The Crystal Crux: Blue Grotto

by Allen Werner

  The confident proprietor rose slowly to his feet and bared an ancient weapon, an untarnished, perfectly maintained gladius from days gone by.

  “Here now, you are being awfully silent. You best speak your peace quickly, Giant.” He pointed the blade toward the stranger. “I’ll admit it rightly; I don’t like the look of you. You’re indecent but it’s nothing I ain’t seen before. Misfortune befalls you treasure seekers and you come back down out of the mountains having been robbed and expect me to be charitable. Well, I’m no priest. Caring for you and your lot is not my calling. I’ll not haggle with a beggar, even one as imposing as you.” His sunken beady eyes grew darker. “I crusaded in Palestine, I’ll have you know.” He pressed the gladius near his chest as if saluting. “I assure you, I am still capable of poking this sticker in you with fatal precision.”

  Sinibaldus nodded, his swollen tongue licking at the dry white film in the corners of his mouth. His belly ached so loud, both heard it.

  “Is it outside? Do you have goods out there? I’ll barter honestly with you, if that be the case; I’ll promise you that. I ain’t seen nothing yet, nothing but your fucking vit and I have no need of that. Them pelts on your feet are ruined as well.”

  Lightheaded, Sinibaldus swooned a bit. He was so close to food and drink, to receiving some comfort now he couldn’t endure the stalemate any longer.

  “What will you give me for this?” Sinibaldus lifted his long arm out towards the proprietor and opened his giant fist. He revealed the Bellerophon Crystal not foreseeing the event which happened next.

  The moment his fingers stretched apart, without any dramatics or flair, without any special words or alignment with the sun, the Bellerophon Crystal ignited, spraying a kaleidoscope of light throughout the entire building. A churning rainbow of harmless fire filled the cabin. It was magnificent and spellbinding.

  The proprietor lowed the gladius as he gazed in childlike wonder at the spectacle.

  At the first, Sinibaldus was more annoyed than amazed by the revelation. He had seen this once before. ‘Why the hell is it working now? What was I doing wrong?’ He thought hard on what had happened, what he was thinking, hearing, smelling and feeling. The old crone’s voice suddenly grated at his ears, hissing words he had never actually heard her speak. He could only assume what made the most logical sense. ‘Even from afar, she can speak to me if she so wishes.’

  “From this day forward, you are bound to the Bellerophon Crystal, spiritually yoked. Only in death can you be spared.” She giggled. “Separated.”

  ‘I cannot give it away,’ Sinibaldus acknowledged. ‘It is mine, for as long as I live. It truly is mine. We are one.’

  Sinibaldus forgot his misery and pain, his hunger and exhaustion. He peered down longingly into the fiery heart of his mistresses. Her beauty swam over him and through him, a temperamental sea of red gaseous clouds ovulating in her center. He began to see several faces and hear whispers, hundreds of them, thousands of them.

  Gently, Sinibaldus breathed through his nose and the soft wind accidently disturbed the red mist, turning it blusterier. A swarm of new images and voices erupted, far more than the giant could process. He was already feeling lightheaded when the whirl struck him. Now it was just confusing imagery inciting him to pass out. He longed to close his eyes and drift off to sleep but before he did, he spotted the face of the proprietor deep inside the Stone. This revelation snapped his attention back immediately. He willed himself to remain alert.

  Sinibaldus recalled the scryers at La Piscane Viante. These types, chiefly women, would stare for long hours into water, quicksilver, anything shiny and reflective. Their eyes immobilized and hypnotized, spirits emerging from the stillness to speak to them.

  “Who are you?” Sinibaldus questioned the image he recognized, believing now the Bellerophon Crystal had a soul of its own and willed itself to look like the fat old man behind the counter. “What have you to tell me?”

  A flurry of events suddenly rushed wildly through the crystal, some of them shooting up and out of the Stone like anxious ghosts only to dissipate before getting very far, their ethereal bodies unable to exist long in this world.

