This piece of land, swept into the fog of the North, sounded by flocks of sheep and farms, full of vulcanized rubber and eternal ice, this piece of earth is interested in our history because here, hundreds of leagues below water, on the continental shelf nested the legendary Kingdom of Thule.
It should not surprise you, gentle reader, how this story emerges with ease from the realms mentioned in old letters, as though it were one of the tales of the Far East, where gardens with fountains and waterfalls and jeweled palaces came into being from nowhere overnight. It is like them and this one contains part of the trough.
So, cut into the soft limestone cliffs, there were galleries, tunnels, cellars, and premises. They were the work of ancient miners who had lived through the ages, fueled by the legend of the lost Atlantis.
If only you, dear reader, had the chance to glimpse the man-made stone that showed white as ivory, the carved columns like rows of trees, the statues of the Titans, supporting and covering the monumental buildings. If only you could see the architectural genius under which the fabulous city of Petra would have stood ashamed.
The copper-red submersible, cast from brass, floated here like a fish through a watery passage (shimmering like a flash off of a metallic eyeglass) and journeyed around the underwater city to its depths and the surface. The Leviathan filled the cool cave dungeons that had been carved from wax-yellow crystals of incalculable wealth.
Now, however, the kingdom had become a tomb for the dead. The gray dust and slowly oozing water filled level after level of arched tunnels, and in the throne rooms lurked creatures that wanted to be outside.
Maneuvering between the buckled piers of what reminded—petrified structures that spread like the tentacles of an octopus or fish and algae farms, the Leviathan gradually approached its target. As it moved, it illuminated arches, domes, and giants that looked like the overgrown Palaeogene fossils of predators.
Finally, after hours of navigating between the ruined buildings, which although seemingly frail and fragile like the bony hands of the undead could actually quite easily penetrate the ship’s hull, the Leviathan reached Thule’s main entrance. The submersible floated alone and small like prophet Jonah before the mouth of a whale.
The shell-shaped entrance towered over the submarine. It bore carvings of symbols for long-dead language: cuneiform, hieroglyphics, runes, and more were concentrated in clusters across its surfaces.
Squeezing by, the Leviathan sank into it.
Chapter Five
The whiff of wind rocked the surface of the airship, reminding one of a twisted, pleated flag or trembling flesh, throbbing upon every exhalation of the breath. The whitish-yellow sunlight reflected off of the vessel’s fabric in such a way that it looked like it was glowing; it was a mighty animal bladder framed in silver.
The gondola, little more than an aluminum appendage, also swayed with the rhythm of an awkward dancer.
The comfort of the captain’s cabin spread itself in this part of the airship, revealing a dizzying panoramic view for the gathered crew and the stranger to behold. Stretching out like colorful pieces of pleated drapery, their eyes were treated to a vista of extensive fields and pastures. It was a greenish-brown staggered mosaic that spread out in every direction.
Thus, under the very thin clouds sudden winds and currents, along with heavy doses of sunlight, had started an odyssey that we will eventually know the outcome of.
Now, before the aluminum Plexiglas dials with their shaking movements, stood people who had spent their lives in a sleepless sleep—no memories of the past or dreams for the future haunted them, but at this time before them was a path worthy of demigods and heroes. They had been elevated to those heights that lure people, whispering reminders of the time they had lost their wings.
The noise of the engine, the clatter of the transmission, and the rhythmically spinning air propellers had intoxicated the seven men and given them that sense of freedom that mankind was destined to experience centuries and centuries later as pilots in leather jackets, goggles, rubberized adhesives, and silk scarves.
This is the existence that we all pray to the Creator to give us when the chains of our memories have become too severe. We wish to be turned into birds that are flying beyond the places that have caused us pain.
Before the men extended horizons upon horizons of unseen land connecting one shore to another; civilizations that cheapened the splendor too magnificent to describe dotted these areas.
As if everything was completely natural, no questions were asked while these men flew in the clouds and as the Behemoth left Bibal.
Rampant miles and miles of pathway that could only be likened to tales from the Orient greeted these travelers. Those stories chronicled the passage of people who had traveled great distances at unimaginable speeds, but even so, the writers of the East with their extravagant flights of fancy would not have been able to imagine this current journey.
The controllable balloon flipped over plowed lands that had been drilled and cut by mechanisms, wheels that drew water and irrigation channels that looked like veins that stuck out and throbbed. The sandy hills were planted with pincushions of palms, under whose shadows tents were pitched here and there. The bells of cattle herds and the laughter of children echoed from among the camps.
The Behemoth moved in the shadows of the clouds, hiding its shape, but occasionally poking outside of them, which produced horror and ecstasy in the villages below.
People were scared of the matte silver vehicle and regularly offered numerous sacrifices to graven images under the shady groves. There is nothing like the gods that human hate, fear, or love more than themselves. This is because the gods were the ones who came to remind us that the first farmer to pray did so just for a drop of water, that the shepherd doesn’t know if tomorrow there will be a pasture for his countless herds, that man is an animal, always surrounded by death.
