Cerberus Slept

by Doonvorcannon

  “Erebus.”

  “Hesiod warned me of you.” I paused, thinking back to the poet’s words. He’d said that Erebus knew more of why I’d been chosen to be so unjustly imprisoned. “How is it that I, a mortal, have been banished to the prison of Titans and monsters too dangerous for Hades?”

  “The torchbearer of doom. You possess the flame of Olympus in your very blood, and you would question this? When the light left Hagia Sophia, we all saw your face. Even the Fates fear you; you, the one to finally turn their wheel against itself.”

  “But I was—and I assume still am—a mortal. When I get out of this underworld, I will once again live and die. I am but a ghost now, and death seems just as urgent, likely more so now than ever before. Even as Constantinople fell, I had more hope that I would survive than I do now. I do not have hope any longer, but only assurance in my own might. My power is my shield. My power is my life and death. You cannot take this from me,” I said, staring at his silhouetted form.

  “Don’t be so sure. But you are wise to leave behind hope. Prometheus was a cancer to your kind, his gift of fire depriving you of metamorphosis. His martyrdom and faith for you all was false. Lies. You humans were once supposed to know your deaths, for what better way to live and love your fate? Yet he sought to strike you with blindness by stealing from you the knowledge of your deaths and hiding it in fruitless dreams. Truth and power go hand in hand. Deceit is a tool for the truthful to use, but only men of truth can wield it truly.” Erebus stooped forward, breathing out in leaking gasps of smoke.

  “Prometheus was wrong to give us hope, if it was ever even his to give and not a choice of our own. He was wrong to do this instead of letting clarity reign supreme. Hope prolongs the weakness of man by tantalizing and tormenting him with falsehood—a reliance on the future to provide power and support, and not on the man in the moment at hand. The weak resign to their fates, and hope makes that resignation all the sicker. The strong step towards death as pure being, drinking each eternal moment as if already divine.”

  “Very wise, mortal. Wise indeed. But you and I both know: you are not a hero.”

  “Did I claim to be?” I said.

  “You failed and were thrown here as the new torchbearer of doom, tasting your own darkness. You sought martyrdom yet you met your deserved fate of failure.”

  “Can a hero not fail? What is it you want?” I asked.

  “Of course a hero can fail. But there is more to this sort of failure—in the end, the end is the judge and executioner of heroism. It either ends eternity or begins it,” Erebus said, leaning back as his shadow grew.

  “Then what is a hero?” I said, crossing my arms and glaring at his empty face.

  “A sacrifice at the altars of tragedy,” he said, his whisper howling as he leaned so far forward it looked like he might spill over me with his toxic fumes.

  I breathed through my mouth to avoid smelling his gravestone scent and said, “Did I not do just that in flinging myself against the Turkish horde alone, as they breached our once impenetrable walls?”

  “You did what any beast would do. You defended your nest.”

  “And what would have been the heroic course?” I said. I shook my head and sighed, uncrossing my arms and looking around me.

  “You did not follow the path of sacred war, but only the path of desperation. You might have thought of vengeance, you might have been afraid, or you might have dreamed of playing the martyr. These thoughts in your last moments negate the action’s heroic weight.” Erebus shifted backwards, his mist groaning as it curled away from me.

  “I may well have thought all three. But I acted!” I yelled.

  Erebus flurried further away, reforming into the silhouette of a towering man once again, now several feet back from me. “You reacted. To transcend such an end into the heroic is to embrace the spirit behind the act. To have a why for your what. War is sacred. Act and intellect must go together in balance, spirit as the arrow to your instinct.”

  “Were my thoughts not my why?” I said, pacing forward with my arms alight. “If you continue to dishonor me, I will scald your pathetic form.”

  “Come then, hero,” he whispered, coiling around himself like a smoky serpent. “We go now to meet some special ones to guide you on. You cannot leave this place until you see.”

  Erebus snapped back into the shape of a man and reached his misted arm outward. I grasped it with both my hands, his shadow surprisingly solid as stone—like the dark so deep you imagine you feel it, but this time it was actually an actuality. My body stiffened and my vision filled entirely with the black mist of Erebus’s body. His darkness numbed me until I lost all feeling and sense. The mist suddenly dissipated and I gasped as bright sunlight struck my face.

