This Immortal Coil

by M. Benjamin Naves

  “Listen! Dwarf!” Magnus heard from above. It was Kain. “Cut me down, and I’ll help you kill the troll. We can both split the benefits fifty-fifty.”

  “I don’t trust Templars...” Magnus said, sticking his blade out in front of him, expecting his death to arrive shortly. “You are all greedy backstabbers that conformed to the rules you believe are ordained by God—but it’s really only a single human man you’ve really come to follow. That being yourselves and your lust for being above your fellow man.”

  There was a fraction of a second that stood between them and the pitfalls of troll’s ravenous thirst for flesh.

  “Fair enough.” Kain replied. “But listen, trust me or not, I'm not looking to be this creature’s lunch. And I’m almost sure that you’re not expecting to become the late-night snack, either—are you?”

  The troll was getting closer he was steps away now.

  “Fine.” said the dwarf; seeing that there was no other option left, and cut the knot that was holding the crusader suspended up in the air.

  Kain immediately fell, but as he previously hung a great distance above the ground, he had enough time to break Charity from his belt, and plunge the silver blade straight through the top of the troll’s ugly skull. Bright green blood splattered in a streaming gush of explosive wonder, cover the dwarf, and leaving barely anything upon Kain. The monster hunter had then ridden the creature as he spasmed to the ground—from the shoulders from which he stood, landing safely thereafter. There was a contemptuous look upon Magnus’s face when it was all said and done. But it was all in good fun. He admired Kain from that moment on, and swore to him as a companion that if he needed anything welded created out of dwarven steel or merely just another friend on the road, Magnus Gunderbrow would be on his side.

  From there they split the bounty that was promised—with the bonus of a couple pints of blood for the dwarf, and casualty parted ways—splitting the road as they walk from then on; and a couple more time then since—meeting and parting, meeting and parting, until Magnus had betrayed Kain and we stand to where we meet them now in Antarctica.

  Chapter IV

  This Immortal Coil

  Taken From “The Deadman’s Almanac.”

  Page 116.

  I was correct in my assumptions, and the Templar within the casket awoke a mere hour and a half later. He looked frightened at first, but I reassured him that all was well, and that the only thing I needed from him were answers. The Crusader saw as to where he’d awoken was upon a feathery bed of fine goose feathers, and not chained from leg-to-wrist to a stretching-table; so this loosen him a bit for the moment. The Crusader had likely seemed obliged to answer anything that I needed to ask him, as he was grateful that someone—someone sinister did not find.

  “I’m sorry for knocking you unconscious.” I began. “It was a nervous reaction, that’s all. It’s not every day a man rises from the grave, let alone, from a chained casket within the parlor room of your own home.”

  The Crusader nodded his head agreeably, and I passed him some water to quench his thirst; if he had any—I could only imagine that he did. Immediately he clutched his stomach from a few simple sips and curled into a slight ball in front of me. The water, as simple as it was, had not settled well within his stomach, after years upon years of being as dry as a bone.

  “You need to take it easy,” I said, then catching the glass before it fell from his hands. “Tell me, sir,” I then said. “What is your name?”

  “Kain.” the crusader replied. “Faustus Kain.”

  I decided to hesitantly pass him back the glass of ice water. I had also brought tea for him as well, but that will come much later.

  “Seeing as this is all rather new to you, isn’t it, Kain?”

  I waited for him to reply, but he seemed to be more enamored with the drink of ice water than with my own simple conversation. I handed him the lukewarm cup of tea next, as he passed me back the empty glass from which he drank.

  “Tell me,” I continued. “What was the last thing you remember before waking within the casket?”

  Kain had then took small sips at the very beginning from his tea, before taking large gulps and finishing the cup thereafter; to which when he was done, he finally spoke. I decided then to fill his cup again, as to urge him not to finish talking until his story was through. What he told me is what could be found within these pages of the “Deadman’s Almanac.” The sections in question confirm the validity of the passages entitled, “Goblins & Dwarves”, “Blunderbuss”, “Troll Blood” and I believe one other; if not many others—the names of these escape me entirely at this moment, and I do not care to look back.

  Needless To Say, I was astonished to hear the stories first hand, and of what the knight known as Faustus Kain had done within his time before his—previous undoing. There were other tales as well, those of dragons, goblins, dwarves, mountain trolls, giants, undead specters and skeleton kings of all kinds. Fascinating stuff, really, and only helped me with my own studies in proving the benefits of learning the occult studies and, well, Alchemy as a whole; but I won’t get into that here. I am ashamed of one aspect of it all, though, but I won’t delve into that right now either. Just know that it is coming in our narrative. In all honesty, I do not really wish to speak of it, but it is a part of my story, and so, I need to tell it. Because in a strange way, it concerns you, my dear friend, Kain.

  Page 117.

  Faustus Kain (or “Kain” as I simply call him for rather simple reasons), was likewise both impressed and a bit baffled by what had happened in the nearly three-hundred years he’d been asleep. Some of it made a lot of sense to him, and even the talk of what I did as a career, the study of Alchemy and being an advisor to Queen Elizabeth, he seemed to understand. But the concepts of the new world, and separation of water and land, as well as other natural sciences seem to confuse him somewhat more. There were clearly large gaps in his memory. This was the second time he had been awoken from his slumber to be transported into a new time and place within our own history, so it goes without saying, and completely understandable that things get lost in translation after a while.

