by T. M. Lakomy
“Wait for me tonight, at this inn. I’ll come for you. Speak of this to no one.” He shoved Elmer gently towards the inn and then hastened away, a dark and ominous shadow gathering in his wake.
The air was cold and damp, and the wind whistling between the buildings howled a morose refrain. The leaves caught in its wake rose like a ruddy cloud, forming little whirlpools as if an invisible hand were stirring them. The count’s rapid steps were heavy, and each time they pounded the cobblestone his heart leapt in his chest. The gathering winds fled before the dread in his eyes as he was billowed along, finally halting before his manor. He cast a look upon the old building, but it offered no outward sign of malevolence. He pounded the door hastily, urgency overtaking him.
While he waited impatiently for the doors to open, he noticed a woman in the shadows. It was the blond woman who had accosted him in the tavern, and she was trailing closely behind him, watchful and satisfied. She stood near an alleyway, cocking her head at him. He cast one last look at her, frowning, then turned back to the doors of the manor as he heard footsteps approaching from within, dismissing her from his thoughts.
The light from a nearby torch fell on the woman’s tilted face where one eye turned milky white and the other one burned steadily sapphire blue and bright. She smiled derisively and shape-shifted into a page boy, vanishing into the dark.
10
YOUR ENEMY’S EMBRACE
I am the troubled waters of the infinite stillness, the visage of impassive skies
I am the lonely ponderous shadow crouching beneath the skirt of the hills
When all else has ventured home, and the wakeful spirits close their eyes
I am the vessel of roaring celestial winds that inspiration fills
THE DOORS TO THE MANOR SWUNG OPEN ABRUPTLY. THE FRIGHTENED face of the butler appeared, stepping quickly aside for Mikhail to enter. Several members of his order had gathered behind the butler to meet him.
“What has happened here?” Mikhail barked imperiously, his face contorted as he scanned the premises.
Without waiting for a response, he made for the rampart of the staircase leading to the upper chambers, climbing the stairs three at a time. The men from his order followed him obediently, maintaining a safe distance behind him. At the top he hurried down the corridor to the heavy mahogany door behind which Estella dwelled. Wrenching it open, he found the room ransacked. His men waited with bated breath, their eyes betraying fear and shocked dismay. The count stared at the pillaged room, his cold grey eyes narrowed. Slowly, he turned his condescending gaze towards his comrades.
“For how long has this been going on?” His tone was cool and his visage seemed carved in ivory. A fair-haired knight came forwards, bowing his head apologetically and staring at something near the count’s feet.
“For many hours, till we ordered the maids to restrain her. Then we smote her down so that she could be contained.”
The count’s face turned into an ugly grimace. “You ordered your men to crack her head open? Is that her blood on the wall?”
The knight paled, suddenly taking an interest in the floor.
“No, that is the blood of our own. She overpowered him and used his blood as ink for her demonic devices with the help of her minions. We tried to rescue him from her grasp, but she became erratic and started drawing strange symbols. We chanted binding words, but could not remove them.”
“Get out of my sight,” the count dismissed him coldly. Then he beckoned to an older knight who was glaring disapprovingly at his comrade. He came forward and kissed the hand of the count reverently.
“He is afraid to tell you,” began the older knight, “that he tried to bind her himself. This was what caused her frenzy. He thought her a mere Twilit simpleton. Then his error was compounded when he tried to bind the demons that had manifested . . .” His green eyes shone with the wisdom of age and fearlessness.
The count nodded. “So tell me what has transpired here.”
The elderly knight gritted his teeth, then spoke. “The Blind Sage is dead, but not for a lapse in our watch. We made an error of judgment, and deemed him capable of subduing her. She killed him, though we do not understand how. We have since locked her in the inner chamber. We watched over her as best we could, sire, but the moment you left everything broke loose.
