessant attempts to coax him into conversation.
“You promised me Mikhail’s head on a platter, and yet you have not delivered. You promised me his humiliation, and that also failed to happen. Then you also promised to burn that witch, and you failed there too,” she drawled, baiting him sulkily, her eyes betraying her insecurity.
Erik snorted dismissively and reached for a goblet on the table next to him. It was still early afternoon, but he was bracing himself against the capriciousness of the queen. Since the shadow had taken over through the fissures of her weakness, the queen had changed beyond recognition. Every vice she had became amplified, and each virtue twisted until it became a vice, too. Her pious and prudish soul was stripped bare of its essence, and through her veins coursed a poison that entered her heart and consumed it. She became a puppet wielded by cunning hands unseen, nothing but a vessel for someone else’s dark designs.
That much was why Erik tolerated her. He knew that within her grew Samael’s legacy. So he guarded her, and what was left of her wits, as she readied herself to bring forth an age of mighty and terrible things where he might reap his share of the rewards. In truth he despised her, as he despised all things feminine, deeming women useful only for his own pleasure and incapable of intellectual pursuit. But with this one he had to be careful, for who was he to dispute his master’s plans? While merely a shadow of her former self, the queen was still powerful, and her will still surpassed his in many areas, so he steered her as best he could, directing her wrath toward worthier targets. Where her original mind had gone, he could not tell nor did he care. Perhaps it was locked away in some remote confine of her consciousness, watching in dismay as her body and mind were usurped, powerless to fight back.
Erik lusted for power and for the knowledge the hidden gems bestowed upon him. And the Blind God promised him many things from beyond the veil of death, including what he hungered for most. His mind was forever occupied with grand visions of his own sublime rule, eternally carved in stone and immortalized. He connived darkly, withholding from the queen his uneasiness about confronting the Templar, for his crooked spirit sensed the danger there.
“My queen,” Erik said indulgently, “I shall erase the orders of the Templars from history myself. By my own contrivance they shall be disbanded with no one to shelter them. Then they will be stripped of their knowledge and I shall put them all to the stake, for truly they are our enemies. The church is foolish enough to believe the lies we feed them. Let us gorge them on their own greed and lust for power, then they’ll stab themselves of their own accord!” He pounded the table triumphantly with his fist, and the queen stopped her restless pacing to watch Erik with hopeful interest.
“Listen to me, the church will do the work for us,” he continued. “We will tell them how the Templars have become too powerful and too rich for their own good, and that their wealth has far surpassed that of the church. We will tell them how the Templars’ authority is beyond question now, and how one day they will dethrone the pope and cast them all out like beggars. They are greedy and call
ow, venal beyond belief, and beneath their garments of holiness, their licentiousness is a rabid disease they can never be cured of. Watch how we shall make them amputate their strongest weapon and turn it into the ideal scapegoat. Then they will seize the Templars’ power and extend their lustful fingers to crush their strongholds, laying bare their fastnesses to us. Like witches and heretics they shall be burned and their glory extinguished and expurgated from memory. Then none shall remember the Templars as anything but vagabond murderers and thieves who worshipped pagan gods and sacrificed their souls for the sake of forbidden knowledge. We shall twist everything they did, and posterity will only recall them as a dark stain upon history!” Erik laughed as he downed his wine, waiting for the queen’s praise. She merely sniffed in acknowledgment and turned away from him, crossing her arms.
“And what about Mikhail, what are you going to do about him?” she asked. “He cannot be burned at the stake, for he is a noble just like yourself. And besides dying, he hasn’t been humbled before me yet. I thought you were man enough to go confront him.” She shot him a coy look. Erik contained his scathing response, and though he blanched, he restrained any outward display of his anger.
“To torment a dying man is not worthy of me,” he retorted. “Let him die nameless and in dishonor, with no one to remember him or mourn him. And if history remembers him it will only be as a coward who cavorted with the demons and succumbed to their enchantments. Come, let us rewrite history together, for the erudite of this world shall suckle at the breast we offer them, and in the milk we can mingle our venomous deceit. It shall fester in them and grow inseparable from them, and thus we shall alter the course of things and rewire irredeemably the subconscious minds of mankind. We are indeed the gods of their destiny, and at our will the Templars shall be betrayed by their beloved church. The house of God is weak and frail, and the inexorable rot has already settled in.”
Erik’s eyes burned with a dark passion, and his sweeping gaze was intent on everything around him—the room with its rich furnishings, and the queen with her extravagant accoutrements. He felt mighty, drunk on the pride that only the fallen take with them on their descent from heaven’s gates. The queen had begun pacing again, pensive and forlorn, while the light filtered through the stained glass windows of her chambers.
“We must rewrite the narrative, then, of what happened and what shall be,” she said. “Then the people will welcome my child with undoubting hearts. We must exile all Templars and their ilk and burn their books. Then we will cement the Twilit people in their holes to remain immured until they forget who they are. All men forget, eventually.” A cloud passed over her face and bitterness contorted her features. “Yes, men forget easily. They are simple creatures of desire and lust. Fulfill both and they will be led as sheep. Give them power and a false sense of importance, and they will follow wherever you lead them, even to perdition.” She smiled now vindictively with bared teeth, caressing her belly coldly.
“We shall rule,” she continued. “You will rule over their life here on earth, and I will dictate to them where their afterlife may lead them. And we will teach them that obedience is their only guarantee to salvation.” She stood now facing Erik and he could clearly see within her dainty features the ugliness of the fiend that lived within, gnawing at her wholesomeness from the inside till the empty husk threatened to cave in on itself and reveal the rotten structures that gaped into nothingness.
