by J K Ishaya
Howard’s hand grips the pencil so tightly that I can see the shaft digging into the writer's callous on his middle finger. "Tell me."
"As I said, I was human, and then I was not. I admit, I chose it as a last resort. It gave me the means to seek vengeance for my people, for my family. What some would call today a 'deal with the devil'."
"Please, Mr. Corvinus, start from the beginning. I want to know everything. Tell me about Dacia, too. Tell me about the man before you tell me about the monster."
Ah, Kvasir’s voice says in my mind, perfect. It is all going as he had hoped it would.
Chapter Three
"The Romans had already been invading our lands for more than a century. It was backlash in the beginning, I admit. We, too, invaded the lands directly surrounding our borders, lands that they had laid claim to." I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and I gently touch Howard’s mind again, just enough to project to him what I see, what I feel, as I let the memories flood forward and we drift together into a land of deep forests and mountains and river gorges in the land that has now—recently in the scheme of things—become known as the country of Romania, next to the Black Sea.
He gasps and his eyes glaze. Fear, alarm, and then excited acceptance all circulate to the surface and create a buzz that lingers like a thread between his mind and mine.
When this cerebral buzzing calms, I begin. “Dacia was one of the richest kingdoms in that region of the world with four distinct seasons, vast meadows of crops, rolling hills and jagged mountain ranges cloaked in dense forests full of wildlife. The air stirred rich with the scents of deer, wolf, marmot and pheasant, with pine, earth and wood smoke from the homes in the davas, our villages. The Danube rolls along the southern edge and its delta also still brings its own natural wealth to the region. The mountains virtually vomited gold, and silver, too. To see it come out of the mines, you could almost imagine it as shining blood coursing under the surface of the rock, the life flow of the Carpathians and Orăşties. And salt. I cannot emphasize the importance of salt enough. It preserved our meat for the harsh winters, cleansed wounds and played a role in ritual.
"And then there was Sarmizegetusa, our capital. It means, the city that brings light to the world.”
Again, he scribbles in his notebook and I glimpse him trying to spell out the name. I backtrack and give him a phonetic equivalent in the current English, letter by letter, getting it as close to the pronunciation as possible.
"This dazzling example of a fortress perched atop a massive hill in the Orăşties on the edge of the Transylvania plateau. The thick walls were built of stones custom cut and fit to each other and crenelated at the top for defense. It looked down over arrays of steppes to the east and west on which sat the sprawl of the dava in beautifully organized rows of thatched structures, gardens and sanctuaries that led out to spreads of orchards, vineyards and wheat fields.
"We were made up of various tribes, with the Daci being the more dominant among others such as the Getae, Trixae, Carpi and Buri. There were too many to name here. Hence, I will say Dacian for simplicity and including all. Our nobles—the tarabostes—and high-ranking military families lived within the fortress with its main tower house where the king resided up slope and looking down upon a maze of smaller homes and businesses of tiled roofs and white columns around a square with a central sure mare—a public house—for meetings and festivities. There were smithies, coin mints, textile houses, bakeries, and all other manner of merchants came and went from the city. We exported grain, wool, salt, jewelry of the finest craftsmanship, and imported olive oil, glass, and spices. Clean, running water coursed up the mountain through clay pipes, and we produced an abundant menu of food and wine.
"Gold leafing accented doorways and window frames, ornamental rosettes and gilded beasts and our central statue of our god Zalmoxis, and it adorned the columns of our circular citadels in the holy precinct. Our banners flew high on every corner. The Draco, the wolf-headed serpent that adorned our standards, stood guard over nation and people, uniting Dacian, Celt, and Sarmatian alike.
"We considered ourselves the people of the wolf, but the Romans, also had a wolf as their symbol. They had, in fact, usurped the Draco for themselves as far back as the time of King Burebista and designed their own version although it lacked one particular, special feature that ours had."
"What was that?" Howard asks.
