by Cody W Urban
With painful steps and slow.
Sheathing his sword and now dressed in his Scarlet Rider garb, Nicholas took a momentary pause looking at the red ribbon tied to the hilt. The events in his life felt tumultuous and upside down and he currently wished he could leap into a future where he had already felled Vasilis, foiled his plots, and rescued Nysa to live with her in mirth and fullness of life. He was conceptualizing some scheme, a plot to rescue Lysander and confront Vasilis who had let go a bit of information when he mentioned the occasion in Myra he was to attend. He knew he had to liberate his friend first; poor Lysander sat shackled in some gloomy dungeon on his behalf.
After strapping his bow to his back, he pulled his hood over his head and put out an oil lamp. Then he turned and found Pete standing in the doorway. “Father?”
Pete was an annoying wall in his path and Nicholas didn’t care to explain himself but wanted to ride off as soon as possible. “Your father, I am not, Pete,” he said exasperated as Pete moved into his way further when Nicholas tried to pass.
“Yet Bishop you are,” he replied.
“Though does a man deserve to be titled such when he fails his friends?” Nicholas snapped, forlorn, upset with himself, and upset with the situation.
“Where goes ye at this late hour? Surely your deeds as the Rider would be best at the beginning of night, not the end,” Pete asked.
“I have a long journey ahead of me and intend to reach my destination by next nightfall if a certain young lad would be out of my way,” Nicholas told him bluntly, a little incredulous as he physically moved Pete from the doorway and started down the hall.
“You go to rescue Lysander?”
“Aye,” Nicholas said as he kept a quick stride toward the back door and the small stable where Sleipnir settled.
“Please, I fear this may be a trap,” Pete said.
“Wherefore did you get such a notion?” Nicholas asked.
“A feeling,” Pete said shyly. “One from my heart. A warning that the life we have been living shall forever be altered.”
“In many ways,” Nicholas said as he pulled Sleipnir from the stable, “that is my hope. That is the motive of my ventures. I will be fine. Stay ye here.”
Without allowing time to hear another word from Pete, Nicholas mounted Sleipnir and drove off toward the northwest. As he rode into the brisk night he pondered the irony that all he wanted was to finish this mission, reach his goals, and start life anew, and his young companion wished to keep things as they were. Living the life of a slave for the entirety of his existence gave him little to compare his life too. Truly what he had with Nicholas was the supreme lifestyle he could ever ask for and somehow he had some prognostic sentiment that all this would come to an end—an end Nicholas was dead set on reaching.
He rode through the forests north of Myra and then at sight of the small town of Dirgenier he turned due west and rode along the dells until he reached Kohu Valley where he had to ride southwest to round another mountain range. Once he had rounded them, it was about midday and he was far from any towns so he decided to rest his reindeer by a brook for a drink. Nicholas had never gone out in daylight dressed in his Elven red cloak, but as he told Pete, this was all part of his plan. He was on a mission to pay a visit to an acquaintance, Orestes Pancras, and to make public the destiny he believed the two shared.
As soon as he felt that both he and Sleipnir were rested, they rode north for the rest of the day. As the sun set to his left, he had come to the base of a steep hill at the city of Tlos. He hopped off his reindeer and the two of them climbed the high hill toward the archipelago above. The steep grade was hard enough for Nicholas on foot and he wouldn’t dare make his animal, however nimble as he was, climb it with the weight of a full-grown Bishop borne upon his back. The climb felt endless and when they finally reached the archipelago, Nicholas found a shadowy place to rest, for he didn’t want to be out of breath to speak unto Orestes what he purposed to say.
Inside his chamber, Orestes sat beside a small oil lamp at a study table reading silently to himself from a scroll the words of the Gospel of John. He felt himself secure, although he certainly feared the truth about his faith leaking out into public knowledge. His windows and doors were shut and servants worked downstairs doubling as sentries. It came at a complete shock when an ice-cold iron blade rested against his neck.
“Soft! Do not move and keep your voice dull,” came the whispering voice of the sword-wielding intruder. Orestes looked down and behind him as best he could without moving his head much, and peripherally could see a crimson robe hanging down by black boots.