  I blinked and shook my head. Atop the old trusty wall. Constantinople. Again... as if I stood exactly as I had in those final moments. My men, those few that remained, paced along the walls with an exhausted assurance that they would die well. I forced myself to look away, knowing our end was near. Out on the battlefield, bodies drowned in a sea of red rot, crashing up against our walls in frozen waves of corpses. And over and past the dead, the Turkish hordes were gathered together, a continuous torrent bursting with bodies. Their cannons shook our walls as screaming men were buried beneath an avalanche of thunder and ruin. The Turks’ foreign, barbaric shouts coursed forward even more terrible than the cannons’ boom. The bulk of their forces stormed forward as I stared. Shaking, I breathed in the thick and heavy air soaked with sweat and blood.

  “Rangabes!” someone yelled.

  I turned to face my troops. I squinted to hold back my tears at their worried yet impossibly hopeful faces.

  “We’ve hardly any men left. The walls are crumbling. They weren’t built to withstand such hellish machinery.”

  “Walls...” I mumbled.

  The face of the one who’d spoken—he was merely a boy. His light eyes swept frantically back and forth, yet there was an overwhelming sense of courage and destiny there, like that of a cornered lion knowing it wasn’t going to die without clawing its way to eternity.

  To the left of me, a booming blast crashed into the wall, crumbling it and several men into dust. As the smoke cleared and my hearing returned, a sense of serenity descended. I breathed deep and stared into the gray-canopied heavens. Bloody war cries shrieked and the thundering rumble of charging men shattered the false calm. Instinct took over, and the shock of my sudden return to life subsided as I led my men, cutting down the invaders clamoring up the dead bodies. Like ants they crawled, scurrying atop heaps of their own. Stones dropped from our towers, arrows soared, and scalding water poured. Sweeping swords and long-reaching spears felled many a man, but always another followed with more and more behind. We’d been doing this for days and nights in constant distress. There was no sleep allowed, as the Turkish artillery never let up, shooting at random. The constant strain of danger had worn us all down. We were a few islands, and they a sea, each man a returning wave. I shook myself from my thoughts—Tartarus and the underworld had become a sinking dream. Had I not died? Was this real? Had I really been here fighting these last several days and nights? I shook myself again as I sliced another Turk’s throat.

  Now the fearsome janissaries followed and their archers behind them covered their push forward. Men collapsed beside me along with another section of wall. Again. Again. I had to see this again. No. Yes. This was past. Hesiod was waiting. Past. Reality was gone. Right now, I knew nothing, but hatred and instinct forced me forward. As all was lost, I leapt from the wall and onto the battlefield and carved out my own path, slicing with my sword.

  I screamed as I cut into a man’s neck, pulling the sword free just in time to ward off a scimitar. Spinning, I cut down the assailant’s calves from under him. Another flourish and I swung my sword at exposed hands, the blood of my faceless enemy covering me in scarlet. I chopped. A body fell. Another chop. Another fall. But they were many and I was one. Several men tackled
me at once and their relentless bodies stampeded over my fallen form and all went dark as I screamed.

  Gasping, I opened my eyes wide to Erebus standing before me with his hand still holding mine. Beside him someone else now stood: a tall pale woman, with translucent green robes.

  “Please,” I whispered. “No more.”

  “But you were heroic,” the woman cooed, her green eyes as deep as the far-flung forest. She smiled, leaning forward to stroke my cold cheek. Her dark auburn hair draped over me and tickled my head. A scent of fresh familiarity, like a childhood memory of a mother’s perfume, wafted over me. “Come now, hero. Again.” She kissed my lips and the black gripped me once more with numbness.

  When the sunlight struck me again, the shock of the moment was finished. I looked around, frowned, and drew my sword. I refused to play this game. This was not real.

  “Rangabes!” the soldier cried.

  His voice made me shiver. Was it real? Could I find redemption?

  “We’ve hardly any men left. The walls are crumbling. They weren’t built to withstand such hellish machinery.”

  I knew how this would go. What could I do different? The soldiers hadn’t spilled forward yet. I leapt from the wall and over the dead bodies. I landed with a roll, and stood and stared out at the distant lines of enemies.