The queen’s place as the sole ruler of the kingdom had merely increased her hatred of everyone she believed to have belittled her, and she punished them for it. She especially relished the details of the torments she held in store for Mikhail. She despised him with an unnatural hatred spurred by his rejection of her. She wished to see him beg and grovel, to see him broken and stripped of his wits. She wanted him to acknowledge her and desire her so that she could spurn him scornfully, then bask in the joy of humiliating him. She dreamed of digging up his corpse and hanging it to dry, watching his bones bleach beneath the unswaying sun and the carrion crows picking him apart. For even beyond death she yearned to punish him, and this seed of malevolence soon turned to madness.
Erik watched the queen lost in her morbid designs and cared not, for one of the most prodigious sons of the Templar orders was soon to pass, and the great edifice against them would crumble into ruin. Then nothing would stand in his way.
31
THE PROMISES OF THE PRIMORDIAL GODDESS
To the honest fire that beams coldly in the austere north
An emblem of the bearer of the unwelcome news
Emerging like a tempest of auroral fire when summoned forth
Upon the altars of the hallowed circles and the witching brews
OUTSIDE THE STAINED GLASS WINDOWS OF THE QUEEN’S CHAMBERS lay a garden, rich with fruit trees and exotic flowers from all over the world. It had once been a fair place, but the rule of the king had diminished it, and now the garden was but a shadow of its former self. However the overgrown state of the garden was no deterrent to the three young children who stood there waiting stonily with baskets of flowers in their hands. They watched the cloud formations while whistling simple tunes, which were strange and yet uncomfortably close to the heart. They wore bright hats over their heads in red, green, and yellow that matched the flowers they carried in their overflowing baskets.
It was not humanly possible for the children to hear what was transpiring in the queen’s chambers, yet nonetheless they only stirred when the queen’s conversation with Erik had ended. They passed the gates of the garden and made their way into the town as a subtle rain began to fall, then turned into a downpour.
As people mourned their dying each day, the town’s grey heartbeat faltered on. The streets were now deserted of their habitual traffic, and the three children kept a steady, purposeful pace, the only vivid colors in a place that had forgotten its meaning. At certain houses they passed they cast a single flower to the ground, sometimes with a small whisper or a sigh, sometimes with solemn silence. And there the flowers found their last resting place upon the threshold of the unsuspecting people within. Many houses were marked in that manner. When all the baskets were empty, the children hurried along with a small prayer, their task complete. Then they left the city, their pale visages ominous to those that saw them. The people were afraid, for the children were strange to them and their childish eyes were ageless, wise, and beautiful. It pained the people to look upon them, a fragment of a world they had willingly slain.
The children walked for many miles, their vibrant hats and flowing hair billowing in the wind and rain. Crows followed them, and ravens too, squawking and crying out as they were buffeted by the wind. The overcast sky hung over them like a smoke-filled crystal whence one might discern the auguries of things to come. And when the first trees of the forest began to appear, many animals emerged to greet them. Then they changed, for they were no longer children but hooded and cloaked women.
One of the women was slim and shapely, like a sapling tree with hair the color of chestnuts in autumn. It fell in loose, wild curls, and at her feet wild hares gathered. Upon her brow there was a crescent moon of silver, spun by ancient hands. Her dreadful green eyes cast a forbidding look on the city behind her. Neither the softness of the garland of green leaves and luscious flowers upon her head, nor the roundness of her cheeks blushing with the vigor of youth could diminish the steel in her gaze. And the candor of her full smile did naught to conceal the lethal power pulsating through her veins. The crescent moon she bore was like a shining star, and yet it was no stronger than the light from her malachite eyes. As she tapped her fingers lightly at her side, the rain abated. Her gaze rebuked the winds and sliced out of the gathering storm its brewing, tempestuous rage.
The second woman was slightly taller and fuller of figure with rounded breasts and full hips. She leaned on an oaken staff of gnarled wood, facing the woods before her with azure eyes brimming with foreknowledge. Her hair was half braided and half wild and aubur
n like fallow leaves. Around her neck a crystal clear full disk moon hung, and upon her head was a wreath of silver and gold leaves. Twined among them were yellow serpents, one clasping a perfect, round diamond upon her brow. She inspired both love and awe in those who looked upon her beautiful visage, but also fear and desolation. She towered like a hurricane that swallows everything, only regurgitating death and ruin. Everything living had its source in her, and she was the ultimate fruition of existence. She was the supreme womb of creation, birthing life into the void, forever balancing her mercy with justice.
The third woman was clad in ashen black. Her raven hair leapt free from the coils upon her head, and polished bone and ivory decked her coiffure. She was as pale as a wraith and wizened, but no lines marred her ancient face, untouched by the turmoil of time. Her black eyes were as empty and as cold as the malignant void, and her smile was both a menace and a charm. One was drawn to her with an incapacitating pull, and the futility of life ended at her feet. She was ever eager to welcome souls back into her primordial darkness, deconstructing their essence back into the fabric of the universe. Her staff was exceedingly tall, and upon it rested a raven.
Together the three entered the forest, disparate in form yet born of the same flame. In a clearing many monoliths formed circles. They were erected in time immemorial, mighty and stark, bearing the weathers of time. Women and men were gathered around them in circles with dark cloaks of green and hoods upon their faces. They held flowers in their hands and goblets for libations and waited silently, though the air was alive with the opened Twilit pathways.
The first stars of the evening had begun to burn steadily in the east, and a waxing moon heralded the oncoming night with its acolytes of constellations. Those gathered were the few who, unmindful of the dangers, had traveled to hear the words of destiny. The three goddesses approached the circle, and the faithful stirred, bowing low and welcoming them. The three entered into the middle of the inner circles of the monoliths, each facing a different direction. Their countenances were bright and clear to all those present.