  Sinibaldus strained to comprehend them all but it was maddening, just too much information to process all at once. The more he tried to concentrate on them, the more fractured his thinking became. His mind was being pulled apart. Thousands of words and images demanded to be understood instantly. The ability to reason was dying. Tiny electrical pulses emanating from inside the Bellerophon Crystal shot out at the giant’s face like infinitesimal bolts of lighting, striking his forehead, supercharging his brain, causing the muscles in his neck to spasm. Veins swelled on his head. It was a war for his sanity, his body. Sinibaldus was losing control of his motor functions. He anticipated one final shock coming, one that would rip through his entire being and harm him mortally if he allowed it.

  He could not allow it.

  The giant snarled and defied the shocks. He created a stern fist with his free hand, the left hand, and threatened to do harm to whatever spirits were operating inside the red gaseous mist.

  “Obéis-moi.” Obey me.

  This single, menacing command was so adamant, physically and spiritually, the irrepressible Stone was compelled into submission. The Bellerophon Crystal acknowledged the dominion of the human, of Sinibaldus, and the ludicrous speed at which the various stories being played out before him began to slow to a comprehensible level, the hectic wheeling motion of the kaleidoscope spraying the shack with light decelerating as well. Sinibaldus sighed, a sense of having conquered something enormous and powerful nourishing his countenance. ‘I am in charge. Yes, I am in charge.’

  All the images inside the Bellerophon Crystal were more pronounced, clearer. There was a definite pattern to it. It was life, a life, sequential, from beginning to end, or now, or wherever he had come. It was the proprietor. It was he, but not this fat, lazy slob of a man standing behind the counter. This was the proprietor from seasons ago, back during a time when he was fit and trim, healthy, a robust man-at-arms with an attractive brunette wife and child. ‘A girl,’ Sinibaldus thought, still mesmerized, drawn hopefully into the heart of the Stone. He had never been so bemused. ‘No, a boy; it is not a girl, wait, both. He has a son and a daughter. And his name is Pieter.’

  Sinibaldus pulled away from the Crystal momentarily and glanced up at the man. Pieter couldn’t move, suspended in the colored light as if hypnotized.

  There was an awkward and unexpected joy radiating through Sinibaldus that he had never sensed within himself. He nearly gifted old Pieter a genuine smile when that thought was jolted from him by a violent slapping noise, an abuse of some sort that shook the entire cloud and revolving lights.

  Intent to learn what had happened, Sinibaldus returned to the Crystal and stared at the dark ghostly images until all was revealed. Pieter was abusive. He struck his pretty wife with a closed fist. She lurched and fell. Her face was pressed to the floor, bruised and swollen, blood and tears. Then the brute got to kicking her, not once, not twice, but multiple times. Sinibaldus could hear her ribs cracking.

  ‘He’s drunk! He’s mad!’

  The giant’s rage was escalating, swelling. He didn’t like this man anymore. The gaseous cloud, in response to the giant’s elevated passion did likewise, turning redder and bloodier.

  ‘Another woman. Another woman just as pretty as the first but with much longer hair. I see her breasts. I see her cunt.” Sinibaldus laughed and leered. Pieter’s face was between her legs, his tongue licking up inside her. ‘Hell yeah. Who the fuck is she?’

  Like a lustful voyeur, Sinibaldus continued to watch Pieter and this woman fondle and copulate. It was a long and passionate drama and the giant was getting aroused. And just as Pieter came inside the beautiful woman, another man barged through the door.

  ‘Mauger. This man’s name is Mauger.’

  Sinibaldus didn’t understand why he knew this just by looking at his face. M
auger was a complete stranger to him but still he knew who he was. Sinibaldus didn’t understand why all these revelations were coming forward and he didn’t care. He was fascinated. The tale was mesmerizing and lewd, filled with sex and violence.

  ‘Mauger is the woman’s husband. And he’s pissed.’ Sinibaldus’ powder blue eyes grew wider. ‘And Mauger is not just any man. Mauger is Pieter’s brother. You were fucking your brother’s wife.’

  The shiny, ancient gladius Pieter was gripping rounded into view. Sinibaldus swore and cursed. He was trapped in the enchantment and couldn’t leave it to protect himself. He thought it was all over. He thought he was going to die. “Fucking hell!”

  Pieter killed Mauger, ran him straight through with the gladius.

  Sinibaldus realized the gladius he was seeing wasn’t real, not right now anyway. The gladius he saw rounding into view was in the vision. This was a deed done long ago and the gladius was being swung in some other time at some other person.