“Methinks, based upon the cherry-tinted garment you wear,” Orestes said, maintaining his composure, “that you are either the Scarlet Rider or an impostor who burgles those he visits rather than presents gifts. An impostor is likely, seeing how report spreads that the Rider now lay imprisoned.” Nicholas was just as impressed with his character now as he was when they first met over two months before. He was a refined aristocrat and yet a humble servant of God.
“If I were any other than the Rider, do you think this blade would be stayed?” Nicholas replied, keeping his voice hushed.
“Wherefore have you come?” Orestes asked. “I am no foe of yours ergo the sword pressed upon my skin is inadequate.”
“Let us consider it insurance, for the time being. It keeps you from revolving your view lest you view my face,” Nicholas explained.
“Very well,” Orestes said and then cleared his throat. “My first question goes unanswered.”
“I am come seeking your counsel and to enlist your aid,” Nicholas explained. “You know of the Krampus?”
Orestes sighed and looked down in ignominy. “Truly a name has been given to the swarthy imps of my nightmares. My soul has been blackened by my involvement in their havoc. A cleansing I have sought in my orisons, yet disgrace I still suffer. Would that they perish!”
“That is what I seek as well,” Nicholas said. “That they depart these lands, the oppressed shall be free, and Vasilis overthrown.”
“Heed my word, good sir,” he said, “Far too much power has Vasilis in this realm.”
“Nearly five centuries ago, ere even the coming of Christ, Lysanias and Eudemus seized control of Xanthos and carried out executions and enslaved citizens to establish a tyrannical reign as Vasilis has. But they were thwarted. Later Eudemus tried the same campaign upon your hometown of Tlos and failed yet again. Both times it was the rallying political powers of the Lycian League that deposed these would-be dictators. It can be the League yet again that saves our nation.”
“Nay,” Orestes said softly. “They, who on that council sit, are simply puppets of the Governor. Rome has established him as Lychiarch. Those susceptible to bribes are paid for their silence, others are slain. Long have I hid my connection to your brotherhood. Long have I concealed my misgivings. Surely it will be this way until crack of doom.”
“Nay, Orestes Pancras, you are the one I need,” Nicholas said. “I will bring a challenge before Vasilis at the Sol Indiges gala and you will be there.”
“I never attend that pagan festival,” he pleaded.
“You shall this year. And my challenge you shall support.”
“I am not complete for such liability,” he argued.
“Are you ready to die otherwise?” Nicholas said feigning a threatening attitude, pressing his blade harder against Orestes’ neck. His silence told Nicholas that his point had been made. “I am counting on you to hold your end of this. Now, before I depart, another favor I ask.”
“Name it,” Orestes replied knowing as long as the sword was upon him, little choice he had.
“Where did they shackle the supposed Scarlet Rider?”
“A keep in Xanthos was the report,” he replied.
“I know what you speak of,” Nicholas replied in dread. The Xanthos Keep was a place of torture from whence few dreadful reports ever escaped, accounts that would give grown men nightmares.
“Then I ought to leave post haste. There is an innocent man shackled there.”
The blade moved from Orestes’ neck and he heard soft footsteps. In that instant, he turned around to gaze upon the visitor and found himself alone in his chambers. He shuddered from an instant chill that filled the vacant spot his intruder occupied only a moment ago. Orestes wasn’t superstitious, nor easily swayed to seize fantastic conclusions, but at that moment he dared consider the Rider may truly be a benign phantom.
Nicholas rode down the steep hill from the archipelago of Tlos with the information Orestes granted him. Being nearly winter, nights ran longer, and it was still dark when Nicholas came to Xanthos, the great city south of Tlos and the namesake of the main river of Lycia. Just outside of the city stood an age-old castle, a last line of defense during the Rhodesian invasions should Patara fall into their hands, and it was there that Rome had established a prison—it was there that Lysander was kept.
Coming prepared for a break-in, Nicholas brought a long length of rope to which he tied a loop to the end and then lassoed a gargoyle on a high spire. Feeling the rope was free of slack he walked up the side of the stone wall and pulled his body upward. Once he had scaled the fortifications, he crept down a corridor and came up behind a sentry keeping his nightly vigil. Nicholas grabbed the guard’s cape and wrapped it around his face, to muffle his voice and gag his mouth. He dragged the guard into a culvert and then placed a large sack of vegetables over it. After that he was off and ran down a staircase.