“When she awoke, we thought to test her by exposing her to holy relics. But she scoffed angrily and pushed us away. Then they came for her, those ungodly ones. At first we did not oppose them, because they came in your guise and we were deceived. But she knew them and she grew deeply troubled. We believe the Blind Sage must have been tainted by them, for he soon grew erratic with a murderous rage.
“At first he fought them, and we believed he was relieving her from their torment. When he requested that we depart, we obliged, though she protested. But we paid little heed and stationed ourselves outside. He locked the door from within, but we never thought we had any cause for concern. Soon her screams rose again, yet still we trusted him and his ministrations. We only began to suspect something was wrong when we heard her scream out your name. He was rebuking her and demanding we depart, but my heart could not sit right with a woman’s screams, however fallen they may be.
“We began pounding on the door, and the sage, usually so kind, began to berate us. And Lady Estella pleaded with us to gain entry, screaming that the sage was an agent of the demons and tainted by them, and that he was bent on murdering her. Though we were reluctant to believe her, the struggle we heard within and the sage’s disturbing wrath spurred us into action. We began the task of breaking the door down, but it held fast with some unknown magic.
“Then one of the fiends we espied around the house emerged, longhaired and with one blind eye. He cast us aside and rent the door asunder himself, and there we saw what had unfolded. Lady Estella was on the ground with the sage over her brandishing a knife. He would have gouged out her eyes had we not intervened. He was mad, my lord, in a way we have never seen him, and he was desperately pleading for us to allow him to blind her so he could regain his own sight through some twisted, morbid enchantment. We pulled him away and while he struggled that’s when she leapt at him and stabbed him to death with a knife the demon had given her. Then the demon drove us out and sealed the door. The blood on the walls appeared shortly after, and nothing we can do wipes it away. And we have had no sign of her since.”
Mikhail nodded and walked past the knight, entering the chamber slowly. “Leave me now,” he said grimly, studying the chaotic state of the chamber. The knights bowed and departed. Looking around, he braced himself defiantly for company. But to his disappointment, he was truly alone. He walked around the chamber warily, stooping to inspect the blood spatter. Then approaching the inner chamber, he pushed through the barrier. Estella was lying across her bed. She was awake, but made little effort to acknowledge his presence, gazing vacantly in front of her. He leaned over her, peering into her face.
“Is there any room in there for love and life?” Mikhail murmured, laying a hand above her breast. Though she breathed, her chest did not move. “Do you feel anything at all, Estella?” He leaned further, his hand caressing her neck. Estella turned her head to him with languid ease, frowning, then inhaling deeply. Her serene expression cracked, revealing livid anger.
“You murderous half-breed son of a whore!” she bellowed. “You and your order are nothing but hypocritical dogs! Have you also come to murder me and take my eyeballs? I’ve seen what you really look like, you ugly fiend!” She watched him, her pupils dilated.
“How lovely to see you again, too,” said the count with a wan smile, hiding his anger. “We did not let the sage in to kill you. After we discovered his chambers of infamy he disappeared, and we’ve been tracking him ever since. My men, unfortunately, did not know of what occurred, and so did not realize the danger he posed. But I am happy to see you have retained your talent for astringent verbal whippings.”
“I’ve been too long in the
great womb of the universe,” Estella said, closing her eyes, “and too close to the blind eye of darkness. I am the offspring of their thought, aren’t I? That’s why they want me. I have drunk too deep of the well of knowledge they yielded, and I have gazed too far into their darkness.” The count withdrew his hand pensively.
“There is so much beauty to behold in this world,” he replied. “You do not need to seek the empty spaces of God’s unfinished creation and the realms without. Come back to earth, I will seal your mind to all of this that surrounds you. I will lock your gift behind an impenetrable door and you will forget all you knew. Your sight will diminish and fade and you will be free to live a normal life.” He spoke lightly, but there was a cold distance between them, and the lack of mercy in his wintry eyes made Estella turn her face away.
“It seems that all of you, even your wisest, fall,” she said. “You all envy my sight. And because I am a woman who merits it not, for I put it not to holy use, I am despised. But you are all filthy hypocrites. You despise our gifts and yet you cannot do without them. Look at your Blind Sage, gouging out our eyes to obtain our prophecies!”
