Council of Peacocks

by M Joseph Murphy

  “Humph. Do you want the boy or not?”

  Andromeda grabbed Propates by the chin and forced his head up. She studied his eyes for a moment with a hard, icy intensity. Then her expression softened and she took her hand away. “No. He’s too soft and angry.”

  The hand on Propates' shoulder gripped tighter. “Soft and angry, you say. I can use that.”

  Andromeda took at step back. “No, Wisdom. Please, don’t….”

  “If you don’t want him for a toy, Andromeda, I will take him. I haven’t converted anyone since I took you. This melancholy you’re feeling, maybe it’s just loneliness. Tell me, boy, what is your name?”

  The hand on his shoulder spun him around and forced him to his knees in one movement. For a moment, the pebbles in Propates' throat seemed to clog up his entire voice. He looked up at the dark-skinned man before him and screamed. It was not the violence implied in the blood red flares of the cape or the highly polished metal of his Roman soldier’s uniform. It was the orange-glow in the man’s eyes, a glow that came from some internal flame.

  “I said, tell me your name!”

  As Propates watched, the orange glow faded and died. The only light now came from the moon above. Propates fought past the pebbles in his throat and the fear clouding his head.

  “I’m called Propates, lord.”

  Wisdom smiled and rested a heavily calloused hand on Propates' unwashed hair. “A fine name. An auspicious name. Tell me, Propates, would you like to live forever?”

  Wisdom tore the thinly woven tunic from Propates. He placed a warm hand on the sixteen-year-old’s trembling chest. In a flash, Propates sensed the pain and screamed. Wisdom’s hand crackled and burst into flame. With inhuman speed and strength, he pushed Propates down onto his back and started chanting. Only later did Propates realize the words were Arabic; at the time, he only recognized them as magic.

  Fire thrust from Wisdom's flesh, inserting its heat into every cell of Propates' body. As it pulsated through his quivering body, his marrow superheated, turning to plasma. His blood flash-boiled, turned to red vapor and hissed out from every orifice in his body. Only a force coming up from the earth, a shadowy darkness, cooled his body enough to keep bones and flesh intact. It was the worst pain he had ever felt in his life.

  He spent nearly a month fading in and out of fever dreams. He was only dimly conscious of the outside world, but he remembered leaving the farm. He knew Wisdom left a sack of currency at the farm, payment to father for a son. He felt more than saw Andromeda come to sit with him. She came often. Propates knew she cried over him and held his hand. But mostly he was only aware of the dreams.

  The place he dreamt of was nowhere on Earth. It was a red city with no sun. Pillars of orange and black shot up from the scorched, blackened earth to a crimson sky. He wandered through buildings as massive as mountains, filled with ephemeral creatures whose translucent bodies were constructed of living flame. In the distance, giant birds flew over a range of mountains composed entirely of glistening emeralds. Later he was in the presence of a man emerging from a pool of lava. Neither the flame nor the heat seemed to touch him. The man’s face flickered, sometimes visible, other times not; but Propates knew the man was Wisdom. In the dream Wisdom grabbed him by the hand and led him into the pool of lava. As he sunk below the molten matter, Propates clearly heard Wisdom’s voice say: “Welcome to Djinnistan.”

  Propates woke with a start, just managing to keep the scream in his throat. Andromeda was beside him, reading silently from a scroll. She was dressed in a fluid, graceful gown that was dyed deep purple. Her hair was down, flowing over her shoulders like water frozen in place.

  “What did he do to me?” Propates forgot himself for a moment. He reached over and gripped Andromeda’s hand, a presumption that previously would have scared him into paralysis. “What is he? What have I become?”

  Andromeda put the scroll down and leaned over him. With a gentle hand, she pushed a lock of sweat-damp hair away from his forehead and out of his eyes.

  “What has he done?” she repeated. “He’s freed you and he’s damned you. He’s damned both of us. As to what he is, I don’t really know. I’ve been alive a long time now, a very long time, and I’ve never met anyone like him. Sometimes he talks of his home, of the place he came from. He calls it the Kaz but I’ve never heard of such a place. Have you?”