“Eh! You! Halt!” shouted a soldier. Nicholas kept running and heard a clamor of armed guards rushing after him. Nicholas dashed into a little nook beneath the stairs and hid in the shadows as the host of soldiers ran past in search of him.
On the bottom floor three soldiers cast lots, occupying their time when they were supposed to be keeping watch. Another guard rushed in and shouted, “Be alert you dogs! There is word of an intruder! Come hither!”
The three dropped their dice and dashed off with the guard through the doorway and turned right. Just as they departed, Nicholas stepped in from the shadows adjacent to the other side and closed the door. Then he found a beam and dropped it into the socket to bar the door. Feeling proud of himself for keeping his pursuers from chasing him further, he turned and found there was yet another guard posted down in the dungeon. The sentry grabbed a mace and swung it about in a display intended to intimidate Nicholas and then charged toward him. Nicholas simply drew an arrow and shot the sentry through his hand, making him drop his mace.
As the sentry screamed a painful bellow, Nicholas rushed in and gagged him, then tied him up and tossed him into an empty cell. The guard continued screaming, despite the gag. “Be soft, will you? Be thankful I shot you in a way to spare your life. But if such a ruckus you persist on, I shall have no choice but to shoot you elsewhere.” Nicholas wasn’t cruel-hearted, but he knew how to pretend to be. The guard hushed up and sobbed silently in anguish as he nursed the hand as best he could. Nicholas then plucked a set of keys from his sash and ran down the hall.
He passed by a great many grim, filthy faces until he finally came upon the cell where Lysander sat with his back to the bars upon the hard stone floor. His clothing had been tattered from a flogging and bloody wounds and bruises were visible even in the dim lighting. “Are you ready to leave?” Nicholas asked.
“Nicholas?” Lysander said and then turned around slowly in pain from his aching wounds. “It took ye long enough to get here!” Nicholas unlocked the gate and then helped Lysander to his feet. It wasn’t easy to get this corpse of a man on his own feet who had been beaten one lashing short of death. As Lysander fell heavily on Nicholas’s shoulder he glanced down the corridor and saw the wounded sentry. “My word,” he said, “time with the barbarians has left its mark on you.”
“I am sorry, Lysander. No apology could express how sorry I am for getting you into this mess.”
“Silence,” Lysander replied. “I hopped on this boat with you a long time ago. There is no getting off until it’s docked at the end. By the setting of the sun all that matters-“
“Is how you fought for right,” Nicholas said. They clasped each other’s forearms warmly and shared a healing moment of brotherhood the two stalwart friends needed. Nicholas noticed something in Lysander and felt profoundly proud of him. Lysander, after a lifetime of searching, had discovered the essence of honor through self-sacrifice. Nicholas said, “Come, my friend. Let’s depart this ghastly dungeon.”
6
Look now for glad and golden hours,
Come swiftly on the wing.
Nicholas and Lysander rode off in the night away from the Xanthos dungeon, Nicholas upon Sleipnir and Lysander upon a borrowed Roman horse. Not only did they take the one, but scattered the entire pen full of horses to ride off in every direction into the Lycian planes. Nicholas and Lysander crossed a bridge erected over the Xanthos River that was regularly used and often guarded by Roman sentries, however at this early hour the place was desolate and the two fugitives passed freely and unnoticed. People were seldom out at night in fear of the rumored incubi at hand that roam the hills—even the soldiers, who were paid to turn their head from heeding any gossip about them, tried to keep indoors, or at least within fortified walls.
The two heroes rode south of Patara and as the dawn cracked a golden hue into the night sky along the eastern horizon, they reached the beach. About six hundred years before, the same Patara Beach was a place where the Rhodesian invasion was thwarted by heroic patriots of their land. Now it was where Nicholas and Lysander would break their fellowship so Lysander could escape out of the reach of the Lycian Governor for fear of his life.