  “Sir, come back! Are you mad? We need you!”

  My men shouted but I did not turn to look back. I strode forward, slowly at first, dragging my sword in the soil as if to mark a path to return to. A mocking of fate. Holding my steel aloft, I shouted and ran across the bloodstained plain. The dark faces of the enemy seemed taken aback, but shadows filled the air. The arrows rained down and consumed me. I twitched and writhed on the ground. Useless. A more pathetic and pointless end than perhaps any man had faced in this bloody war.

  Again, the black misted Erebus stared facelessly at me while still clutching my frozen hand. The green-eyed woman was joined by another figure. A beautiful, tanned man with the garb of an Egyptian stood there in his perfection. Sinewy and lean, his symmetrical form was frightening in its glory. No artist could draw or sculpt such a being as he. Oddly enough, he had a waterlily tucked behind his ear, and his black sea eyes seemed to ripple. The black eye liner only served to highlight the stormy waters that were his irises. With a blue headdress on, he certainly had the look of a god.

  He stepped forward and crossed his arms as if he were a disappointed father. “To charge like a frenzied bull is to be a fool. Fools are not heroes. Try again, fool.”

  The numbness did not take me by surprise and when the sunlight assaulted my face, I shrugged it away with a turn of my back. Dropping my sword and ignoring my soldiers’ startled pleas, I left my post at the wall and walked back into the city. The streets were dead and empty. My men’s cries faltered as the collapsing wall and assaulting Turks forced them to leave me be. My Constantinople. Never again would the true glory of Rome shine so pure. The death of an already dying empire. So real. This was all so real. I had to question whether this was constructed falsely through Erebus and his sorcery, or if this was somehow a reality that existed separately from the one I thought I knew—this moment an eternity by itself. Perhaps this one could be saved. But my soulless wandering through the vacant, stripped down city had probably only hastened this one’s end. A few more Turkish thugs would survive due to pathetic Rangabes leaving his men to die. I sighed, caring little for the memory of my name that would surely be forgotten regardless of what I did here now, and what I had done then. These once statue-lined streets had been dotted with Roman columns decked out in the finest metals and designs. The war and our weakness had long since bankrupted us. The city’s finery had long since been stripped. Nothing would remain. All would fade.

  When the Venetians had taken the city all those years ago, glorious Constantinople’s riches were forever depleted. And for decades and decades after, the constant loss of our land on top of racked-up debts ruined what little glory remained. Hagia Sophia stood proudly over us, but the light had left her. I didn’t believe it dwelt in me. I glanced at my wrists, unsurprised to see the marks of my Hyperborean initiation rendered nonexistent. Perhaps this was just another ritual, another test. Perhaps this time when I died and went black, I’d remain in the darkness. Perhaps. An eternity worth of perhaps.

  I walked to Justinian’s monument. He rode his horse triumphant atop his pillar, pointing towards the east. We had been meant to conqueror, but now we were a conquered race. The civilization that birthed Plato and Aristotle. The proud people that the great Alexander once led. Where Hesiod, Homer, and Aeschylus wrote their masterworks. Where Constantine baptized an entire empire. I wished Hesiod was still with me. I feared that I’d never see the wise poet again.

  We had been the people who inspired Rome. The great Constantine had brought Rome’s inspired splendor back to us and made this city the brightest of gems this world had ever known. Emperor Constantine the Great—whom my dear Emperor Constantine XI Palaeologus was named after. My emperor was no doubt fighting to his death with his people right now. Tears burned my eyes, forcing my vision into a squint. And old Justinian sat on his eternal and noble steed, victorious and pointing towards conquest. To conquer and be strong. Our empire was the natural conclusion and evolution from the Greek one of antiquity and the mighty Roman one that followed. To the empire of now. And now my now had fallen into the forgotten.

  “Great Emperor Justinian, what must I do? How can I persist when everything I know and love is forever destroyed? I have no place here... why couldn’t I have stayed dead with my own?” I stared up at his distant, raised figure and sighed.