  Think of it almost like being broken apart and repaired over and over again. You’re not the same as you first were, and you’ll never be. The adhesive, the paste, or the new part that was used to make you whole again is now a part of who you are. Of course, some of you remember, but the majority of the time, you’re a fraction of the former self—the person you used to be, and that as well would not likely change either. I believe this is the case with Kain. He’d died, been awoken, “died” in a sense again, and awoke once more—how many more times can the human psyche can take—to lay dormant and dead before reanimated again, become completely different from the last they awoken. For your sake, my friend, I hope this is the last time you needlessly be put to rest. Otherwise, I'm not sure what would you be like. You’d probably be cold-blooded and unfortunately run simply on your own emotions—like an animal. If you're still in the same line of work you’d hope to be, that will likely make you a god amongst man—or a nuisance.

  “It’s been three-hundred years,” Kain said, maybe then finally realizing what was going on. “Three-hundred years—a single, unmemorable droplet of water within the hourglass of time. That is what I am, I guess. Heh—A thing like that could make a man find his death at the bottom of a barrel of honey-wine.”

  “If I’m being honest,” I replied. “I’m surprised you haven’t. You're taking all this that I’ve told you very well.”

  “I think this is because it’s not the first time this has happened.”

  Kain then looked at himself in the mirror then. I had one hanging across from where the bed of goose feathers was located, and for what it seemed for the first time seemed to be an entire lifespan or more, the man who’d been the first son of the first man took a good look at himself.

  “Or maybe,” he continued. “Or maybe it just hadn’t hit me yet.”

  “There�
�s always tomorrow.” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Indeed.” he replied. “I would say so.”

  John Dee - Alchemist (1608)

  Page 118.

  We continued to speak till the rooster crowed the next morning. He had many things to tell me. I felt like a priest at a confessional, listening to a world of problems from a man who’d had several lifetimes of them. Kain and I had concluded within that time, which was, now that he was a free man and had relatively no ties to anything or anyone, what was he to do next with his life?

  “I knew who I was before,” Kain started. I noticed him looking at the pipe I’d been smoking and offered him a rolled cigar instead. I had relatively only one pipe, you see. He agreed, and continued to speak. “I knew who I was before. I was my father’s son—his first son, who’d done the most egregious sin known to his fellowmen at the time. I was classified as such, and cursed for it severely. My life was marked, and I died bearing that mark.”

  Kain then pulled back his long locks of brown away from face, and revealed through his beard, the constantly visible scar, that cascaded down his face in an almost “x” formation; thought it was hard to tell what it looked like, really. If it weren’t for the beard and his long hair, you would see this mark from farthest distances away. It was branded on his skin and had the eerie feeling of utter dismay. Looking at the scar head on, you got a feeling of discomfort like no other. God did his job, and made sure all who view this mark had indeed met the conscious of their actions.

  “I was cursed worse than any other human beings at the time, second to my own parents,” he continued. “I then wandered the earth, walking from town to town until I found a place to die—until my bones were visible and I looked as skeletal as the figure that rides the pale horse and collects souls. Then I collapsed, and to my own surprise, I didn’t die. I went nor to heaven or hell, nor sat and waited in purgatory itself, but instead crumbled into the mud and excess dirt that surrounded me. I was the land, and the land was I. And that's who I was. This all happened, and I never understood it, until I awoke—a new life within my bones—blood pulsing in my veins, and I rose from the dirt. I was called by The Father, I believed then. The engine bringing me forth from him was the Archangel Michael. I’ve since learned that I wasn’t called by The Father, but by the bureaucracy of archangels’ in-order to complete their mission. Hell being one in the same. They seem interchangeable in my eyes, anyways. This sadly only begs the question of where does my life go now? For that, I cannot tell you.”

  I allowed him to speak his mind, and when he was finished, I gave him another cigar; he had finished the other rather quickly. Nonetheless, he enjoyed them, and showed pleasure smoking them with me—taking long drags from its tip, and letting out large clouds of smoke stream from his nostrils. Kain had then stood there in silence, pondering all that was spoken out loud—his thoughts erected into physical manifestations of self-deprecation.

  “This mortal—” he hesitated, and took another drag from the cigar. “This immortal coil. How it spins and tricks even those like me, who might live forever. Damn be that. Goddamn it, all.”

  John Dee - Alchemist (1608)

  Page 119.

  I never brought on how I truly felt about all this, or in any case, my truest reaction from which I found out who the frozen man within the casket really was. I have spoken almost candidly about him, as if being the first (and still living) son of Adam is normal for me to experience, as if this was a causally known fact that wasn’t even meant to be implied. But though this is true and he is indeed who he says he is, I at first did not believe him; which is understandable. I thought him actually to be a drunkard, and this all be an elaborate ruse by some unknown party—an enemy of the Queen, no doubt. But blood proves otherwise, for blood does not lie and has no reason to lie. I will get to what I mean about all this in a moment.