“This is it,” Nicholas said as he came to a stop. The waves crashed upon the shore and rocked a small dinghy about that sat half upon the sand. Nicholas purchased this boat a while back and placed it here should the day come he would have to retreat Lycia. “This vessel is for you to escape upon. I must bid you farewell, my brother.”
“Face it, Nicholas. We lost,” Lysander said just after hopping down from the horse. “When news spreads of my escape, Vasilis shall slaughter more and more to find you. We are renegades. I am a wanted man and a deserter of the Empire, thanks to you. Let us depart together and find a new life somewhere beyond the Roman arm. Maybe up north with your friends.”
Nicholas sighed and hopped off Sleipnir and while patting his neck, he said, “The fight is not over until Nysa is free. Vasilis must fall. If it is as you say, then too many innocent lives would be taken until his appetite for carnage has been whet. Here I belong.”
“How shall you bring havoc upon that scavenger?” Lysander argued. “Sooner or later your identity will leak, one person who knows it will crack, and in the dark of night they shall descend upon you ‘til your demise.”
“Go, Lysander. I think I have a plan, though it’s a long shot, a fool’s hope is better than none at all. You must ride to Rhodes,” Nicholas instructed and then handed him a sack of coins. “This will buy you passage to the land of Aquitaine. Head to the bay village of Nantes and seek the ship called The Dashing Dancer. Find Hákon. This time of year he goes only that far south. Tell him of the bountiful raid they may make upon Myra. Inform him I am in dire need of his help and encourage him to venture this far south.”
With a shrug of hopelessness, Lysander replied with, “Tell Deborah what became of me. That I have not abandoned her and will again return for her one day.” Nicholas nodded and looked into his friend’s eyes trying to mask his sadness of their parting.
He put his hand on Lysander’s shoulder firmly and said, “You shall return anon. Be ye ready for the glad and golden hour when all this is over. When we can sit back by the fire laughing at adventures past.”
With that, the two hugged, and bid each other safe travels. Then Lysander boarded the dinghy and rowed away until his small sail could catch a favorable wind. Nicholas watched his friend disappear over the horizon on the first part of his voyage an
d then he was off. He sent the confiscated horse scampering off and then removed his red cloak and hid it in a duffel bag to then dress as a bishop. In the early hours of the morning he retired to Patara, hid his conspicuous reindeer within a stable, paid for a room at the inn his family once owned, and slept for the remainder of the day.
At dusk he awoke, retrieved Sleipnir, donned the visage of the Scarlet Rider, and then trekked back toward Myra. It was Sol Indiges, an early celebration of the sun god Rome had begun to worship, and he knew it was a gala Vasilis was going to host for a gathering of his constituents. By the time he neared Myra he had no time to stop by his home, so he rode directly toward the amphitheater where the festival proceeded.
In an enclosed roofless setting, lit by torches, candles, and oil lamps, in a theater-style location, people of regal and fancy dress drank, sang, and dined. The open auditorium was decorated in streamers and ribbons and scantily-clad woman danced around the richest and most affluent of all, especially Vasilis, who sat at the center seat at the table reserved for the prominent guests. Among them were members of the Lycian League, namely Orestes, who found the gumption to attend the festival. Along with the Lycians were a couple Roman magistrates who were traveling Asia Minor and, hearing of the grand celebration Vasilis was to put on, decided to spend their Sol Indiges commemoration in Myra.
One of the two, a shorter plump magistrate, rose with a goblet of wine in his hand and called the attention of the guests his way. “Fair citizens of Lycia!” he called out, and a hush fell over his audience. “I am come all the way from Rome to honor a fine leader who works tirelessly for the glory of the Empire and take part of such a gay nonce. Before my commemoration, I’d take pleasure to invite your liege, Governor Vasilis, to orate us all with the plans he has for the prosperity of the empire and your handsome realm.”
There was a welcoming dignified applause as the Roman official waved his hands toward Vasilis, who he took a stand and nodded toward the addressees. “Enjoy this Sol Indiges friends, colleagues, delegates, and Lycia’s elite, wealthiest, and finest!” Vasilis pronounced, building the esteem of all those whose power he considered his own property. “There has been prosperity yon under the grand Emperor Diocletian. So let us imbibe what has come to pass and the future coming hither and drink. Drink to good crops! To good wine! To good women!”