  Propates shook his head. His throat was dry and his whole body ached for moisture.

  “As for what you’ve become, only time will tell. We are not like him. Not even close. The things I’ve seen him do, they are inhuman. Maybe he’s one of the gods from Olympus and maybe now we are demigods. I don’t really believe that, but it’s a nice lie. A pretty lie. And it helps me get through the nights. I suggest you find yourself a lie, something that will help you, too.”

  For decades, Propates traveled with Wisdom and Andromeda. Most of that time was a blur of violence and excess. They traveled to England where Wisdom conferred with hidden remnants of the nearly extinguished Druidae. They met with barbarian shamans throughout Europe and mystics in China. Wisdom was looking for something, but he would not tell Propates what it was. A brief stop near Rome gave him the opportunity to revisit the family farm. It was mostly to confirm that Olivia was dead. She’d died in her early thirties, childless and unmarried. The family farm was now owned by the descendants of a distant cousin. Whatever hope he had held that his unborn child had survived the repeated rapes was destroyed.

  Propates said goodbye to the last vestiges of his former life.

  Then they traveled deep into the jungles of Africa, on the edges of the Kingdom of Aksum, and everything changed. On that day, Propates learned to touch the shadows. It was also the first time in centuries that Wisdom faced his father.

  They arrived in the village just after midday. Fresh from two years amongst the Parthian tribes traveling the lands that would one day be Iran and Turkey, the three of them were dressed in rich embroidered beige robes with loose cowls to cover their heads. Wisdom still traveled with a small body of soldiers but the majority of them kept to the outskirts of the village, a gesture Wisdom hoped would avoid panic in the villagers. Wisdom spoke the language of the region – he seemed to know the language of every region – and quickly arranged for room and board. Then he left Andromeda and Propates, disappearing into a hut constructed of mud and straw with a man dressed only in bones and leather.

  “What are we doing here?” Propates was uncomfortably aware of the smell of freshly spilt blood in the air. Something was being slaughtered nearby. He hoped it was for a feast. He hoped it was an animal. “What is Wisdom looking for?”

  “Answers.” Andromeda removed her cowl and ran her fingers through her hair to remove the tangles. “Wisdom is asking the medicine man here questions, the same questions he’s asked the others. When he has answers, we will leave.”

  “Answers to what kind of questions?” Propates looked around for a place to sit and only found the floor. He decided to stand. “What does a man like him need answers for, anyway? The way he talks, you’d think he already knows everything.”

  Andromeda smiled and brushed Propates’ bangs away from his forehead. “You’ve barely changed at all. After all these years you still look like you’re sixteen. Sometimes I wish you were a little older.”

  Propates reached up and touched Andromeda’s hand. “I am old enough. I had a wife once, remember? A wife who is long dead. Let me…”

  “No. Wisdom will...” Andromeda pulled her hand away. “I cannot do this.”

  “Do you love him?”

  Andromeda sighed and pulled even further away. “We have a long day ahead of us. While Wisdom is conducting his research, I suggest you find something to keep yourself occupied.”

  Then she was gone. It was the last time he would see her for several hundred years.

  Propates stayed inside the hut, sitting on the dirt floor with his knees curled up to his chest. Whatever Wisdom had done to him all those ye
ars ago had not only retarded his aging process, it had also slowed his mental and emotional growth. Despite his age, he still felt all the roiling emotions of an adolescent.

  “Andromeda doesn’t love him,” he whispered to himself. To his young mind, without love or the promise of children there was no other reason for marriage. Only royalty or heads of state married for political reasons. So to him, that meant there was still a chance he could steal her away from Wisdom.

  He stood and began to exercise, using a series of fluid yet physically strenuous movements he had learned in Asia. Within moments, he was lost in the rhythm of movement. Then he sensed something. A stirring in the shadows. He tensed, shifting his consciousness out of his body to become fully aware of his surroundings. At the back of the hut, behind a stack of clay jars and animal pelts, something was moving in the darkness.