And although they are accustomed to all sorts of things, men get nervous with all this fuss. Deep in their hearts they are afraid that they will be held accountable for their actions.
The flight harbored in their hearts turmoil, pain, sorrow, and sighs from seen and unseen lands.
And the Behemoth was increasingly flying in a southerly direction.
The landscape transformed like a nascent creature—the Bekaa valley with its plantations of emerald cut from a fragment of graphite-gray hills changed into the mountain of Lebanon ringed like a necklaces with hills, which then transformed into rivers and yellowish seas; the settlements changed one after another.
The airship flew with the speed of a quiet breeze, and despite its soundlessness, it was capable of covering great distances.
Barely reaching the mountains of the Galilee, Carmel, and Golan, the Behemoth sank in the west and entered the sea.
The zeppelin flew and flew over the Great Sea that collected and separated continents, which hovering like seabirds did not go anywhere but nevertheless respected its route.
The Behemoth left behind the golden-yellow lands of Phoenicia and moved more into the sea that resembled melted wax.
The men, strange as it may sound, were not questioning the foreigner about details. Between them a trust had been formed; it was the same kind borne from people on the road. These men had become permanently bound, but at some point, the men needed their leader to reveal a part of himself and his plans.
“Lord, I think it’s time to introduce yourself and what we should do,” one of the men ventured.
“You can call me Tammuz. I will be brief. I need you to hunt demons, but I cannot promise you salvation. Such a thing people receive only in cheap or real stories with the gods. Here, you will get only death. The monsters that we will meet guarantee that. I have a challenging life. I won’t promise to make your lives easier or different. I don’t have divine powers, but I am headed to kill people with such things. You must help me.”
There was an audible but distinct gurgling. It was as if the men had found themselv
es confronted with an invisible well placed in front of a fence that was solid and high, made of rough, hard plaster and masonry. It was as if they had crashed into such a thing at full force.
“Talk a little more plainly, Tammuz. Only those fortunate chatterboxes, inflated with hydration, or insane prophets speak in this way,” said the first among the men, Sharukin.
“Well then, I will try to tell you everything from the beginning.
“After changing the cycles, the long centuries that measure human life, people learned how to travel between the worlds and between time itself. There, above us, were spread about belts and girdles of stars where we built cities. They resembled the appearance of crystal crowns or spirals on the spokes of wheels; they were circles within circles of satellites. In such a star town I was born.
“Floating among the clouds of dusty systems, we diverged, we disappeared, and we reappeared, moving in the vacuum.
“Cities, our mothers, produced colonies that in their turn became the basis of more locales. Humankind grew and diminished like a pounding body that waged war. Such things over time blurred into little more than stardust.
“Mastered—we eventually mastered time travel.
“We were present at the creation of life, at the appearance of the first man, at the birth of the first civilization. Our presence created entangled threads within time.
“Once put on this road, many of those sent forth turned away and began to act on their own, weaving new creations from the fibers present in the world. Doing so has amended every moment of our existence, so my mission and that of many others is to kill, to give life, to build, and to destroy—all in the name of time.”
“So what’s the difficult part?”
“It is a hard task because I have to kill. But I also often have to leave in place the head of kingdoms, tyrannical or utopian. There are those who raise the flags of a thousand nations from subcontinent to subcontinent. There are people who are willing to destroy those that are preached unconditional love.”
The men fell silent, soaking in the horror and shocked by what they had just heard.
“You will do all this?” asked Sharukin.
“Yes, my friend, we will perform such deeds. And the others like us may be forced to liquidate us, even if we do the right thing as long as the timeline imposes it. Maybe in the end, if we do not die, we will become that which we will fight, if time demands it. Now you know some part of the truth. Let’s focus on getting the airship to Crete.”
The men ran to their seats and turned the steel sheet and rubberized wheels. They moved the throttles and the great zeppelin shrugged its flaps. It shook its plump body, made some tentative maneuvers, and with its propellers rattling pushed forward.
Thus buzzing with the cycle of roaring engines, which spoke for the pilgrimage itself, the machine gained momentum and dressage; it surfed on the winds.
The Behemoth perhaps formed a totally inappropriate but most habitual thread of humanity because modeled from the Creator, mankind also flies like the wind to the four corners of the world, stealing breaths before breathing in a handful of mud. That’s why man tempts fate like a blossomed flower spinning in its delicate beauty.
Moving like a lit cloud along the shining edges of an asteroid, the aircraft floated between the two azures.
Thus, surrounded by blue, starting from on and ending in another, the men came to understand the truth that mud had created the splendor of this world. Humanity was created from the tears of God.
So it was that the beauty, blessed with mortality and eternity, filled the spaces between continents and filled their souls with peace.
The Behemoth levitated, hanging in the sky like a fallen meteor and zipping over watery depths, passing island after island in the Aegean. They looked like the projections of sinewy roots, interwoven parts of Europe and Asia. After some hours the zeppelin passed Cyprus and Rhodes—particles of other worlds that had been thrown into the Mediterranean—and like a protrusion cutting the horizon in front of them stood the outline of Crete.