“That is but a few of us,” Mikhail insisted. “Mortals are weak and prone to mistakes; do not measure us by our worst, but rather by our virtue. In a world where we have many reasons to be evil, some choose goodness. The greater you climb the lower you fall, and he was no exception. We found the chains and the parchments after we caught you, and we thought to deal with him in our own way rather than humiliating our order publicly and diminishing our credibility. He is a trickster at heart and deceived us and soon eluded us. It has been a shock to me that someone of such integrity can prove to be so fallen. But then the business of pillaging the void is foul, and when it damages you it often rubs its venom into your wounds. Then like a disease it takes over, inch by inch.”
“You holy men are always the same,” said Estella, “refusing to acknowledge that your idols are wretched and fallen. But tell me now, will you give me back the life you took away from me when you entered my manor one benighted evening?”
“It is you who does not desire life, nor deserve the gifts that you have been given.” The disgust in Mikhail’s voice reverberated through the room. Turning to face him, she found no sympathy in his eyes.
“I am alone and friendless,” she sighed. “No one knows me or shares the secrets of my bruised heart. And those that professed to love me and care for me, the scythe of death has taken. They were pawns to a greater power than the likes of you or your church. And my mind is mine for the losing.” Estella’s voice rose like a billowing wind then hardened, rigid and proud.
She lifted her head high and scoffed, “Who do you have for yourself, Count Mikhail? Your manservant? The dogs behind you that trail at your feet? You are alone, thinking your games have worth. But they are nothing, and you too are nothing in the great chessboard between God and Samael. Your death will add naught to his grief, and the sun will rise and fall, and you will pass away unhindered. No one will even remember your name.”
She laughed now and her mocking eyes were alight with a vivid flame. Suddenly Mikhail felt old and worn, and the stab in his heart told him that her words rang true. But they were cruel, wrapped in venom and intended to damage.
“And you will be even less than the smallest of the Twilit people,” he retorted, “alone and having achieved nothing in your meaningless life.”
Estella shrugged. “Seal my mind forever, knight, or steal my gift, but I cannot continue to live like this—not with the likes of you for company.” A malicious grin curled over her heart-shaped lips and she watched with fascination as he approached her. Smiling with hatred and malice, she breathed, “Do it now,” then closed her eyes, licking her lips. Mikhail’s hidden purpose gleamed in his inhuman eyes, and he smiled craftily.
“Those demon fiends of yours desired you to yield your powers and sight to them, and you resisted . . . and now you offer it up to me without a struggle. I am thankful for that.” The light in his eyes smoldered and his long black hair fell unbound to his shoulders. Estella leapt off the bed with quiet apprehension, flitting across to the windows. They were bolted shut and unyielding to her touch.
“What you did not give to them willingly, you gave to me freely, even begged me . . .” He moved towards her, eyeing her like prey.
“I knew you were rotten and foul,” she said shrilly. “Though you are dressed in fairer form, you are no different than the demons who plague me!”
He grabbed both her arms firmly, eyes silently boring into hers but betraying no emotion. Caressing her hair with one hand, he lifted her chin delicately towards him with the other. Her pupils were dilated, and she warred within herself to maintain her calm while she shivered with fear. The shadows danced around them as tendrils of frost. Without warning, he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. She gasped as he gripped her tight, her back against the window and his arm around her waist. His lips did not relinquish hers, and her lithesome limbs struggled against his muscular bulk to no avail. His lips went to her neck, and biting gently, traveled down to her collarbone.
“The devil and the man within me are worlds apart, but both want you and desire you.” He found her face again, his cold mask faltering to reveal a soft tenderness she had not conceived he could have. “Yes, I am alone and lonely,” he continued, “in a world where I cannot share myself with anyone, and burdened by holy duties. Your pain mirrors mine, and I promise you that my heart is old and rich, and I can take care of you. You would lack nothing, being the sole diamond of my soul.” His voice was sincere, and the look in his eyes was too vast to be restrained by speech. Estella realized that she was weeping and lowered her eyes.