  Relieved to know he was safe, Sinibaldus lifted from the Bellerophon Crystal and discovered Pieter’s beady dark eyes staring right back at him, cold and full of hate. The proprietor was shaking, nervous as hell, still gripping the gladius, the real gladius, right now. ‘He knows,’ Sinibaldus thought anxiously. ‘Pieter knows I know what happened.’

  The proprietor did not hesitate any longer. The revelation of fratricide was powerful enough to help him disengage from the hypnotizing effects of the Bellerophon Crystal. As he had done in the past, he did now. Pieter raised the gladius, prepared to strike Sinibaldus with it. Now it was real.

  “Arrêtez!” Sinibaldus hollered. Stop!

  Just as the wayward spirit of the Bellerophon Crystal obeyed his menacing command, so too did Pieter. In midflight, the proprietor’s arm froze in place. Pieter struggled to keep the sword firing down on the giant but he was incapable of moving it. It held there in midair, not moving up or down, not right or left, just suspended, stuck in space. Pieter was outraged, his chubby flushing face contorting and stressed. He trembled, angry and scared; confused. His arm refused to move. He couldn’t even pull it down. His head wouldn’t move either. Neither would his legs. He was conscious but stuck in time.

  The white chalky corners of Sinibaldus’ creepy little mouth curled up into a deviant smile. He gazed back inside the wonderful crystal, the kaleidoscope hardly moving now, everything in the mist slowed to a methodical, comprehendible pace. Sinibaldus could move things backwards and forwards now, replay things, the direction of the kaleidoscope changing with his whims.

  Sinibaldus relaxed and watched Pieter’s life rifle by. He saw the proprietor born, a memory the man himself couldn’t even remember he had. He watched the man nursed on his mother’s teats. He saw Pieter roughhousing with Mauger and other boys, urinating off bridges, fishing, swimming, and other childish tomfoolery. He watched Pieter hunt, skin deer, wench and wed, eventually abusing his wife and children, taking on several mistresses and a sheep.

  ‘Sheep?’ Sinibaldus thought that odd. Pieter was standing in an open field with at least thirty other men, all of them laughing their asses off with their pants down around their ankles, fucking sheep, sheep with brilliant white fur, extremely white fur, overly dramatic white fur. Something was amiss. It was not natural, this picture, the image. ‘It’s a lie,’ Sinibaldus concluded.

  Pieter’s face had been contorting nervously as each of these recollections drifted up from the crystal’s heart and entered Sinibaldus’ mind. The muscles in Pieter’s neck strained as the weight of the raised gladius continued to increase. He was in a great deal of pain, both physically and psychologically. He knew Sinibaldus was extracting all these memories from him, gaining intimate knowledge of his past but there was nothing he could do to oppose it. Guilt and humiliation stabbed his heart.

  Pieter began to cry when the giant focused on the sheep.

  Sinibaldus, still holding the Crystal with his right hand, pressed one finger from his left hand nearer the Stone hoping to touch a ghostly image, see if it was real. He had no idea what would happen next. Pieter spit and convulsed as if something had punched him in the lungs, near his rapidly beating heart.

  Sinibaldus did it again to be sure, pressing his filthy finger toward the red mist and Pieter shuddered again.

  The giant laughed before commanding the proprietor to finally lower the sword. Pieter obeyed and there was a gasp of relief.

  Sinibaldus was, however, not done with his quarry yet. With the kaleidoscope beginning to accelerate again, he stared into the proprietor’s beady black eyes and aimed his concentrated thought squarely on him; in him.

  ‘Did you murder your brother?’

  Pieter winced, his mind first addressing his own doubts. He was in a sanctuary, a private place where previously, until today, no other being had ever been. It was preposterous to think that any other truth could be truer. ‘He is not in here. He can’t be doing this to me. He can’t be in my mind.’

  ‘Oh, but I am, Pieter. I am in here with you. I see and hear everything you see and hear.’

  The merchant’s eyes began to dart uncontrollably about the room as the memory of fratricide snaked up on him again. He hadn’t considered the totality of this horrible event in years and now he couldn’t stop reliving it. Sinibaldus forced him to watch the event repeatedly, partake of it, feel the fury and the sorrow, even the passion of a woman not his wife. There was so much gore and screaming, his brother cursing him as he lay dying on the floor.