The Behemoth approached the gravelly ground while sheltered spots of greenery, mostly trees and bushes followed by streaks of plantations, appeared here and there.
The red hues of the island’s few houses were scattered away from one another along the beach. Although Crete had a pristine coastline, it did little more than keep people secluded and isolated.
In the distance stood the Palace of Knossos; its straight columns were painted red like a warning to those who dared to venture closer.
Chapter Six
The hours went by in that stretchiness, elongated and torn, that accompanies anything that man desires, fears, loves, or hates.
Illuminated by pale flames, the patients in the leper colony moved soundlessly. They were translucent shadows staggering around in sterile white corridors or just lying on the floor.
Sporadic talks were tainted by the quiet steps of oncoming pain. The rustle of weekday vanity slowly engulfed the colony’s vitality and the colony could do little in opposition to it . . . .
Good or bad everything is measured in a different way that only the sickly people can understand.
Under the lush canopy of trees, these people had grown like stubble in the cracks of stone. They were being forced to do the scariest thing in life—live to the end of it.
Staying near the sea lined with rocks covered in a muslin of greenery, and framed by blue granite blocks, the patients were disconnected from everything.
Every night, they gathered at the edge of the cliff and screamed messages to their relatives below. Every night was the last one for some of them.
Worn like shells in the ocean of eternity, people come and go, and often we are intermingled and become lost among others.
The soul is like a drop of molten iron that has been heated and tempered, formed from all of the senses.
This is why words sometimes remain choked in the chest.
Because from time to time a person wants something—to drink from the cup of eternity.
Such action is done without a lot of talking. However, I will tell you the following story.
Akuma, twenty-one years old, felt the right side of his face.
Bloated and swollen as usual, it was painful to touch and felt simultaneously soft and rough.
His right eye, a sobbing, festering, and stinking hole, gave him a fuzzy, gray, and dark view of the world.
Slightly downturned, his lips were tightened and stretched toward the right into a half smile that gave him the look of a madman.
Combined with the constant shaking of his cheek, for sporadic convulsions made his rough and fuzzy sides play disgusting beats, Akuma looked like a man whose right side had been possessed by a demon.
Whenever he thought about his past, it always started as a shower of fragmented memories. The recollections were like fossils that coalesced and precipitated remembrances with the bitter, metallic taste of molten silver or lead. They were often unexpected and accidentally recollected.
There he was meeting her.
Nothing more than offal now, those weaknesses that filled his dreams. They were silly things like verses of poetry, traveling and daydreaming that they were together, merging them through borrowed accidents that collected like flowing water droplets.
He loved her, had that feeling, delicate, ephemeral, and eternal, full of an emptiness that only the love of two merged souls could recreate as a colorful bubble.
They were like twisted plants, entangled in their destiny and life until he got sick.
He remembered the night when it happened. It had been a gloomy December day during which the wind scraped the fields. Cold penetrated the houses.
They had said that everything was fine.
In fact, we all say such childlike things as we twist headlong into a blanket of gathered darkness. We tell ourselves that monsters do not really exist.
And in the morning, we believe everything will be fine. We believe all the things th
at we need and want will be ours in the future.
Because hope is that gem created by the dust of despair that has entered the soul.
But often, in this world that dictates orders in opposition to our beautiful stories, unexpected things happen.
And weakness, accompanied by her eternal companion, pain, began to change Akuma.
It happened slowly at first, but gradually grew—the pain was an unwanted guest that held the power of an unexpected nightmare. It stayed until it became a constant companion.
Akuma could not live.
Because of this, he could not be with her.
The seasons of life always gnaw away at time, which casts its nets, holding and severing the two currents of present and future in their flow.
So after the snatches of time that drove the agony in Akuma’s life like a fierce, evil dog, he went to the leper colony, where the decay of his body would reach its natural end.
He cared for the sick with that arrangement in mind. It filled his very being with a panic, an insipid vermouth, that suffocated his lungs. Soon he himself would be taken care of. Soon he would become very ill.
And that, my friends, highlights how life is the veil that descends over a good or bad play. Whichever it is, there’s nothing more to say.
That is the kind of existence that has led us to this particular morning.
The cool breeze blew across the cheeks, nipped at the side of the sea that stood calm in the aftermath of the oil previously hauled across it. The waters were blue from the previous storm.
Akuma, twenty-one years old, rubbed at his diseased sides and watched the neighborhood from the heights of the colony. He could see the countryside spread out into concentric circles for miles around.
Maybe soon someone’s relatives would bring food or someone, a healer, perhaps—or a noble madman or a greedy charlatan or a huckster, would come over, causing animation above.
The usual shapes darted around the rocks in the mainland. Strange, ghostly similar items forced people to go out to do their usual work. Akuma had grown up around the valleys and was now getting lost in them.
Crematorium for Phoenixes Page 3