“Don’t let the darkness steal you from your rightful place, Estella,” he said softly as he embraced her. “I cannot take what would abhor me, this is not a game of power for me,” he whispered into her hair.
Estella lifted her eyes to his. “And could you contain the storm of my raging soul? The tempest brews and I have been too long captivated by the dark secrets that dwell where God has not yet turned the light of his face.”
Mikhail smiled knowingly. “Then look into my countenance, I who have seen the divine mysteries, and therein you shall find peace. And though the devils of this world surround you and put out your eyes, there it shall burn within you, an eternal light.”
She sighed as he pressed her against him tenderly and their minds met across the thorns and brambles they had laid for one another, and they communed together.
Outside a storm had gathered and night deepened into a dismal mass of black and grey. Torn clouds laden with rain ripped like rags across the evening sky, and the stars themselves were choked. Their lights flickering unseen, and the endless cry of the wind wailed its anguish to those who had no shelter and no choice but to be the audience of nature’s misery.
11
THE DEVIL IN THE HOUSE OF GOD
I have awoken from the slumber as my first breath was pure fear
As sight into the true celestial dance is treason to the soul
It breaks the throne of God, sending quakes into all you revere
Then downwards unraveling the bitter truths roll
CARDINAL PIOUS WAS AGITATED AS HE MARCHED UP AND DOWN THE underground vault. Shuffling along, bent like an aged tree, he mumbled to himself, tugging at his long beard, his velvet slippers making loud squelching sounds. He was restless but unperturbed by the echoes that still reached him from the adjacent room. His frown deepened on his wrinkled brow, dry and withered as old parchment, and he wrung his beard tersely as he connived. He knew he desperately needed results before he came, and that simple answers would not suffice. He was banking his hopes on his “boys,” who were famed for their callous trade. They were sure to get the answers that would spare him.
He stopped pacing, his heart beating violently in his chest at the thought that he might be displeased. As he looked around in the light of the candles ensconced
on the stone wall, he saw his own bent shadow and shuddered. He shook himself as he realized the full extent of his decision, looking right and left skittishly with a hopeless pleading look as he fumbled for his cross. If he fell short of his use, he was sure to be subjected to humiliation and pain—or worse, depending on the fickle moods of the king.
He had never wanted to be part of the clergy, after all, and only climbed the ranks to quench his lust for power. And deep within the recesses of his mind he thought maybe God would suddenly reveal himself to him and bless him with sight. Then he would have been worshipped, the people clamoring for him and his prophecies from all the corners of Christendom. He would have lived venerated, and even in death been revered. But those secret hopes were long gone, and only his vice and cowardice were left.
Finally acknowledging the noises from the neighboring chamber, the cardinal closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, weighing his two dangerous choices. Stitching an impassive expression on his face, he pushed through the heavy doors to the neighboring chamber. There he was confronted with an ignoble scene of ongoing torture. Wrinkling his nose at the sight and smell of blood, he hobbled along to the prisoners. They were bound in shackles and drawn over tables while the torturers, his “boys,” worked their cruel art on them.
The prisoners rasped through lipless faces. Their eyelids were torn and blood was smeared over their features, rendering them unrecognizable. They must have soiled themselves out of fear, for the stench of feces mingled with that of fresh blood. One prisoner had his intestines neatly wrapped around his neck and he shivered, moaning coarsely, his eyes wild with agony, already insane with the torment. They had clearly finished with him, for they had cut out his tongue. He had failed to yield the information they wanted, so he had been left to bleed to death, unable to voice his hellish agony. The three others were struggling still, beseeching vainly. They had been flayed—their muscles and sinews were uncovered and stinging ointments mixed with liquor had been applied to their open wounds. The laughter of their tormentors accompanied their ministrations.