  “I see you,” he said. “Come out.” The shadows churned and Propates realized it was not someone or something moving in the shadows. Rather, the shadows seemed to be redistributing themselves around something.

  “What are you?”

  His heart beat forcefully in the silence. For a moment, there was nothing. Then a sound, sibilant like the clicking of pebbles underfoot and the drifting of sand in the wind, spoke from the shadows. “I come as a warning,” it said. As it spoke, the shadows swirled in jerky motions. “One of the Invisible Ones is coming: one of the Smokeless Fire. All will be consumed by him. He comes for his son and nothing will stop him.”

  Propates took a step closer to the shadows. “That means nothing to me, demon. Stop talking in riddles. Tell me what you are!”

  “We are friends, Propates. We have known you since Wisdom touched you the first time. He has shown you nothing and he never will. Come to us, touch us and you will be shown things beyond your current understanding. But we must hurry. The Invisible One is almost here.”

  Propates studied the figure submersed in the gloom, his whole being tensed and waiting for an attack. When it did not come from the shadows, he turned and exited the hut.

  “Damnable shade,” he whispered and spat on the ground. It was not his first experience with an incorporeal parasite. Several times in China, but more often amongst the Parthian tribes, he witnessed attempts at possession by creatures from Beyond. This was obviously some sort of fiend sent to tempt him, lure him to Hades so it could steal his body. He had to find Wisdom and let him know about the attempt. Wisdom would know what to do.

  He was so focused on the need to find Wisdom that he did not see what was right in front of him. The village was quiet. Nothing moved, not even the leaves of the trees all around him. He looked above the trees and bit his lips. The sky was purple and red, like a bruise, and the clouds ran briskly through the heavens. A determined wind blew them but did not touch the earth.

  “Wisdom?” The village absorbed his voice and offered nothing in return. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with wind rush through his body. As a child, he’d been taught this meant a larva, one of the restless dead, was reaching out to him in warning. He had never really believed it until that moment.

  “Wisdom?”

  A tree branch cracked in the distance.

  “Andromeda?”

  Silence.

  Propates walked further into the village, past circular straw huts and the tree to which only recently the village had secured its cows. There was no one to be seen. Even the cows were gone, though the leather thongs that had held them in place remained. Fire still smoldered in the shallow fire pits and the smell of blood was thick in the air. But where were the people? Where were the bare-chested mothers grinding grain, the toothless old women making pottery, the naked children chasing each other through the dust? He’d seen them all as he had come into the village. He walked a little further and heard a soft sound. His eyes quickly spotted the source – a small red-clay bowl filled with grain spun with diminishing speed. Propates knelt beside it and stopped its spinning with his fingertips.

  And one again, silence.

  ‘Wherever they went,’ he thought, ‘they left recently. And very suddenly.’

  Something moved behind him. Propates turned so quickly he tripped over his own feet and fell on the ground. His eyes shot to the spot the movement had come from, but now he could see nothing. Then something charged out of the woods, an indescribable mess of torn flesh and exposed bones. Only as it grew closer did Propates recognize the dark skin, the threatening mounds of muscle in the shoulders and the look of rage on the shredded face.

  Wisdom.

  Something had done this to Wisdom.

  “What…?”

  Wisdom glanced at him. For a second, he was not sure he even recognized him.

  A roar came from out of the jungle, a sound like screaming children and the smashing of boulders. Bolts of lightning danced a web of electricity in the now-cloudless sky above. Daylight bled out of the air. It grew darker and darker. Propates looked for the sun. It was still there, but with every passing moment it gave off less and less illumination. He jumped as Wisdom grabbed him by the arms and abruptly pulled him closer. Face to face, Propates determined the look he had mistaken for rage was actually fear.

  Wisdom said: “Run.”