  Anyways, when Kain had spoken to me of his woes—though completely fascinated and interested, I did not put full stock into what he was actually saying. I merely only listened and analyzed his flaws, or what I thought were flaws, within his story—which they were none to be proven, otherwise. Still, I couldn't fathom the idea of someone, other than the Christ-Lord himself, coming back to life and living once again; no less, doing this deed more than once, for what it seems. This is to say that a semi-mortal man survived below temperature freezing, and fought within numerous wars as a bonafide Templar, had and did actually exactly exist. What was funny about all this was not that it was all true, but in reality, Kain was or is merely only an anomaly, from which is just as surprising to him, as it is to me.

  Here is where I now begin to tell my unfortunate part within all this...

  It saddens me immensely to say that though I have the utmost respect for you my friend, wherever you are, I have not been telling the whole truth about things. I am sorry for what I am about to tell you. If you are able to read this, I hope you will forgive me for what I have done. It seems that because of what I’ve done, I suffer the effects of the sins from which was committed long ago. I think then of the book of Genesis and remember what it first said about you, Kain, after you did what you did to your brother. I’ll paraphrase it for you, but it roughly said that no other man would harm you while upon wearing the mark God had placed upon your head. I’m sure you know this; you were there, after all. And I of course, saw that scar for myself and it is indeed real; though roughly hidden until a short while later, where you decided to shave and clean up your ragged appearance.

  Kain, please forgive me.

  John Dee - Alchemist (1608)

  Page 120.

  Allow me to bring you back to the moment when after I hit Kain against the temple with the wooden mallet. This had been hours before, he was still lying within the casket then, and I had decided to bring him to my study. Within the process of getting him out of the destroyed casket, I had accidentally cut him with a jagged nail used to keep the box shut. By the time I noticed that I’d nearly slit his elbow entirely open, there had been a trail of crimson dots along the floor and flowing me towards the study. And this is when I made my first discovery about your blood; I just didn’t realize it then.

  Being an alchemist, you come into various notions of what can be created out of nothing, without harming or giving something else in return. There is no exception, though I stupidly thought there was one, and I now suffer for my assumptions. But returning to the blood, I noticed that there was gleam about it that was unlike the essence of a normal man; or woman for that matter.

  Upon being hit with natural light, a window certain being slightly pulled aside, the color of blood had changed. This transformation only lasted for a fraction of a second and most people would have never likely noticed it, but I did. The color it changed into was silvery , shimmering-gold like substance, akin to melting down the royal crown jewels themselves. But like I said, this only lasted a fraction of a second, I am only familiar with this color, and can describe it apply to you, for the reasons that I have studied it for long periods of time—roughly forty-eight hours initially. This is due to the fact that this is how long Kain lasted sleeping after our first major conversation that night—it was all due to the tea, and I’m sure you've realized by now that the tea was unexpectedly laced with a sleeping powder—usually meant for medicinal purposes—but I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Allow me now to be blunt with the reason why I am so upset, and have ask desperately for my dear friend (wherever he is) to grant me some forgiveness upon my deathbed. I do this—all this—because I have stolen Kain’s blood as he slept that night. Furthermore, to add insult to injury, I have used and tested it on myself. This is, to be certain, one of the reasons why I am dying...

  John Dee - Alchemist (1608)

  Page 121.

  If you’re wondering, no, it wasn’t very hard to do—stealing his blood, that is. I did as he slept and all thanks to the tea I had given him. The reason was because I had to be sure this man was telling me the tru
th—blood does not like, as I stated before. It would reveal it’s true nature through my experiments and give me the path from which I need to take next. That was the moment, you see, where I decided that I needed to harvest some for myself to study. After I noticed it’s strange color, it was rightfully all I thought about as we spoke. At the time, I did not care about the consequences of what I was doing. A man had been delivered to my house within a casket—supposedly frozen solid. What was strange was that it was delivered to me at all, but I digress, as now—I feel terrible for what I’d done; and it is not just because I’m dying from the effects of it.

  When I knew that he was indeed unconscious, I began to use a syringe (and a device I developed to drain liquid from one container to another), and started to retrieve seven tiny vials of blood, from which I decided to do my experiments on. It goes without saying that being a creature that was able to survive death, have a shimmer of silvery-gold essence within his blood, would likely be a valuable commodity to others that were not just interested in the science of it all. But I was not interested in selling this, of course. I was interested in what it brought to my study of alchemy, of science...for magik purposes.

  At the time, I was first dabbling in the occult studies that I am far revered for amongst my peers today. I was in the works of developing modern science into discovering pyromancy, necromancy, and other forms of sorcery specifically, when I realize the obvious and the far too late realization in order to be considered justifiable. That being, unless you stick your foot into devil-worshiping, or likely being born with these abilities, or in any case, merely a supernatural being yourself, you have little to no hope into recreating things that are far out of your control. But I was determined, even knowing this, to press forward; especially since now I had an actual supernatural entity within my presence. I convinced myself that this was key to all my worries and follies when it came to my studies, and proceeded onward, not knowing that this might also only be the devil’s work in disguise.