"For the Romans, only a bronze wolf head on a stick. But our Draco actually howled. The open mouth of the wolf was crafted in such a way that when the high mountain winds blew through, they caught in the windsock banner that trailed from the wolf's neck and formed the dragon tail. Variations in the passage through the mouth created a low, mournful wail, and this sound could be heard above our walls, and on especially windy days it could sound quite intimidating.
"The Romans never did replicate this effect, but as for the wolf symbol itself, I suppose they believed they had a right to it given their own legend of Romulus and Remus raised by a wolf bitch. This symbol bore more depth for us as well.
"Family life in Dacia was modeled on that of the wolf pack and its structure from the alpha pair down through the ranks and their loyalty to each other, to family. We looked after our elderly while our children were our cubs and very precious to us. We observed how wolves and ravens displayed a strange relationship as if depending upon each other, for when the wolves hunted, the ravens followed and cleaned up after them and sometimes the two even appeared to engage in friendly play. This mixed species interaction reminded us that only through a united Dacia and cooperation of many tribes could we resist Rome. As they say, history is written by the victors, and historians today know so little about Dacia. They go by that phallic monstrosity that Trajan constructed to show off his victory."
Without looking at him, I know Kvasir is masking a smirk as he looks toward the desk and pretends to examine the keys on the Remington.
"Trajan's Column, of course!" Howard beams. "I've read of it. It still sits in the Forum today." Then a sheepish look crawls across his face and his excitement is immediately quashed as he realizes he's potentially tread upon a nervy issue. He clears his throat. "I've had a long interest in the history of Rome. My grandfather had quite the collection of antiquities. He often let me handle and play with a set of Roman coins. I would weigh them in my hand and wonder at their worth, what they purchased so long ago."
I see that memory flutter forward in his mind and then withdraw. I nod with no small amount of distaste which I simply cannot help. "I do not resent your interest in the history. My hatred of Rome is not the same as then, or in the time immediately preceding my transformation. So much more happened since then that had nothing to do with Rome." And yes, I think, so much. So very much.
"I confess, beneath our reputation as a warrior society, we were decadent, and because of that, in some ways, we played a hand in our own defeat. With so much gold and salt, of course it attracted unwanted attention.
"All of my life from child to manhood, Rome nipped at our heals. Domitian was emperor during my youth. His claim, as with all those who came before, was to improve our lives by civilizing us to their ways. Purely propaganda and keeping the populace of Rome concerned that we would attempt to invade them justified their movement into our lands first. Dacia had no interest in invading Rome itself but to keep the lands closest to our borders secured. You can gather from what I've told you already that we were in no need of culturing, either. No. In fact, I believe we were potentially competitive with Rome in that regard, further reason they sought to put their mark on us. Jupiter forbid a barbarian tribe prove to be more culturally advanced. We were indeed two wolves going at each other, only one was much bigger than the other." I hear the resentment creeping into my voice as I tell young Howard this. "Funny," I murmur.
"What?" he asks, greedy for more.
"After all this time, I am surprised at myself, I suppose. Despite having acquired a deeper understanding of their history as compared to
Dacia's, and having moved on, at this very moment I suddenly relish the memory of killing many a legionnaire and even, once, a general. The great Empire has long since fallen, and all told, it was a pitiful fall, just a whisper when you think about it, an unravelling more than anything." I give a bitter and brief chuckle at that. "How fitting, don't you think?"
"Quite a paradox, yes." Again, Howard wiggles in his chair. His hand grips the pencil so tight the wood creaks and he almost cracks the graphite rod inside. "Please, go on."
A glance at Kvasir tells me he is patiently waiting as well, that ever-compassionate look in his eyes which is almost infuriating to me. Howard may be overtly restless, but I continue to keep a chaos of nerves in check.
"I was orphaned and raised from an infant by Decebal, the nephew and general of King Duras. It was no secret that I had been found abandoned in the woods, and King Duras had no interest in me; too busy monitoring the latest Roman encroachment and sending his army on raids into Moesia and Illyria along the southern banks of the Danube attempting to chase them off.