  The shredded man pushed him away and then turned back to the woods. Fire sprang up along Wisdom’s body, shrouding him in bright red flame. The sound came again from the woods and it was enough to shatter the last of Propates' nerves. He screamed and ran wildly, barely aware of where he was going. It was as dark as night now, the only light coming from the web of lightning above. In his panic, Propates ran right into a hut and through the straw wall. There was movement to his left, something moving and twitching in the shadows, a swirl of barely visible colors with a sense of enormous mass behind it. Then from out of the darkness, there was a hand, human in shape but black and airy like a shadow. It was followed by a slender arm. It beckoned to him. Then something spoke.

  “Last chance.”

  This time, there was no hesitation. Propates reached out to the shadow hand. He felt a rush of cold consume him. Then he was just gone.

  ***

  Propates left his office, signed an invoice his secretary held out to him, and headed toward the elevator. One level down, he stepped off the elevator and nodded to the white-robed acolyte who sat behind the reception desk.

  Even the ceremonial floor required administration now. Two stories below the apartment complex, the ceremonial floor was connected to centuries-old tunnels that ran from here to the White Tower in one direction, far beyond the city limits in the other direction. Most of the rooms currently used by the Council of Peacocks were newly constructed, like this foyer. The flooring here was pristine white tile. On the ceiling, fifteen feet above Propates' head, was a mosaic of a peacock landing in Paradise surrounded by Edimmu, while in the distance the spirit of Argus with his hundred eyes looked on with a smile. The ceremonial floor had been built mostly by the Edimmu and, being much taller than humans, they required more space. Enclosed spaces reminded them of their subterranean cities. It reminded them of their descent into slavery.

  Propates left the foyer and walked briskly down a tunnel constructed from sand-colored bricks. There was no one else in sight, which annoyed him. Everyone else was probably already dressed and in the Vulture Antechamber. As Argus’ representative on Earth, Propates should have been the first one contacted in case of emergencies, not the last. Lucius and Otto had apparently forgotten their place in the scheme of things. Maybe it was time to remind them.

  The entrance to the cloakroom was guarded on either side by an Edimmu. Both were male, their scaly visages touched with flecks of black and yellow. Both wore ceremonial uniforms – leather kilts, knee-high sandals and heavy claymores strapped to their waists. Like most of the young Edimmu, neither guard wore a shirt nor had any body hair. Neither acknowledged him as he walked between them. They served him now out of need and fear, not loyalty.

  He stripped off his business attire and slipped i
nto a heavy robe lined on the inside with soft felt. The outside of the robe was constructed entirely of peacock feathers. Underneath it he wore a simple white tunic that hung to his knees. All members of the inner circle dressed the same, a remnant of times when to be a member of the Council of Peacocks was a death sentence. The cloak came with a thick cowl that hid the practitioner’s face. What once was a pretext of privacy was now a reminder of humility and the heritage of the Council.

  The Vulture Antechamber was dark. The only light came from small fires burning in copper braziers, one on each of the five raised funeral platforms that encircled the raised dais at the center of the room. The dais itself was thirteen feet in diameter, one foot for each lunar month in a year. If viewed from above, the platforms looked like black rays shooting out from a black sun. Around the edge of the dais stood life-sized statues of vultures carved from black marble. They looked outward over the funeral platforms, a carry-over from a magical rite that only Propates and the Edimmu remembered.

  Frankincense and myrrh were heavy in the air, the incense so thick it hung like mist. In the shadowy recesses of the cavernous room, acolytes and Edimmu chanted quiet incantations in Greek. On the dais, just inside the vulture statues, five figures in robes identical to the ones Propates wore knelt nearly equidistantly around the circle. Their cowls covered their faces and they remained silent as Propates took his place at the Eastern Edge, completing the circle.

  “Why has a full flock been called?” he asked.

  “I called the flock because I have a concern about the agent from away.” Propates believed this deep tenor voice belonged to Lucius. It was difficult to distinguish individuals in the Vulture Antechamber. The magics and the acoustics here turned each voice into a stronger, stranger version of itself.

  “This is not news,” Propates answered. “We all have concerns, but the coming war means we must accept strange allies. I’m much more concerned with the loyalty of the Orpheans than this Defksquar. The demons are called demons for a reason.”