When We Were Mortals

by E. S. Mercer

  “It’s a long story,” Ryan replied, trying to ignore Raphael.

  “There is no point in keeping her here,” Raphael bellowed. “We need to get her to Renu and fix this.”

  “He isn’t going to help you,” Ryan retorted. “He is more into saving his own skin.”

  “Maybe not,” Raphael argued. “He will listen to you. Help us convince him that he needs to do more.”

  “He won’t listen to me,” Ryan barked. “He is angry with me betraying him. The moment I helped him get to Matris, he asked me to leave.”

  “We have to at least try,” Gabriel interjected, trying to help his brother. “My father may have helped you once, but he won’t do it again,” Ryan replied. “If he has to choose between you and Hyperion, it will always be the King. If we take her there, it will be as if we are handing her over to the enemy.”

  “No, I am telling you he will listen,” Raphael corrected.

  Ryan turned and glared at the Cimmerian Prince. “Fine, then you take her!” “First things first,” Elaina interrupted, stepping in between them. “Hyperion has left Caelum and vanished. Second, we need to get inside so we can talk.”

  My head bounced back in forth between the Renaldi’s as we were led back inside and towards large table to the back of the house. This whole time, they knew everything while I spent years struggling to figure out who I was. “You have got to be kidding me,” I blurted, slamming my hands on the table. “This whole time…”

  Michael tried to gently lead me into the chair under me, but I pushed him off. “Whose side are you on anyway?” I couldn’t control how upset I was by the whole situation. I had feeling they knew something they weren’t telling me, but now that I knew for sure, I was getting rather irate.

  “I served Hyperion once,” Elaina offered. “But I serve him no more.”

  “And neither do the Annunaki,” she said, looking over at her husband.

  “The Annu what?” I asked. “The Annunaki,” Alistair replied. “We are neither mortal nor Re-claimed and we have been charged with making sure the mortals never learn the truth.”

  “Meaning?” I asked him in a harsh tone. He shifted in his seat when he saw the look of disgust on my face. “We keep them from finding out who they really are. We control religion, government and even history itself, on Hyperion’s behalf, keeping the mortals ignorant and always searching. However, we have gone by other names over the years, such as the Knights Templar or the Free Masons.

  His answer was quick and to the point so I looked over at Elaina, waiting for her to answer. It took her a moment, but she realized it was now her turn to tell me.

  “I was once the Supreme Head of the Praetorian Guard,” she said. “We started out as the King’s elite guard, but later tasked with policing the mortal realm and working with the Annunaki to maintain order.”

  She looked over at Renu and continued with of look of animosity on her face, “something happened, causing me to lose my position within the Guard. The Premeire felt bad for me, so he made me a General, as I am now tied to the mortal world and married to the son of the Grand Master of the Annunaki.”

  *****

  So here is where we pause for a moment and give you history lesson part two.

  The Conclave. They are the highest of Hyperion’s councils, made up of Ambassador’s from all realms, including the mortal one. The Premier, Renu, was at one time the only man Hyperion would trust. To give the illusion of some attempt at a Democracy, Hyperion allows Renu and the council to weigh in on every major decision ever made.

  They are also the Judicial branch of Hyperion’s government, handing down punishments, banishing those cast out into the mortal realm and hearing the pleas of those who dare fight the charges against them. When they are not doing that, they are monitoring the Annunaki and its well-oiled machine of lies and mistruths.

  The Praetorian Guard are dispatched to escort all those banished from Caelum. They introduce them to the mortal realm, manipulating memories and injecting them into the lives of those who area already temporal or ‘human.’ Their ‘magic,’ granted to them by Hyperion himself, can alter a human’s perception just by whispering an alternate truth into their ear. They are the architects of the mortal’s life, creating lifetimes that didn’t previously exist and convincing all involved it was real. Occasionally they will stay behind to monitor those who are considered ‘high risk.’ The rest of them, they are left in the hands of the Annunaki who are as Alistair said, neither mortal or re-claimed.