"Decebal did not really have time for me either, but his first son and wife had both died years before and he had not remarried, so he took me as his own, raised me with the help of several noble women who were nursing their own children. I was blessed to have several mothers, and their children were as brothers and sisters to me, very much a wolf pack structure as I said. And as for my father, well, he was a warrior who taught me to ignore a certain deformity that developed in my childhood and grew worse with age.
"I dealt with a crooked spine, and as a result I suffered back pain for much of my human life. I did not feel it in my early youth, but others began to notice as I grew that I walked a little strange, and my shoulders did not sit evenly. It wasn't too much of a concern at first. Life distracted me. At the age of five I had begun to train to become a warrior along with others my age. We were given weighted wooden swords to practice with and build our strength and we were put through martial exercises.
"Young though that may seem to you, it was common. It did not interfere with us being children. We were given goals and disciplined to train in the mornings early before first repast, and then after that we ran together, played in the woods, streams and meadows. We were allowed to do what children should do, but we were also prepared for the world at large and what it would bring later to our adult lives.
"Around the same time, I began to have a strange recurring dream. I always stood on a balcony at the top of a great stone stairway that led down into a black void, but I thought I could see a light at the bottom and a landing there, distant but reachable if I patiently took each step carefully." At the mention of these steps, I note that Howard visibly pales, and his thoughts produce a low hum. More questions are rising but he pushes them down, holding out as best he can. His bottom lip, such as it is, turns in and he chews on it with gusto.
"Upon my first encounter with these steps, I also found they had a guardian. I did not see him at first, and so when I edged my foot over that first drop, toes pointed down, a powerful hand clamped around my upper arm. 'Stop!' a voice shouted as I spun back from the edge. When I jerked my arm away in defense, screaming relentlessly, I found a young man standing there with me on the top landing. He backed away to a safe distance from me, but my voice still carried shrilly.
"'No-no—' He waved his hands before him to stop me from wailing as he backed away, almost comical in how he floundered. 'I will not harm you, but do not ever go down those steps!' His accent was certainly unique, but his handling of Dacian quite good. He appeared to be roughly in his late twenties, and had longish dark hair and deep chestnut eyes that looked far older. I first guessed him a Celt from the west for the golden torque he wore around his neck, ornamented with knot work that terminated in what appeared to be bird heads. It bore their type of craftsmanship anyway. There were many Celts living within our borders, some fully absorbed into Dacian culture. They crafted much of our own jewelry and minted our kosons. That is, our coins.
“But his clothing was different from Celt, Dacian, or Roman garb, like nothing I had ever seen. He wore a sort of sleeveless leather jerkin belted at the waist, but the patterns stitched into it were bizarre to me. His trousers—form fit, more like breeches—were also not of a fashion familiar to me, nor his tall boots. The overall style was more complicated and advanced than the clothing of my time. It was rather regal though with clear wear and tear, perhaps even from battle given the long, claw-like gash in the fabric over one knee and the frayed edges of his hems. I could see, over his shoulder, the handle and cross guard of a sword held in a scabbard on his back. This was not unheard of for travel but impractical for battle readiness. It was a long, straight blade, not the curved, scythe-like blade of a Dacian falx nor the shorter, thick blade of a Roman gladius. If the sword did not indicate enough, he had the body of a warrior, V-shaped with broad shoulders and corded, strong-looking arms. I demanded to know who he was, a question which he evaded to instead focus on his vague reasons for stopping my descent.
"'You cannot risk discovery, boy,' he insisted. 'Never go down those steps.'
"Immediately I awoke from sleep and, upon that first night, I thought little more of it. It was a dream, nothing more, and already it faded from my mind. A few nights later, it played through again, and then another night… and then yet another, until it almost became routine. Every time, in every encounter, the stranger appeared and stopped me from descending those steps. Our interactions were never quite the same. I would demand answers, he would refuse to give me any, and other times I clearly frustrated him more than others. He went from being somewhat nice about it to shouting such things as, 'How often must I insist, you stubborn turd of a child!' but the message remained the same: that I should never go down those steps.