  ‘Did you murder your brother, Pieter?’ Sinibaldus raised a finger as if to poke at the Stone again.

  ‘Yes,’ Pieter finally conceded, answering the question without even opening his mouth. ‘Yes. I killed Mauger.’

  ‘And were you ever punished for this sin?’

  Grief tinted his soft response. ‘No. I was never punished. That is when I joined the militia. To get away. I never saw my children again.’

  Sinibaldus paused a moment before continuing his interrogation. ‘And your wife and children? When you were with them, did you mistreat them, abuse them?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. I did it all. I was an ass. Everyone hated me.’

  ‘And what about the sheep? What was her name?’

  ‘What sheep?’

  Sinibaldus gazed back inside the Bellerophon Crystal and filed through the myriad memories in Pieter’s unstable mind until he located the one for which he spoke. He made Pieter relive the sheep incident, the peculiar, blinding whiteness of all those ewes in the field. Oddly enough, the fat bastard was so aroused by this memory; he came in his pants.

  ‘What was her name?’ Sinibaldus demanded.

  ‘She didn’t have a name, damn it. She was a fucking sheep.’

  ‘You gave her one. I sensed it. You’re hiding something from me. Why?’

  Sinibaldus took a deep breath and concentrated so intently on this one event, that the fabric of the trade post broke down around them into tiny particles of light and shadow. Both were inexplicably whisked away, reconfigured as translucent apparitions standing in the field in question with the bleating sheep. They had somehow penetrated time and space. They could smell the grass, feel the cool chill of the night air on their arms; hear the cries, the wails and the screams of the sheep.

  ‘Screams of the sheep?’ Sinibaldus questioned. ‘What kind of sheep screams?’

  Sinibaldus had never realized how gifted his mind truly was until now, how astute his attentiveness to details could be. Slowly, deliberately, he reached out with his hands in the field and peeled back the sky which were actually only layers of the man’s memories, fake memories, whitewash and lies. Pieter had bleached this entire evening and everything that happened here.

  ‘These aren’t sheep you are fucking, are they?’

  Sinibaldus’ hands got busies, swifter. The giant stormed around the field erasing the deception, peeling back the illusion. A war had been fought here. It was very recent. There were corpses still decomposing in the field, the dead scattered al
l around them. It was a farm field. The crops were ripe for harvest but no one was picking them. A nearby church burned. There was black smoke filling the air. ‘You’ve been lying to yourself for years, Pieter, you bastard. You’ve been covering this memory up. What the hell happened here? Tell me!’

  Pieter gulped hard as the tears increased. The sheep began to morph and transform until reality returned. Pieter could not stop it from happening. The sheep were nuns. The church that burned was a convent. The sister’s bodies were naked and pallid, black habits ripped from them by Pieter and his fellow soldiers.

  ‘Her name was Riva,’ Pieter conceded. ‘That’s all I ever knew about her.’ In the memory, in the field, Pieter fell to his knees before Sinibaldus and begged. ‘They were all so kind to us. Riva was especially kind to me. We had need of food and shelter. They gave us rest. We did not reciprocate. When our strength and health returned, lust twisted us into demons. Yes, we pounced on them. We took advantage of their innocence.’ He looked up at the giant as if pleading his cause would make a difference now. ‘We were in Palestine. We were far from home. The Saracens had hit us bad. When we recuperated, it just happened. I can’t say how. I don’t remember who went first. It just took one man doing the wrong thing and soon we were all doing wrong. It was a frenzy, a bloodbath. We raped and murdered them all. We torched their fields and burned the convent. We destroyed everything and blamed the Saracen marauders who had attacked us earlier. There was no one to question us.’ Pieter’s cries were heaves. ‘God will surely punish me for this.’

  ‘God?’ Sinibaldus contradicted, his inflection derisive. ‘There is no god.’ He leaned down, still standing in the field, his enormous shadow covering Pieter. ‘I’m the one inside your head, my friend. I’m the one in control of your body and your mind.’ The giant shifted his powder blue eyes away from the scene and they were instantly transported back to the trade post, the fields in Palestine long gone. ‘I am your God now, Pieter. You will pay homage to me.’