  Centuries ago, before Aljann, a poor farmer was herding his sheep when he stumbled on a portal leading back to Caelum. He stepped through it, like any curious man would, and started wandering through the streets of Matris. He soon found himself arrested and brought before the Conclave, who immediately threatened to remove his memories and send him home. However, Hyperion had another idea.

  This wasn’t the first time a mortal had found its way back to Caelum and the Guard spent more time wiping memories and shifting reality than they had hoped. So, Hyperion struck a deal with the man.

  And the deal was simple – become the man who would keep the mortals ignorant of their origin. In return he and his eight sons would be granted a quasi-immortal life full of wealth and prosperity, success and power. The first-born sons of his sons and so on, would also be granted the same power as long as they continued to construct ways and influence the mortals’ ability to understand their purpose.

  The man, known as Abraham, agreed to this, returning to the mortal world to gather his sons' and start getting to work. He became the father of religion, the architect of modern government and the first man to lead the newly formed Annunaki.

  However, in the end, Abraham’s gift turned out to be more like a curse. They may have been immortal, but they aged like any other mortal man until the age of one hundred, forcing the elders to live, underground and far away from mortal sight. On their one hundredth birthday, they would be decommissioned, and sent to a place they called “purgatory” where they would join the ranks of the Governing Council, influencing governments, forming new Religions and formulating new ways to keep the world at war and distracted.

  Some still saw the Annunaki bloodline as a blessing, with a lifetime full of wealth and power. Others, however, like Alistair, the last of his line, saw it as a curse he could not escape. When Elaina gave birth to a daughter, he praised the universe for finally ending the burden of passing on the affliction, as he so lovingly called it.

  So now we switch gears slightly and get to the part that initially confused me; how Ryan fits into all this. Long before Elaina found her way to the mortal realm, she was the head of the Praetorian Guard and the wife of the Conclave’s Premier, Renu. At the time, The Praetorian’s were still Hyperion’s elite guards and Elaina, being the Supreme, lived within the Castle with her family. She was the light of Renu’s life, the only one he held above himself and his King.

  Shortly after the birth of their son, (Raian) Ryan, the mortal realm, also known as Olympus, was formed and Elaina was put in charge of it. As a leader, she would mostly stay behind and send her subordinates to handle things in the mortal realm, but occasionally she would herself cross over. This specific trip was meant to be harmless, as she escorted one of her own to the mortal realm. However, as she attempted to return through one of the many portals, the Gateway was activated. Instead of killing her, it expelled her from the closing vortex, severing her tethers in a way that could never be repaired, binding her to the mortal realm for eternity.

  Once Renu heard of her plight, he was given a choice. Join her in the mortal realm and lose his place in the palace or denounce her and continue as Premier. Saving himself from the heartbreak of abandoning his King, he chose duty over love, rather quickly.

  This left Ryan without his mother, who was informally adopted by the Queen, Seraphine. She had lost her only son long ago and took charge of the young Baron, until he was no longer of mothering age. At that point, Ryan, refused to follow in h
is parent’s footsteps and requested to leave the castle. Renu denied his request, demanding that he join the Guard and do his duty to the King. Seraphine, however, felt for her adopted son and granted his wish, allowing him to leave and seek a life elsewhere. This brought him to the Liberatheum, where he worked his way into becoming Head Curator, earning him the nickname “The Librarian.”

  The Liberatheum was an oversized archive, holding accounts of history from every realm in every era, artwork, inventions and copies of every single book, journal or chronicle ever printed. It spanned acres and immortalized every single journey ever taken; from the cycle of one insignificant man to the creation of earth itself. On top of that, every moment of a man or woman’s mortal life was recorded and placed in a special vault for the Conclave or Praetorian Guard to reference; except for one - mine. Ryan, being a bit of a recluse never left the walls of the Library, only to seek the power of the sun in the grand atrium at the heart of the building. He would find solace in the pages of the books that lined the monumental bookshelves, and lived vicariously through each and every life he read about. That was, until he met me.