"I would jerk awake to stare at the ceiling, full of wonder. He felt so real in ways that individuals in average dreams did not. I always certainly felt his hand on my arm, pulling me back from that first step as if someone in the waking world were shaking me in my bed and once I awoke swearing I still felt a tight hand clenched around my upper arm. In time I learned how to control my actions more acutely within the dream, and I demanded more furiously that he tell me who he was.
"'I am a monster,' he said, “who eats disobedient little children.'
"'You are no monster!' I argued. 'You are a Celt. You sound like a Celt.' I was such a brat then.
"He never answered, and eventually I directly attempted to defy him. On several occasions, I bolted down the steps, only making it so far before he would come after and grab me, kicking and screaming, and carry me back up to the landing where he would unceremoniously deposit me upon the stone. Sometimes he would curse at me, call me a damnable child and tell me off, but I never had any sense that he would harm me, that is, until the final dream of the stairs."
"Do you have any idea who he could have been?" Howard asks.
"I know now," I admit, "but one thing at a time." I realize how painful it will be to fully speak of him later. Damned if it is not already painful, but I swallow it down.
"These are the stairs that reach the Dreamlands, aren't they?" Howard whispers. "I, too, have dreamed of these stairs. I've been down them. Part way. Not very far. I lacked the courage to keep going."
"I know," I say, "and we will discuss that later as well." I watch his mouth form a but— and then he resigns and nods for me to continue. "As a child I would have one last dream of the stairs and their guardian that was different and seized me with such terror as to keep me from ever approaching the steps again, not for many years to come."
"What happened?"
"I remember how, as I drifted to sleep that night, the transition came smoothly from the closing of my eyes to the appearance of the steps. By then I had learned how to find them on my own, without waiting for them to spontaneously appear. And more: I could manipulate my initial dreams to manifest things. I had with me this time a bronze shield, conjured within my own mind a
nd given ethereal substance with a smooth front surface. I looked around the landing, and out into the space beyond, and then I positioned the shield on the edge of the landing and sat down in its inner bowl, gripping the edges. I looked ahead, anticipating how I would steer it at the turns in the steps and not go off the sides into the abyss. Then with a boost I scooted forward until I tilted forward and took off, bumping along as I went, surely moving too fast for anyone to catch me. I whooped happily as a child on one of your amusement park rides, and then I heard him behind me.
"A resounding, inhuman roar of, 'Nooooo!' cracked through the air and I felt my blood freeze even as I continued descending, and then something grabbed me. Not arms, no. I can only describe them as narrow, tentacular things, black and gleaming, that wound around my waist and legs and lifted me up into the air and reeled me, screaming, back to the top. The shield clattered a few more steps down and then tumbled over the edge into the void. I landed near the first step, and then I saw it: a thing of squamous, onyx skin, with a long snout curled up to reveal two rows of pointed teeth, and three sets of graduating serpentine eyes glaring at me from under long, heavy brows. It almost blended with the darkness around us but for the gleam to its skin as it paced sideways, showing me a thin, rangy torso and rear legs shaped like those of a jungle cat with a tail to match. The rear feet ripped the stone with great talons while its front hunched slightly, supporting itself on the bent joints of two folded leather wings, much the way of bats when they crawl on the ground.
"The sleek, whipping protrusions came from its back. While some held me, others coiled around each other and lashed at the air. I continued to scream even as my binds released their hold and slid, whispering, away from my body. The creature recoiled then and the flopping appendages withdrew, sucking into its back like worms retracting into their holes. It shook its giant head, sounds of low moans coming from its maw, and then it turned and scrambled to the edge of the landing and launched into the void where it spread those leathern wings wide and taut. It melded with the darkness as I watched it glide away, and then I startled awake to a tangle of woolen blankets and the sound of wolves howling out in the hills."