  The ikons covering his pillar shimmered red, and each one flashed aflame, staring down at me with eyes filled with fire. Justinian’s head turned to me, the rest of him remaining frozen in triumphant pose.

  “Become power incarnate. It is the duty of man to increase.” His voice spoke clearly and commandingly in a masculine, eternal tone that resounded inside my bones.

  “But I no longer belong to any other on this earth. All whom I loved have been lost,” I said.

  “The future needs you. They need a hero who remembers and knows the power of truth and myth. Do not forget this city, this glorious spirit. Constantinople might have fallen, but who is to stop you from building a new and better home?”

  I bowed my knee and kissed the first of the seven steps leading up to the column. “And how do I return to that future? I am trapped here now.”

  “Wait here. Let them come and kill as many as you can. And when you once more return to this recurring dream, believe and decide why you will act—what is the higher cause behind it? To die a hero is to be conscious of destiny and eternity.”

  Shouting clattered through the streets followed by twisted cries of despair. The Turks stormed the statue like vermin to a corpse. I held my head high and raised my blade. Swinging my sword in angled and precise strokes, I cut down the first several men with ease. They were so hellbent on storming the famed statue that they’d hardly noticed me.

  The destruction of my people fueled me with the strength of Hercules. I cut and cut, a woodsman in a forest of rotten trees. Blood bathed me and I reveled in its retribution. I thrust my blade into a greedy pig of a man. He squealed as it pierced his pink throat. I kicked him away and ran my blade across the stomachs of three men rushing towards me, sweeping them away in one blow. I stabbed. I spun. I danced to the tune of life with such perfection that death was my only worthy partner. And so, death rippled out around me as body after body collapsed, and I surged on with life.

  I charged at another hopeless fool and stuck my sword through his heart. The man crumpled to the ground, taking my sword with it as it got stuck there. I tried to pry it free but was too slow and I screamed as my arm was severed. I dropped to my knees in the midst of all the felled trees. With my bloody stump of an arm spraying forth blackish-red gore, the pile of dead surrounding me was of a hundred. Like Samson with his jawbone. I scr
eamed louder. I had fought with nothing but power and rage fueling my glory. As I collapsed on the steps of Justinian’s pillar, my blood soaked the marble stairs and pooled around its foundation. I smiled up at the great emperor as I lay there dying. His eyes were fixed on me and he nodded his bronze head. He then looked towards the west and I understood. My conquest. I kept my eyes fixed upon his glory and did not flinch as the flashing scimitar decapitated my head.

  The icy chill of Erebus was expected. I opened my eyes with calm confidence, ignoring the chilled clasp of Erebus’s hand. Now a fourth figure stood in front of me. She was taller than the rest and her supple, well-formed figure couldn’t be contained by the loose yellowish olive toned dress she wore. Her blonde hair cascaded like a waterfall of honey down to her ankles. Her cold silver eyes were frigid and harsh.

  “Is it your destiny to be a hero? Is it your fate to heroically leave behind that fallen greatness of your once powerful people and pursue that which will one day prove greater? A new people, a new beginning could be yours.” Her stern voice solidified my renewed spirit and will and, as the black mist took me back, I knew I was ready to become that true hero with eyes open and spirit pure.

  I manned the wall with my will directed towards the heavens and reverberated in this eternal now. My death for my people was not just a sacrifice to a city that would fall—no matter what I did now or had truly done in my last moments. I’d bested many men then, even as they’d encircled me. But I’d died, defeated by the swarms of them in the end. Where had my will been? When the light had left Hagia Sophia behind and the holy ikon collapsed in the storm, face down in the muck, the people and even the emperor himself knew we were at an end. No help was coming, divine or from the west. It was only ourselves. And that was where I had been wrong. To die as I had for myself and my men was noble in a sense, but not truly heroic.

  I could see it now, feel it even. The crispness in the air, the smell of decay, struggle and might mingling as one; it was truly a scent of unmitigated power and lifeforce, opposing energies pulsing within the living and dead. The tremors in my hands, veins pushing forth against my skin with screaming life despite my bone-weary flesh. The sleepless men moving about with nothing but fear holding them up. The strings and strands of fate dangling from the heavens, pulling us one way and then another. A yank here and a snip there, and that would be the end of it.