  He had left the castle long before I arrived and although he had heard of me, he never took an interest in events of the Castle and really didn’t have an idea what I even looked like.

  Then, one day, I found myself wandering aimlessly through the grand halls of the Library, singing just little bit too loudly. I had just come back from seeing Gabriel and I took the long way home to take time to absorb the happiness I felt, before having to hide it again. In these halls, void of people and exquisitely lonely, I could be free, free to feel and to bask in the love I felt. In a fit of rage, the Librarian stormed out of his quarters to find the voice that was rudely polluting his house of solace. But when he tried to confront me, the contagiousness of my happiness, as I grabbed his hands and began to dance, made him forget what it was he was angry about.

  We danced a waltz from the hallways to the atrium, laughing as we tripped over each other’s feet. I had no idea who I was dancing with, but I knew that someone needed to feel some of my bliss before the magnitude of it made me explode. I saw nothing but happiness, he saw nothing but love at first sight. So much so that he started to imagine that he was the reason I found such levity in life. Dismissing the fact that we had never met before this, a love affair blossomed in his head and an obsession began to form rather quickly.

  As I let go of his hand to run out into the atrium, he nearly collapsed. It was as if he was unplugged and left for dead, once my skin no longer touched his.

  He called out, between labored breaths, begging that I tell him my name. “Evangeline of course,” I said with a playful laugh. Then, I vanished into the garden, leaving him alone with an overwhelming dread that he would never see me again.

  The following month, I would find myself back in the Library, this time heading straight for a dark corner of the atrium, where I had beckoned Gabriel to meet me. It was private enough that I knew we wouldn’t be bothered and therefore keep our secret a little longer.

  However, as I galloped through the halls, I caught the eye of the Librarian, who had been peering over the banister of the third-floor balcony. Overjoyed by the idea of seeing me again, he ran as fast as he could to find me. He searched high and low until he found the very place I had hoped would have been safe.

  Thing was, when he found me, there I was in the arms of the Cimmerian Prince. His first instinct was to interrupt us, threatening to turn us in, but he stopped in his tracks as he realized what outing us would mean. So, he sat behind the rose bushes and just watched our interaction, wishing he was the man in my arms.

  After that moment, he vowed to find a way to make me love him the way I had loved Gabriel. Day after day he would send for me, requesting that I visit him in the Library where he would teach me what he knew about the history of the realms he so carefully guarded. I would attend, whenever I could, enjoying his lessons and his company. It was a way to distract me from my life and fill the gaps in time between visits with Gabriel.

  I would innocently run in and kiss the Librarian on the cheek with a smile that greeted him warmly. I genuinely loved my teacher and what he gave me, but it was no more than that. I could feel what he felt, but I was naive enough to imagine that he would see things differently over time. And then, I disappeared, without him knowing why.

  For about week he waited, sending word with one of his assistants to the castle, with not sight of me. Finally, he demanded answers, requesting a meeting with his father, who he hoped would give him what he wanted. Instead his father handed him a journal, asking him to file it away in the darkest parts of the Library, without any questions asked. He was not to open it and not ever ask any more questions about me.

  It was a very different journal than what he was used to filing. Nothing he had in his library was ever considered ‘top secret.’ Each book was open and available to the public. This one however, had a strange looking lock, with a visible magical spell binding it. No name, no description on the front, just the King’s seal on the soft leather cover.

  This didn’t settle well with the Librarian, as he tried over and over again to open the lock. He knew that it held the answers as to where I had gone and he was determined to find out. So, he fled Caelum, with the book in hand, hoping to find someone who could help. He sought out his mother and Alistair, who enlisted the help their favorite witch.

  Noita did not want to get involved at first, but Elaina has a way of convincing people to do things for her and he opened it with no more objection. When he did, Ryan knew he could never go back to Caelum. He had stolen the full account of my last banishment, with a detailed account of the prophecy and my father’s intentions if I was to ever remember again.

  His step father, disturbed by the account, demanded that he do not go after me, or get involved in any way. And Ryan agreed only for my sake, because for me to remember would mean losing me forever and he couldn’t bear to live with that.

  *****

  “Wow,” I said, looking over at Ryan. “Now everything you said in the past makes so much sense.”

  “Um, he is a creep!” Michael blurted. “He kept you in the dark so that he could have you all to himself.”

  Michael turned to the Renaldis, “and you let him!” “Their job was to observe, not interfere,” Raphael interjected. He was always the one who found a good reason for people’s actions, even if they were a bit strange.

  “I was the only one who had her best interest at heart,” Ryan defended himself. “She was safer with me than all of you. At least Hyperion wasn’t out to destroy her.” “Are you kidding me?” Michael asked. “You used her!”

  “I love her!” Ryan shot back. Michael lunged across the table at Ryan, knocking Gabriel out of his chair and shoving Uriel against the wall. Ramiel started to intervene when he glanced over at me.

  The palms of my hands, still against the glossy wood of the table, were glowing with the same blue light I had produced at the club. It slowly started to leak into the grain of the wood, until it formed veins that crawled towards each person in the room.

  My eyes, now a radiant goldenrod, started to bulge under the pressure.

  “Stop,” Ramiel cried.

  He ran to my side, putting his arm around my waist and laying his head against mine.

  “Breathe,” he whispered.

  “What is happening to me?” I asked. “I feel all this rage and I don’t know why.” Ramiel looked around the room. Michael and Ryan were still barking at each other as Raphael and Gabriel held them apart. Alistair and Elaina were bickering with each other about the fact that they weren’t getting their point across. Even he, as calm as he was on the exterior, found that he was angered by his brother’s behavior.

  “It’s us,” he replied. “You are feeling what we feel.”

  “Why?” I asked. He shook his head as he held on tighter. “I don’t know.” Finally, Raphael was able to stop fighting with Michael long enough
to observe what was going on. When he came to the same conclusion as Ramiel, he demanded that everyone sit down and be quiet. It took him a couple tries, but finally everyone shut their mouths and waited to see what happened next. Once everyone calmed down, I was able to relax, allowing the light to dim and my eyes to go back to their normal shade of blue.

  As I sat down, I began to question myself. Was it I that made them feel such rage or did I just channel their feelings, causing a physical manifestation. It always seemed to me that emotions were heightened when people were around me. So now, I was beginning to find myself in a chicken or egg debate.

  “Can we stop this nonsense and get back to the point?” Elaina asked, interrupting my train of thought. “The truth is, you all love her. You must! No one has a choice; it is the way she was built. We could spend the rest of our lives debating who loves her more and why. The fact of the matter is, she has chosen Gabriel and Samiel put Michael in the way. She must fight through this to reveal her true feelings, just like everything else.”

  She finally stopped and took a deep breath. “While she is doing that, we must be able to verbalize why she is here. To do that, we need to see Renu. And then…,” she stopped and looked at Alistair. “Then we need to find Hyperion.”

  “OMG,” I cried, completely changing the subject.

  The entire room stopped to look at me.

  “Zara,” I continued. “I have to find Zara!”

  “Who?” Gabriel asked.

  “The Gypsy Queen’s daughter,” Ryan blurted. “The what? You mean the cook's daughter?” I asked.

  He paused, realizing what he had said. “Yeah, the cook’s daughter.” “No,” Elaina said, correcting her son, “you were right the first time, don’t lie to her anymore.” She got up out of her seat and walked over towards me. “But that is a story for another day. Just know that she is ok and you will see her soon I am sure.”

  “But, I think she went to the club and then the people…,” I started.

  “The club is back to normal,” she offered, “the moment you opened the Gateway.”